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I used to strongly agree with you on this topic (and would have written the exact comment you wrote) until recently. I think I've realized a few things, though.
by dcow 4y ago
I used to strongly agree with you on this topic (and would have written the exact comment you wrote) until recently. I think I've realized a few things, though.
First is that the quality of service does not change based on the presence of a tip or not, largely because tips happen after the service has completed. If it did I would tip.
Instead I expect people to quote me a fair price for their labour and do their job with pride. If they don't I'll give them feedback and find another provider if necessary.
Second, these days you rarely even interact with the service worker, sadly. I totally understand the history, but we don't live in that world anymore where I have one driver or one doorman or one mechanic who I need to continually show appreciation. If I did I would tip.
Instead I say please and thank you and if I do have an ongoing relationship I reward them with loyalty and perhaps occasionally a gift because they've become a friend.
Third, with the amount of fees restaurants have added and the shift to showing you post-tax tip suggestions on receipts, I no longer feel like the social contract is balanced and I'm disillusioned from participating. On top of that, since it's an implicit requirement to tip in these scenarios, I don't feel like it's even meaningful to tip more or less depending on the quality of service you receive. So you can't even use that as a feedback mechanism since it all comes out average in the wash. I still tip at full service restaurants because I'm not a completely ignorant dickwad, but I'm really close to becoming one.
Instead I'd vote to remove the loophole that allows restaurants to pay staff $2/hr plus tips so that we could go back to employees being paid fairly and then tips being totally extra/earned. Tell me the fair price of food such that you can pay your staff a living wage. I'll pay it.
- tptacek 4y agoI'm making a positive argument, not a normative one. You can say whatever you will about tipping; I've been on HN long enough to know what the general shape of a tipping thread looks like. I'm making a much narrower point, which is that if you're going to write a trend story like this for a mass media outlet, you should do your homework first. The author of this story didn't even bother to Google whether tipping mechanics was normal, let alone actually ask a mechanic.
- dcow 4y agoI understand your point more clearly, thank you. I've actually had similar experiences/frustrations with people who aren't natively from America and people who didn't grow up in a context where they were educated on tipping culture (mid-to-upper class) even in America. And I've gotten in quite heated arguments because they just didn't understand the social norms. I wonder what this says about the expectations that people should innately understand tipping culture /shrug.
- greedo 4y agoI have never known anyone to tip their mechanic. The only places tipping was the norm growing up was waitstaff/bartenders, doormen, and haircutters/stylists. Maybe this is a West Coast or Midwest thing, but the idea of tipping my mechanic is a non-starter.
- WarOnPrivacy 4y agoLast month I tipped the garage (80%) who sold me a slip yoke for my 61. The cost was a small fraction of the market price, far below what I expected to pay. I really want this business to prosper.