7 ms·
Demands for Tips Are Up. Actual Tipping, Not So Much
- malshe 3y agohttps://archive.ph/6XFUI https://archive.ph/6XFUI
- egypturnash 3y ago"Tipping baristas isn’t the norm", says the caption on the photo at the head of the article. It isn't? I've been tipping baristas about 20% ever since I got a laptop around 2005 and started spending a lot of my work time in coffee shops. But the chart in this article says only about 25% of people do this. Huh. I'm not gonna quit though.
- belfthrow 3y agoYou really are the white knight barristas need in this 7 dollar latte age.
- mplewis 3y agoIt's spelled "barista"
- snarkypig 3y ago[flagged]
- red-iron-pine 3y agoi generally do not tip my barristers, as they already charge me 450/hr.
- Waterluvian 3y agoIf we tip baristas at Starbucks we should tip the people at McDonald’s. Both are essentially fast food workers. I’m not trying to be mean. I think there’s some brilliant manipulation going on with how some of these coffee shops brand and present themselves.
- skyyler 3y agoThe ability and care of the Starbucks worker has a lot more impact on the product than the McDonald's worker. I don't like the idea of tipping at (or going to) Starbucks, but I tip at independent coffee shops.
- Spooky23 3y agoYou tip people like this as a form of mild corruption. When I travel to places I’m going to return to regularly, I take out a few hundred bucks in $5 bills. Parking guys, the hotel clerk, the night housekeeping supervisor, etc. I’m also nice to people, as I truly appreciate them. Kindness + cash = courtesies granted. If you’re abusing the hospitality of the coffee shop, the staff should be happy to see you.
- Waterluvian 3y agoAnd yet when I’m spending 2 hours using the PlayPlace as a brief respite from my duties as a parent in the summer, and refilling my fourth serving of Coke Zero and someone comes by to generously clear my table, they are strictly forbidden from accepting a tip.
- threatofrain 3y agoIf you're looking for corruption then you should contemplate the efficacy of your corruption. Are you getting sufficient ROI? Are the waitstaff actually engaging in corruption for you? In restaurants where you get access to the kitchen I tip straight into the kitchen. I get more meat and I can tell the kitchen pays attention to my order. In contrast, how much do you have to tip to get your waiters to call in a corrupt favor in the kitchen on your behalf? Also, most restaurants have a bad waitstaff to customer ratio. If you're looking for "corruption" then you're looking for the waitstaff to attend to you at the cost of other customers. How much do you have to pay to get that kind of treatment? At least enough to cover over the disrespect being dealt to the other customers, which could be major $.
- Spooky23 3y agoWhen I travel, I focus on a few places. A regular reliable tipper is remembered. The restaurant’s or parking garage’s staffing problems aren’t mine. Frankly, I could care less if I affect the customer experience.
- silisili 3y agoI feel so aggravated that nearly every single place I visit asks for a tip or 'donation' now. I take some solace in the fact it's not just me getting old and grumpy for once, and nearly everyone is saying the same. I'm hoping this will be the trend that -finally- ends tipping culture in the US. When everyone asks for a tip, nobody gets a tip.
- candiddevmike 3y agoFor me, I just round up to the nearest dollar and call it good. For anything where a tip was expected pre-2017, it's between 5-15%, typically 10%. I'm tip fatigued and this is what I am comfortable paying now. Pay your employees better.
- bsder 3y ago> I feel so aggravated that nearly every single place I visit asks for a tip or 'donation' now. A lot of this was done by the credit card processors in order to increase their rake. I don't tip on machines unless I'm in a resaurant (and I probably shouldn't there--either). If I'm going to tip, I give cash because I can't count on any of what I put into the machine getting to the person I intend it to go to.
- nickjj 3y ago> A lot of this was done by the credit card processors in order to increase their rake. I can't speak for every terminal supplier but store owners often do have the option to turn it off. But it becomes problematic when it ships with tips enabled by default and there's strong messaging from your terminal vendor's rep to keep it enabled. You end up having to go out of your way and against the grain to disable it.
- malshe 3y agoI am totally with you. The other day I bought shaved iced for my child which took perhaps 1 minute to make. I was already paying $5 for a really tiny cup and then another $1 that showed up as the suggested tip on the card reader. The employee was looking directly at me and I couldn't see the option for "No Tip" fast enough. So I had to click on $1. That $1 didn't mean anything to me until then. It was suddenly a tax I was paying for not being Larry David :) The businesses who think that are striking a balance between good customer service and paying fair wages don't realize that the consumers are leaving with a bad taste in their mouths.
