8 ms·

Why Businesses Can’t Stop Asking for Tips

45 points by linusg789 3y ago

known 3y ago
[dead]
KMnO4 3y ago
> “We can’t just say, ‘Oh, we’re going to charge $2 extra’ instead of having tips, because we have a duty to our customers to have a very fair price point,” said Cheaney, who also consults for Main Squeeze’s corporate office. If customers think the price is too high, he said, they won’t return. Asking them to tip, he said, is different because it’s optional.” Firstly, how is charging $15 for 1oz of liquor a fair price? Secondly, I don’t think anyone thinks tipping is truly optional.
- paxys 3y ago
  You don't think it's optional to tip someone who pours and hands you a cup of juice at the checkout counter? Thanks for subsidizing the rest of us then I guess..
- cjbgkagh 3y ago
  I consider requests for tips to be worse than higher prices and am much less likely to return. Tips feel a bit like small scale extortion, especially with food.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
linusg789 3y ago
https://ghostarchive.org/archive/89Gn4 https://ghostarchive.org/archive/89Gn4
atkailash 3y ago
[dead]
blitz_skull 3y ago
I use these opportunities to stretch my "No" muscles. Is it uncomfortable? Of course. But flexing the non-permissive "No" muscles helps you say "No" when it's really important.
- xracy 3y ago
  The problem is that you flexing your "no" muscles doesn't hurt the business. That's the nefariousness of tipping. If you say "no", it means it hurts the employees who resent you, rather than the business owner. The only way to hurt the business owner, would be to stop buying their products. Which is much more correct than not tipping.
  - blitz_skull 3y ago
    Flexing my “no” muscles has nothing to do with hurting the business. It has to do with getting comfortable with the most important word you can learn for personal boundaries. It’s a word most people a phenomenally uncomfortable with.
    - xracy 3y ago
      I'm just saying, you're not meaningfully moving towards the goalpost with this.
- OfSanguineFire 3y ago
  I’m happy to say “no” on visits to the USA because I’m just that, a one-time visitor to any establishment. But isn’t saying “no” if you are a regular customer fraught with risk? I've seen Americans who work as wait staff claim on FB or Reddit “If you don’t tip at least X%, you’re going to get some nastiness in your food or your drink next time.”
  - HWR_14 3y ago
    There is a difference between "I am a foreigner, so I refuse to tip because I will never see them again" which is taking advantage of the implied service contract and morally wrong and "I refuse to tip in new categories to employees already compensated as thought they are not getting tipped."
jmpman 3y ago
I’ve stopped tipping at places where I wouldn’t have normally tipped pro-Covid. Probably perceived as an A-hole by the service worker, whose pay wasn’t raised in liu of tips. What irks me more are businesses who tack on a service fee (disclosed in small print on the menu) to cover minimum wage increases.
derbOac 3y ago
I know this has been getting a lot of attention, but tips are out of control. I recently went somewhere and was forced to tip — as in, 0 USD/% was not an option — for literally doing nothing but ringing me up. The minimum amount was 25% of the bill. Tips are becoming another mandatory hidden fee, which is a form of bait and switch. Wages shouldn't be part of that and it shouldn't happen either way.
- csdreamer7 3y ago
  We really need national legislation on this. Sales tax being added on is one thing, but tipping is really per business and it will only get worse.
- HWR_14 3y ago
  How was 0USD/0% not an option? For a tip, it's entirely voluntary.
  - derbOac 3y ago
    I got my item and went to the register to pay for it, and the credit card screen gave the price, and then displayed a menu for tips (it was specifically labeled as being for a "tip" amount). This tip menu had three options, in USD amounts (not percents), none of which was 0 dollars. There was no option to skip or "no tip" or anything like that. I would have had to refuse to pay and put the item back. I suppose I could have, but I was buying food for my daughter, who was with me and was hungry. It wasn't that much money overall, but the minimum tip amount was a pretty large percentage of the total cost. Five years ago it would have just been bundled into the cost of the item.
  - synetic 3y ago
    A local place near where I live have a 15% employee wellness fee added to the cost of the purchase. This money goes to the employee and is, in essence, a tip. There was no sign stating this fact. I found out after looking at the receipt. I’ll never go back to that place.
    - 3y ago
outlace 3y ago
