5 ms·

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 f

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.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - dghlsakjg 3y ago
    If you intend not to tip in an effort to “be the change”, declare your intention on arrival to the host and the server. They deserve to know that they are participating in your social project. The other option is to get the food and not the service. I.e. get your food to go. Recognize that in essence, you are buying the food from the restaurant, and the service from the waiter. If you don’t want to pay for the service, don’t ask for service. Additionally it is disgusting to visit a country and intentionally violate social norms, especially ones around paying people for their labor. If Americans want to change their culture, they can do that. Behaving selfishly as a guest in another country isn’t “being the change you want to see in the world”.
    - dataflow 3y ago
      > If you don’t want to pay for the service, don’t ask for service. If the idea that you're buying this "service" from the waiter is implied, then surely I should be able to not buy it, but that's not really an option anywhere right? You can't go to a restaurant and pick up the food yourself from the kitchen and bypass the waiter. Even if the waiter is happy to let you, the restaurant owner wouldn't. So it's not like "don't ask for service" is really an option - the restaurant is the one requiring the service payment. (I'm not necessarily disagreeing with your overall point, but this reasoning doesn't lead me to it.)
- RamenJunkie_ 3y ago
  Not really, even as a local, you can avoid the place and will probably never see them again. They won't remember you anyway if you did randomly cross paths at Wal-mart or whatever. And now they aren't getting paid enough, which gives incentive to the employees to demand actual wages instead of the bull shit system we have now.
  - neltnerb 3y ago
    > gives incentive to the employees to demand actual wages instead of the bull shit system we have now. Ah good, revolutionary theory to support not tipping. Sorry to have to break this to you, but "incentive" for employees to fight back is not the issue when it comes to the power dynamic between service employees and enormous companies that employ them. Don't get me wrong, everyone unionizing and having a general strike until tipped wages are abolished seems like it would be a better solution. But this attitude punishes people already under massive stress for not taking on extra stress and risk getting fired for complaining in the hopes that eventually the system will course correct (with how many victims between now and then?).
  - hansvm 3y ago
    Can confirm. I remembered everything that might possibly be important about an address back when I used to deliver pizza (tip amounts, broken doorbells, so so many broken apartment intercoms, violent neighbors offended by my car, ...). I guarantee if I had seen any of those customers out in the real world I could not have recognized them if my life depended on it.
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.

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.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- dghlsakjg 3y ago
  If you intend not to tip in an effort to “be the change”, declare your intention on arrival to the host and the server. They deserve to know that they are participating in your social project. The other option is to get the food and not the service. I.e. get your food to go. Recognize that in essence, you are buying the food from the restaurant, and the service from the waiter. If you don’t want to pay for the service, don’t ask for service. Additionally it is disgusting to visit a country and intentionally violate social norms, especially ones around paying people for their labor. If Americans want to change their culture, they can do that. Behaving selfishly as a guest in another country isn’t “being the change you want to see in the world”.
  - dataflow 3y ago
    > If you don’t want to pay for the service, don’t ask for service. If the idea that you're buying this "service" from the waiter is implied, then surely I should be able to not buy it, but that's not really an option anywhere right? You can't go to a restaurant and pick up the food yourself from the kitchen and bypass the waiter. Even if the waiter is happy to let you, the restaurant owner wouldn't. So it's not like "don't ask for service" is really an option - the restaurant is the one requiring the service payment. (I'm not necessarily disagreeing with your overall point, but this reasoning doesn't lead me to it.)
RamenJunkie_ 3y ago
Not really, even as a local, you can avoid the place and will probably never see them again. They won't remember you anyway if you did randomly cross paths at Wal-mart or whatever. And now they aren't getting paid enough, which gives incentive to the employees to demand actual wages instead of the bull shit system we have now.
- neltnerb 3y ago
  > gives incentive to the employees to demand actual wages instead of the bull shit system we have now. Ah good, revolutionary theory to support not tipping. Sorry to have to break this to you, but "incentive" for employees to fight back is not the issue when it comes to the power dynamic between service employees and enormous companies that employ them. Don't get me wrong, everyone unionizing and having a general strike until tipped wages are abolished seems like it would be a better solution. But this attitude punishes people already under massive stress for not taking on extra stress and risk getting fired for complaining in the hopes that eventually the system will course correct (with how many victims between now and then?).
- hansvm 3y ago
  Can confirm. I remembered everything that might possibly be important about an address back when I used to deliver pizza (tip amounts, broken doorbells, so so many broken apartment intercoms, violent neighbors offended by my car, ...). I guarantee if I had seen any of those customers out in the real world I could not have recognized them if my life depended on it.

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.