- FireBeyond 3y agoWent to a concert the other night, happened to be at a winery. They had wine sales. Walk up to the cashier, ask for a bottle (only bottles), and how many plastic cups. They hand you both, and you can uncork off to the side. Tip options for this "service" (on wines ranging from $28-60/bottle): "20, 25, 30 or 35%".
- _dark_matter_ 3y agoSame, but for buying canned beer at an arena concert recently. Pretty awkward to manually press "Other" -> "0". My "system" now is to _always_ press "Other", even if I'm going to tip one of the pre-selected amounts (e.g. 20%). This way I'm always making a conscious choice.
- malshe 3y agoSometimes they make it quite difficult to navigate to "Other" by making the font too small or forcing you to swipe to another page. I think most people are too afraid to ask the servers how to find "No Tip" option.
- soupfordummies 3y agoThis is a great habit to get in. I usually will do that as well especially in that sort of environment. If I'm grabbing ready-to-go pre-packaged drinks from a concert bar, I'm just gonna tip a flat couple bucks per drink and not percentage. If I'm getting hand-made cocktails sitting at a bar or ordering table service obviously that's percentage. I think a ton of people in this thread are forgetting that you CAN just choose your tip. Anxiety and fear of getting scowled at by the worker are making people hurry and spam the closest tip button and then complain about it online. You can do what you want. It's your life.
- wruza 3y agoIs there even a way out of this situation? Some socioeconomical absurdities just cannot die.
- alwayslikethis 3y agoBy not paying. Your continued tipping allows restaurants to not pay their employees a living wage and forcing the customer to subsidize them. Once a sizable percentage (let's say 30%) of customers don't tip, it will become progressively less effective as they have to jack up the percentages even more for people that do pay, resulting in more of them joining the non-tippers in a feedback loop. And then, maybe tipping will become a thing of the past.
- RunningDroid 3y agoAlternatively, coerce your representatives into removing the loophole in minimum wage law and tipping will all but die because people won't have a reason to feel bad for not tipping
- MByte 3y agoReasonable, but doubtful this will solve it. The West Coast states, with the some of the highest minimum wages, already require the standard minimum wage.
- wait_a_minute 3y agoPaying with cash.
- dpkirchner 3y agoGovernment regulation is the only viable option, and that's pretty unlikely to happen (at least in the US).
- wait_a_minute 3y agoPay with cash. Then there’s no more bs tip options at every transaction like when you pay with card.
- foogazi 3y agoThey’ll pull out the tip jar
- tourmalinetaco 3y agoHonestly, so few places have a physical tip jar anymore. The most I’ve seen are those coin donation jars at service stations.
- wait_a_minute 3y agoIt’s way less intrusive and I’m more okay with dropping some change in the jar than getting a 15% add-on charge by way of card reader…
- JohnFen 3y agoTip jars are totally fine, though. They present no pressure, you can tip (or not) when the server isn't looking, and nobody is closely policing the tip jar when you place an order. My favorite coffee stand has a great compromise. They have a tip jar, but they also don't use those preset tip buttons on their POS. Instead, they have a sign by the tip jar telling you that if you want to leave a tip on the card, just tell them how much and they'll add it on. I always do.
- red-iron-pine 3y agoim fine with that. they can have the 0.31 that comes from breaking a bill. that may or may not be anywhere near a guilted 15%
- MathMonkeyMan 3y agoThese days when I present cash at the counter, it's as if I shouted "BOO!" while the cashier was sleeping. "DO YOU REMEMBER YOUR TRAINING?"
- happytiger 3y agoWe just stopped going out. It’s not fun, it’s expensive, and the constant tipping is simply awkward. So, no thanks. We used to eat out twice a week. Now I go maybe once every 3-6 months, always just for work. I do tip generously. I just don’t enjoy the culture. I can’t be alone in this.
- speff 3y agoWe're in the same situation - the budget just can't take it. On the plus side, I've learned how to cook meals better than any restaurant I've been to. Just need the right tools to get started. It's surprisingly easy to cook and cheap if the grocery's bought on sale/clearance.