Tips in the U.S. are insane. I feel like there's now a social expectation to tip for everything, even if it involves no actually tip-worthy service due to credit card machines. And the low end is now 18-20%. I recently went to Europe and tips were not expected, the food was no more expensive (maybe even less so) than the US, and the service was fine.
- avereveard 3y ago
  We are importing in Europe tips trough those dash/uber apps. I thoroughly hate that, especially if the app ask a tip beforehand, and I wish those services fee would be legislated out of existence.
  - veave 3y ago
    ubereats really tries to make you feel guilty for not tipping. Fuck that.
  - drstewart 3y ago
    >We are importing in Europe Any time Europe does something it doesn't like I always read how it's an "imported" trend (usually from America). Europeans just can't ever accept they are responsible for their own behavior. They're just helpless and twisting in the wind at America's mercy when it comes to these things. Of course, when it comes to things they're proud of then they're a strong independent people that don't need no America.
  - OfSanguineFire 3y ago
    The sad thing is that food-delivery drivers in a number of EU cities are largely migrants employed by organized crime. They have to hand over all the money they make to their bosses, and get only a tiny amount back, so the customer gets the annoyance of being asked for a tip, and the delivery person doesn’t even get the tip.
    - capableweb 3y ago
      > The sad thing is that food-delivery drivers in a number of EU cities are largely migrants employed by organized crime This is the first time I hear this stated as a fact rather than a theory, where has this been confirmed to be happening exactly?
xenonite 3y ago
The tipping culture lead to the unfortunate situation that laid off staff received only little unemployment benefits during covid, because their base salary has been low. So it is favorable for the worker to receive a higher base salary without tips (and rather higher prices).
- m348e912 3y ago
  >So it is favorable for the worker to receive a higher base salary without tips In theory that sounds right but in practice it seems to be quite different. https://www.businessinsider.com/south-park-creators-eliminate-tips-casa-bonita-pay-30-hour-2023-6 https://www.businessinsider.com/south-park-creators-eliminat... https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/20/dining/danny-meyer-no-tips.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/20/dining/danny-meyer-no-tip...
- dghlsakjg 3y ago
  Depends on the jurisdiction, but if you declare your tips as taxable income you don’t run into this problem. If you don’t declare tips and pay taxes and unemployment, why would you expect to benefit from those programs?
- pclmulqdq 3y ago
  Most tipped employees are very happy with the situation in comparison with the alternative for restaurant work (minimum wage, no tips).
wirthjason 3y ago
I consider myself a fairly good tipper — a trait I picked up from my grandfather. However I feel this is tipping culture is nonsense. The calculated amounts at bottom are on the receipt total, including tax —- why am I tipping 20% on that? Then there’s the misc fees. A random X% Covid, inflation, health insurance cost. It’s not that I don’t mind paying. I look at the total bill and shocked by the the difference from what it was to what was advertised. That puts a real damper on an otherwise good time. Consequently I vote with my wallet and stopped going out almost altogether. I much prefer cultures where the price advertised is what you pay. I hope the silver lining to excessive tipping results from backlash and the movement to a non-tip society. My wife is from a non-tip society (Japan) and always asks me why some counties can do it and others don’t. It’s incredibly frustrating.
- themitigating 3y ago
  "Then there’s the misc fees. A random X% Covid, inflation, health insurance cost." ????
  - wirthjason 3y ago
    Here’s some news about it. https://chicago.suntimes.com/2023/1/25/23570024/restaurants-surcharges-chicago-restaurant-week-dining-out https://chicago.suntimes.com/2023/1/25/23570024/restaurants-... An additional 3% fee (for whatever) is common. You can ask to have to taken off, but then I feel like an asshole. I get that things might cost more — rent, raw materials, staff, etc. The business should build that into the price upfront. It feels like a dirty trick to disclose it at the end and puts me, the customer, in an awkward spot that makes me feel bad.
  - scelerat 3y ago
    As a muted protest to municipal, county or state mandates requiring employers to pay for employees' health insurance, some businesses -- restaurants especially -- have taken to exposing this cost to the customer in the form of an added fee.
    - 3y ago
twelfthnight 3y ago
I don't like that tips are a trick to make you think things are less expensive than they are. However, I see it as my duty since I'm lucky to be paid a lot for my job to share that prosperity with the people in my community. I would prefer that prices reflected their true cost, but in the meantime I'm not going to stop tipping because that is only hurting the workers and isn't fixing the core issue.
