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Tipping is a communication of exceptional value to the provider of a service. Doctors provide expected service, as dictated by the rules and regulations they, t
by jtriangle 3y ago
Tipping is a communication of exceptional value to the provider of a service. Doctors provide expected service, as dictated by the rules and regulations they, themselves are subject to. Plumbers are in a similar, though less rigid, situation, ie, most services have a very clear expectation of service to be provided that is not normally exceeded if at all.
Food service workers are in a situation where, the expectation is self-service, and as such all of the service they provide, ie, the things you wouldn't do yourself, is exceptional and therefore it is necessary to communicate that additional value provided in the form of a tip.
The reason the mass deployment of unnecessary tipping prompts seems so consumer adverse to most people is that they do not have a well thought out idea of what is actually happening when they tip, and instead have to wrestle with guilt or tradition to make their decisions.
When you understand the situation at hand, there is no such guilt and that allows you to see the mass deployment of tipping prompts for what they really are: a ploy to manipulate customers into subsidizing employee wages.
- Nullabillity 3y agoThat would make some semblance of sense if there was an option to opt out of the table service.
- jtriangle 3y agoMost places post-covid have kept their to-go service.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- wryoak 3y agoResearch demonstrates time and again that tipping has no correspondence with value provided. My own experience as a bartender anecdotally backs this up: someone visits the bar and asks for a single ($5) beer and tips $10 for my amazing value-adding service of opening the refrigerator and popping the top off a bottle for them. For another person I make four long islands (long islands have four alcohols and some mixers - not difficult to make but tedious, and the patrons witness the entire process) and they tip me a dollar on their $40 bill. These are all cases that happened in the last month. But that last sentence of yours sounds more insightful than it is: customers always pay employee wages. It’s not a subsidy, customers are the source of the base income as well as any bonuses, commissions, tips, etc. That’s how business works. Revenue covers liabilities, if successful. I’ve thought about it time and time again and the only justification I can identify for tipping is as a proxy for surge pricing. Maybe we just need to figure out how to price products based on business traffic. Do you price the empty hours higher because of the added value of privacy and exclusivity, or the busy ones to keep traffic manageable? The practice of “gratuity included for tables of 8 or more” seems to suggest the latter is a more natural business move, but there might be a place for the former as well…