- tstrimple 3y agoI agree. But there are some dishes that often taste better at a restaurant or require so much preparation a restaurant is much more feasible. I'm best at cooking things I can iterate on quickly. Especially foods you can taste as you go along like soups and stews. But homemade ramen? One full day of boiling pig trotters to make a broth, only to realize it ended up very mid doesn't exactly inspire me to keep at it. Same with baking that requires me to proof the dough for multiple days. I just can't get it refined enough in a short amount of time to make it worthwhile for me. French fries are another one which I just can't nail as well at home, and the double cooking is annoying enough to keep me from perfecting it. Also throw in dishes which require more specialized cookware like a tandoori oven. Yeah, you can make naan without it but it's not the same. Largely though I can easily make most "North American" dishes better than what I can experience at most restaurants.
- JohnFen 3y ago> I've learned how to cook meals better than any restaurant I've been to. Most restaurants don't serve food that is better than what a moderately-practiced person can do at home. Restaurants sell convenience and atmosphere.
- ryanklee 3y agoWhat kind of places are you even going where "tipping culture" intervenes in such a way that it affects your enjoyment? I am not at all a fan of the economics of tipping, and I've spent tens and tens of thousands of dollars on restaurants and bars, but I've never once felt tipping intrude on my time. Generally, I pay and tip at the end of the night. It's a pretty uneventful moment. Curious how your experience differs.
- hermannj314 3y agoStop letting the capitalist class pit the working class against one another. Stop tipping. The employee's issue is not with you, it is with their employer. Studies have also shown that tipping enables race, age and sex discrimination in total pay. If you believe in equity and fair wages for all, you will stop tipping.
- 1letterunixname 3y agoFinding decent restaurant food and service is like running into a Navy SEAL or a model who's an astronaut with a PhD and a private pilot's license. If I can cook better than what's on the plate, then why even walk in the door? To catch this year's COVID? And the "living wage fee" gotcha capitalism tricks aren't cute or advancing socioeconomic justice. Raise the prices, pay fair wages, and run a respectable business... or don't.
- foogazi 3y agoYou are not even going out and you want then to raise prices?
- pyrophane 3y agoI think the problem with tipping is that the way we tip has gotten too disconnected from the service you are tipping for. For the most part, tipping a percentage of the total paid only makes sense when two things are true: 1. the amount you pay corresponds pretty directly the the amount of service that is provided and 2. You understand where your tip is going. This is pretty true of a lot of traditional tipped industries that use that model: taxis, restaurants, stylists/barbers, and so on. For a lot of other jobs where that was less true, the tipping interaction was often separated from the payment of the bill, and it would be fixed based on the service provided. Good examples of that are porters, couriers, baristas (when coffee drinks were relatively cheap compared to the labor involved in making them) and so on. Today though, UE/GH drivers are tipped as a percentage of the bill even though that has little to do with what they actually did (should probably be distance + # of bags + extenuating circumstances). People who are doing nothing more than ringing you up for a pre-packaged item are now presenting you with a console that asks for 20% (give or take). This is creating a tipping backlash, for good reason. Even though you can always tip whatever you want, there is a social contract that has been broken: if a tip is requested it should be reasonable based on the service provided.
- foogazi 3y agoBuying a bag of peanuts at the baseball game and they ask for gratuity - WTF
- soupfordummies 3y agoBe careful there, a lot of "big" venues like that, the employees don't even get the tip. It goes to "charity" etc
- foogazi 3y agoI suspect as much went to a game yesterday and after pointing me to the tip buttons, the guy said “we accept cash tips too” Pulled out two dollar bills on the spot
- Simulacra 3y agoMy city has raised tipped wages to the point where I don't really feel obligated to tip as much, or at all.
- Simulacra 3y agoAfter the abolition of slavery, many formerly enslaved individuals found work in the service industry, including as waitstaff. Tipping became a way for employers to avoid paying a fair wage to these workers, as they were expected to rely on tips for income. This system disproportionately affected Black workers. I've heard of another story about tipping and freed slaves. It was a way of tacitly demonstrating that the person no longer enslaved, they were paid
- sys_64738 3y agoYou leave a tip in a restaurant. The rest can pound sand.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 3y agoI drastically reduced my tipping due to the increased demand
- kamikaz1k 3y agoI see a lot of comments about feeling awkward for not tipping because it takes longer to navigate to the no tip option. It is your money folks, don't feel bad for not being forced to just give it away.
- JohnFen 3y agoIt's just easier and more pleasant to not go to such establishments at all.