tkuraku 3y ago
Tipping needs to be made illegal. It is out of control . Plenty of countries don't have tips by default!
dartharva 3y ago
It always feels weird as an outsider observing American culture about how accepting and expecting tips is not seen as dishonorable or shameful over there. The power dynamics in tipping are the same as those of someone tossing change to a beggar. How do working people suffer this instead of just putting a static value to their labor?
- NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
  > The power dynamics in tipping are the same as those of someone tossing change to a beggar. Perhaps not a beggar who does nothing. But there are beggars around here who will provide services. There are buskers playing guitars, violins and drums, with the case open to accept cash. (Or Stripe, if they're savvy.) There are also dudes who will run up to your vehicle at a stoplight, wash some windows and squeegee them, before you even know what's going on, and then you're supposed to offer some money for the valuable service you just received. I've also seen dudes who will, like "keep an eye on your bike" while I'm in the restaurant. Is that a valuable service or a protection racket?
- throwaway5959 3y ago
  Do you know what happens to Americans when they don’t work? Maybe look that up before you condescend to workers making barely enough to survive.
  - dartharva 3y ago
    I most certainly do. I am from India and I can wager all that I have that American workers, or even the American unemployed are wayy better off than their counterparts in India. But that's not the point. India also has massive degrees of unemployment and poverty, and probably the largest population of beggars. It still doesn't dignify tipping and begging, let alone put the onus of disgrace on customers who don't tip.
throwaway5959 3y ago
At a certain point I’m just going to start setting it to 0% every time. And if I can’t I’ll stop going. I’m already paying $15 for two ice cream cones, I don’t need to pay another $3 for someone to spend 30 seconds scooping them. I can do that at home.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
mym1990 3y ago
I have started generally going out to restaurants/service places less just to avoid this awkward interaction. Another thing I have seen is the POS machines placing the highest tip amount next to the 'No Tip' option. So if I feel like tipping the least amount, and I intuitively select the button next to 'No Tip', it actually ends up being the most.
scelerat 3y ago
Universal health care. Universal health care. Universal health care. Yes, tipping in the US is its own peculiar local minimum -- a cycle or trough that is difficult to escape from. A big component of the costs to both employees and employers alike is health insurance, something that if we nationalized, spreading the burden across the population as a whole, would be relieved from individuals and businesses. Especially small businesses.
- simonsarris 3y ago
  Canada has universal health care and tipping.
- Thoeu388 3y ago
  Do you have some source that universal health care would reduce costs? I think it would be just extra tax, and medical expenses would just increase proportionally, similar way as with student loans. My country has nationalised healthcare, yet you still have to pay for private doctors. There are no state dentists or pediatricians. And waiting list for surgery is months or years.
justinko 3y ago
I just tip $1 (not percentage based, unless it's less than a dollar)
ecf 3y ago
I don’t understand HN’s obsession with posting articles from the WSJ, acting like we all just happen to have a subscription?
- OfSanguineFire 3y ago
  This is Hacker News. The site has “hacker” in its name and is widely regarded as the news-for-nerds successor to Slashdot. It’s a reasonable expectation that people here will be familiar with paywall-circumvention websites like Archive.XY, so a WSJ link is as readable as anything else.
al_be_back 3y ago
In general, tipping in Hospitality is an outdated practice in my view, mainly because : 1. eating out or holidaying is no longer treated as a special occasion or reserved for the wealthy or aristocracy etc as say decades ago or earlier 2. it's an unreliable income stream as markets adopt innovations like Food Delivery apps However, it makes sense to tip in niche industries e.g casinos, special clubs, digital content providers/opensource software etc.
minerva23 3y ago
Doordash in particular has been trying to charge a ton of service fees and "suggest" high tips. Sorry/not sorry to say their service fees come out of the driver's otherwise generous tip.
archo 3y ago
https://archive.is/XYOdP https://archive.is/XYOdP

