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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 r

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."
  - bdowling 3y ago
    > implied service contract There is no implied service contract when it comes to tipping. An implied service contract is a legally-enforceable contract. For example, if you went to a barber shop and sat in the chair and the barber gave you a haircut, then it is implied that you will pay for the haircut. Theoretically, the barber could take you to court if you refused to pay, and the barber would win. A tip, on the other hand, is gratuitous. The server performs their service in the hope that the customer will give a tip, but there is no obligation for the customer to do so. If a server tried to take a restaurant patron to court for not leaving a tip, he would lose.
  - blitz_skull 3y ago
    Yeah to be clear, I tip my bartenders and waiters even though I'd much rather they just get paid a normal, living wage. But when you're working at a counter just plugging my order into an iPad, and I have to go up and grab my food—I'm certainly not tipping then.
  - OfSanguineFire 3y ago
    On previous HN threads on this topic, there definitely has not been unanimous agreement that refusing to tip is “morally wrong” and that the “implied service contract” is binding. The opposing argument is that if wait staff are not satisfied with their remuneration, that is a matter between them and their employer (and some good old labor organizing is called for), and the customer shouldn’t be brought into it. Cultures shift through an aggregate of individuals’ actions, and each person refusing to tip in hope of moving to the system found in certain other countries is “being the change they want to see in the world”.
    - epiccoleman 3y ago
      >the customer shouldn't be brought into it This is a dodge of the actual issue at hand. If a person is choosing to patronize a restaurant and get the benefits of someone's labor, refusing to tip is wrong. The direct result is that the person waiting the table is unfairly denied a portion of expected compensation. If you want to "be the change you wish to see in the world," patronize restaurants that have no-tipping policies. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
- epiccoleman 3y ago
  > wait staff I don't think OP is advocating for not tipping at places where you're getting table service. Agree or not that's the standard arrangement and it's a total dick move to refuse to tip in that situation. What everyone's complaining about is situations where you order at a counter and are offered an option to tip on the payment system. These usually default to having a tip selected, which means you have to change it to "0%" to avoid tipping for counter service. Seriously though, please don't come to the US and stiff waiters at sit down restaurants of their tip. It's a bad system but that's the system and it's wildly unfair to the table waiter when someone decides they're not tipping due to some sense of principled resistance to the practice.
  - wantlotsofcurry 3y ago
    Why is it a dick move? I just want my food for the advertised price. I’m not asking for theater and a show from the waiter
    - epiccoleman 3y ago
      It's a dick move because the expected social arrangement at an American restaurant with table service is that the customer tips the waiter. American labor laws encode this expectation and people who work as waiters expect part of their compensation to come from that arrangement. If you eat a table service restaurant and refuse to tip because you think the arrangement is stupid (which it is), you're directly harming the person who serves you by reducing their wages for the amount of time they spent on you. You're taking a philosophical stand (at best, at worst you're just being cheap) at the cost of a real person's income. This person who has no control over the standard tipping arrangement. Your protest does not cause any change and accomplishes nothing expect worsening the day of someone who provided you a service expecting you to hold up your end of the customarily agreed upon bargain. The waiter is not offered a chance to agree to this bum deal (and if you walked into a restaurant and said "who's willing to serve me with no tip to protest the stupidity of American tipping culture?" you'd be rightfully laughed out of the room). That's why it's a dick move. There are plenty of options for getting fed which do not involve table service, and if you want to protest tipping culture by not participating in it, you should patronize restaurants which either don't have table service or have a no tipping policy, rather than taking it out on low level wait staff.

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."
- bdowling 3y ago
  > implied service contract There is no implied service contract when it comes to tipping. An implied service contract is a legally-enforceable contract. For example, if you went to a barber shop and sat in the chair and the barber gave you a haircut, then it is implied that you will pay for the haircut. Theoretically, the barber could take you to court if you refused to pay, and the barber would win. A tip, on the other hand, is gratuitous. The server performs their service in the hope that the customer will give a tip, but there is no obligation for the customer to do so. If a server tried to take a restaurant patron to court for not leaving a tip, he would lose.
- blitz_skull 3y ago
  Yeah to be clear, I tip my bartenders and waiters even though I'd much rather they just get paid a normal, living wage. But when you're working at a counter just plugging my order into an iPad, and I have to go up and grab my food—I'm certainly not tipping then.
- OfSanguineFire 3y ago
  On previous HN threads on this topic, there definitely has not been unanimous agreement that refusing to tip is “morally wrong” and that the “implied service contract” is binding. The opposing argument is that if wait staff are not satisfied with their remuneration, that is a matter between them and their employer (and some good old labor organizing is called for), and the customer shouldn’t be brought into it. Cultures shift through an aggregate of individuals’ actions, and each person refusing to tip in hope of moving to the system found in certain other countries is “being the change they want to see in the world”.
  - epiccoleman 3y ago
    >the customer shouldn't be brought into it This is a dodge of the actual issue at hand. If a person is choosing to patronize a restaurant and get the benefits of someone's labor, refusing to tip is wrong. The direct result is that the person waiting the table is unfairly denied a portion of expected compensation. If you want to "be the change you wish to see in the world," patronize restaurants that have no-tipping policies. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
epiccoleman 3y ago
> wait staff I don't think OP is advocating for not tipping at places where you're getting table service. Agree or not that's the standard arrangement and it's a total dick move to refuse to tip in that situation. What everyone's complaining about is situations where you order at a counter and are offered an option to tip on the payment system. These usually default to having a tip selected, which means you have to change it to "0%" to avoid tipping for counter service. Seriously though, please don't come to the US and stiff waiters at sit down restaurants of their tip. It's a bad system but that's the system and it's wildly unfair to the table waiter when someone decides they're not tipping due to some sense of principled resistance to the practice.
- wantlotsofcurry 3y ago
  Why is it a dick move? I just want my food for the advertised price. I’m not asking for theater and a show from the waiter
  - epiccoleman 3y ago
    It's a dick move because the expected social arrangement at an American restaurant with table service is that the customer tips the waiter. American labor laws encode this expectation and people who work as waiters expect part of their compensation to come from that arrangement. If you eat a table service restaurant and refuse to tip because you think the arrangement is stupid (which it is), you're directly harming the person who serves you by reducing their wages for the amount of time they spent on you. You're taking a philosophical stand (at best, at worst you're just being cheap) at the cost of a real person's income. This person who has no control over the standard tipping arrangement. Your protest does not cause any change and accomplishes nothing expect worsening the day of someone who provided you a service expecting you to hold up your end of the customarily agreed upon bargain. The waiter is not offered a chance to agree to this bum deal (and if you walked into a restaurant and said "who's willing to serve me with no tip to protest the stupidity of American tipping culture?" you'd be rightfully laughed out of the room). That's why it's a dick move. There are plenty of options for getting fed which do not involve table service, and if you want to protest tipping culture by not participating in it, you should patronize restaurants which either don't have table service or have a no tipping policy, rather than taking it out on low level wait staff.