45 points by linusg789 3y ago

[dead]

> “We can’t just say, ‘Oh, we’re going to charge $2 extra’ instead of having tips, because we have a duty to our customers to have a very fair price point,” said Cheaney, who also consults for Main Squeeze’s corporate office. If customers think the price is too high, he said, they won’t return. Asking them to tip, he said, is different because it’s optional.” Firstly, how is charging $15 for 1oz of liquor a fair price? Secondly, I don’t think anyone thinks tipping is truly optional.

paxys 3y ago
You don't think it's optional to tip someone who pours and hands you a cup of juice at the checkout counter? Thanks for subsidizing the rest of us then I guess..
cjbgkagh 3y ago
I consider requests for tips to be worse than higher prices and am much less likely to return. Tips feel a bit like small scale extortion, especially with food.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

linusg789 3y ago

https://ghostarchive.org/archive/89Gn4 https://ghostarchive.org/archive/89Gn4

atkailash 3y ago

[dead]

blitz_skull 3y ago

I use these opportunities to stretch my "No" muscles. Is it uncomfortable? Of course. But flexing the non-permissive "No" muscles helps you say "No" when it's really important.

xracy 3y ago
The problem is that you flexing your "no" muscles doesn't hurt the business. That's the nefariousness of tipping. If you say "no", it means it hurts the employees who resent you, rather than the business owner. The only way to hurt the business owner, would be to stop buying their products. Which is much more correct than not tipping.
- blitz_skull 3y ago
  Flexing my “no” muscles has nothing to do with hurting the business. It has to do with getting comfortable with the most important word you can learn for personal boundaries. It’s a word most people a phenomenally uncomfortable with.
  - xracy 3y ago
    I'm just saying, you're not meaningfully moving towards the goalpost with this.
OfSanguineFire 3y ago
I’m happy to say “no” on visits to the USA because I’m just that, a one-time visitor to any establishment. But isn’t saying “no” if you are a regular customer fraught with risk? I've seen Americans who work as wait staff claim on FB or Reddit “If you don’t tip at least X%, you’re going to get some nastiness in your food or your drink next time.”
- HWR_14 3y ago
  There is a difference between "I am a foreigner, so I refuse to tip because I will never see them again" which is taking advantage of the implied service contract and morally wrong and "I refuse to tip in new categories to employees already compensated as thought they are not getting tipped."

jmpman 3y ago

I’ve stopped tipping at places where I wouldn’t have normally tipped pro-Covid. Probably perceived as an A-hole by the service worker, whose pay wasn’t raised in liu of tips. What irks me more are businesses who tack on a service fee (disclosed in small print on the menu) to cover minimum wage increases.

derbOac 3y ago

I know this has been getting a lot of attention, but tips are out of control. I recently went somewhere and was forced to tip — as in, 0 USD/% was not an option — for literally doing nothing but ringing me up. The minimum amount was 25% of the bill. Tips are becoming another mandatory hidden fee, which is a form of bait and switch. Wages shouldn't be part of that and it shouldn't happen either way.

csdreamer7 3y ago
We really need national legislation on this. Sales tax being added on is one thing, but tipping is really per business and it will only get worse.
HWR_14 3y ago
How was 0USD/0% not an option? For a tip, it's entirely voluntary.
- derbOac 3y ago
  I got my item and went to the register to pay for it, and the credit card screen gave the price, and then displayed a menu for tips (it was specifically labeled as being for a "tip" amount). This tip menu had three options, in USD amounts (not percents), none of which was 0 dollars. There was no option to skip or "no tip" or anything like that. I would have had to refuse to pay and put the item back. I suppose I could have, but I was buying food for my daughter, who was with me and was hungry. It wasn't that much money overall, but the minimum tip amount was a pretty large percentage of the total cost. Five years ago it would have just been bundled into the cost of the item.
- synetic 3y ago
  A local place near where I live have a 15% employee wellness fee added to the cost of the purchase. This money goes to the employee and is, in essence, a tip. There was no sign stating this fact. I found out after looking at the receipt. I’ll never go back to that place.
  - 3y ago

outlace 3y ago

Tips in the U.S. are insane. I feel like there's now a social expectation to tip for everything, even if it involves no actually tip-worthy service due to credit card machines. And the low end is now 18-20%. I recently went to Europe and tips were not expected, the food was no more expensive (maybe even less so) than the US, and the service was fine.

avereveard 3y ago
We are importing in Europe tips trough those dash/uber apps. I thoroughly hate that, especially if the app ask a tip beforehand, and I wish those services fee would be legislated out of existence.
- veave 3y ago
  ubereats really tries to make you feel guilty for not tipping. Fuck that.
- drstewart 3y ago
  >We are importing in Europe Any time Europe does something it doesn't like I always read how it's an "imported" trend (usually from America). Europeans just can't ever accept they are responsible for their own behavior. They're just helpless and twisting in the wind at America's mercy when it comes to these things. Of course, when it comes to things they're proud of then they're a strong independent people that don't need no America.
- OfSanguineFire 3y ago
  The sad thing is that food-delivery drivers in a number of EU cities are largely migrants employed by organized crime. They have to hand over all the money they make to their bosses, and get only a tiny amount back, so the customer gets the annoyance of being asked for a tip, and the delivery person doesn’t even get the tip.
  - capableweb 3y ago
    > The sad thing is that food-delivery drivers in a number of EU cities are largely migrants employed by organized crime This is the first time I hear this stated as a fact rather than a theory, where has this been confirmed to be happening exactly?

xenonite 3y ago

The tipping culture lead to the unfortunate situation that laid off staff received only little unemployment benefits during covid, because their base salary has been low. So it is favorable for the worker to receive a higher base salary without tips (and rather higher prices).

m348e912 3y ago
>So it is favorable for the worker to receive a higher base salary without tips In theory that sounds right but in practice it seems to be quite different. https://www.businessinsider.com/south-park-creators-eliminate-tips-casa-bonita-pay-30-hour-2023-6 https://www.businessinsider.com/south-park-creators-eliminat... https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/20/dining/danny-meyer-no-tips.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/20/dining/danny-meyer-no-tip...
dghlsakjg 3y ago
Depends on the jurisdiction, but if you declare your tips as taxable income you don’t run into this problem. If you don’t declare tips and pay taxes and unemployment, why would you expect to benefit from those programs?
pclmulqdq 3y ago
Most tipped employees are very happy with the situation in comparison with the alternative for restaurant work (minimum wage, no tips).

wirthjason 3y ago

I consider myself a fairly good tipper — a trait I picked up from my grandfather. However I feel this is tipping culture is nonsense. The calculated amounts at bottom are on the receipt total, including tax —- why am I tipping 20% on that? Then there’s the misc fees. A random X% Covid, inflation, health insurance cost. It’s not that I don’t mind paying. I look at the total bill and shocked by the the difference from what it was to what was advertised. That puts a real damper on an otherwise good time. Consequently I vote with my wallet and stopped going out almost altogether. I much prefer cultures where the price advertised is what you pay. I hope the silver lining to excessive tipping results from backlash and the movement to a non-tip society. My wife is from a non-tip society (Japan) and always asks me why some counties can do it and others don’t. It’s incredibly frustrating.

themitigating 3y ago
"Then there’s the misc fees. A random X% Covid, inflation, health insurance cost." ????
- wirthjason 3y ago
  Here’s some news about it. https://chicago.suntimes.com/2023/1/25/23570024/restaurants-surcharges-chicago-restaurant-week-dining-out https://chicago.suntimes.com/2023/1/25/23570024/restaurants-... An additional 3% fee (for whatever) is common. You can ask to have to taken off, but then I feel like an asshole. I get that things might cost more — rent, raw materials, staff, etc. The business should build that into the price upfront. It feels like a dirty trick to disclose it at the end and puts me, the customer, in an awkward spot that makes me feel bad.
- scelerat 3y ago
  As a muted protest to municipal, county or state mandates requiring employers to pay for employees' health insurance, some businesses -- restaurants especially -- have taken to exposing this cost to the customer in the form of an added fee.
  - 3y ago

twelfthnight 3y ago

I don't like that tips are a trick to make you think things are less expensive than they are. However, I see it as my duty since I'm lucky to be paid a lot for my job to share that prosperity with the people in my community. I would prefer that prices reflected their true cost, but in the meantime I'm not going to stop tipping because that is only hurting the workers and isn't fixing the core issue.

tkuraku 3y ago

Tipping needs to be made illegal. It is out of control . Plenty of countries don't have tips by default!

dartharva 3y ago

It always feels weird as an outsider observing American culture about how accepting and expecting tips is not seen as dishonorable or shameful over there. The power dynamics in tipping are the same as those of someone tossing change to a beggar. How do working people suffer this instead of just putting a static value to their labor?

NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
> The power dynamics in tipping are the same as those of someone tossing change to a beggar. Perhaps not a beggar who does nothing. But there are beggars around here who will provide services. There are buskers playing guitars, violins and drums, with the case open to accept cash. (Or Stripe, if they're savvy.) There are also dudes who will run up to your vehicle at a stoplight, wash some windows and squeegee them, before you even know what's going on, and then you're supposed to offer some money for the valuable service you just received. I've also seen dudes who will, like "keep an eye on your bike" while I'm in the restaurant. Is that a valuable service or a protection racket?
throwaway5959 3y ago
Do you know what happens to Americans when they don’t work? Maybe look that up before you condescend to workers making barely enough to survive.
- dartharva 3y ago
  I most certainly do. I am from India and I can wager all that I have that American workers, or even the American unemployed are wayy better off than their counterparts in India. But that's not the point. India also has massive degrees of unemployment and poverty, and probably the largest population of beggars. It still doesn't dignify tipping and begging, let alone put the onus of disgrace on customers who don't tip.

throwaway5959 3y ago

At a certain point I’m just going to start setting it to 0% every time. And if I can’t I’ll stop going. I’m already paying $15 for two ice cream cones, I don’t need to pay another $3 for someone to spend 30 seconds scooping them. I can do that at home.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

mym1990 3y ago

I have started generally going out to restaurants/service places less just to avoid this awkward interaction. Another thing I have seen is the POS machines placing the highest tip amount next to the 'No Tip' option. So if I feel like tipping the least amount, and I intuitively select the button next to 'No Tip', it actually ends up being the most.

scelerat 3y ago

Universal health care. Universal health care. Universal health care. Yes, tipping in the US is its own peculiar local minimum -- a cycle or trough that is difficult to escape from. A big component of the costs to both employees and employers alike is health insurance, something that if we nationalized, spreading the burden across the population as a whole, would be relieved from individuals and businesses. Especially small businesses.

simonsarris 3y ago
Canada has universal health care and tipping.
Thoeu388 3y ago
Do you have some source that universal health care would reduce costs? I think it would be just extra tax, and medical expenses would just increase proportionally, similar way as with student loans. My country has nationalised healthcare, yet you still have to pay for private doctors. There are no state dentists or pediatricians. And waiting list for surgery is months or years.

justinko 3y ago

I just tip $1 (not percentage based, unless it's less than a dollar)

ecf 3y ago

I don’t understand HN’s obsession with posting articles from the WSJ, acting like we all just happen to have a subscription?

OfSanguineFire 3y ago
This is Hacker News. The site has “hacker” in its name and is widely regarded as the news-for-nerds successor to Slashdot. It’s a reasonable expectation that people here will be familiar with paywall-circumvention websites like Archive.XY, so a WSJ link is as readable as anything else.

al_be_back 3y ago

In general, tipping in Hospitality is an outdated practice in my view, mainly because : 1. eating out or holidaying is no longer treated as a special occasion or reserved for the wealthy or aristocracy etc as say decades ago or earlier 2. it's an unreliable income stream as markets adopt innovations like Food Delivery apps However, it makes sense to tip in niche industries e.g casinos, special clubs, digital content providers/opensource software etc.

minerva23 3y ago

Doordash in particular has been trying to charge a ton of service fees and "suggest" high tips. Sorry/not sorry to say their service fees come out of the driver's otherwise generous tip.

archo 3y ago

https://archive.is/XYOdP https://archive.is/XYOdP