3 ms·

I'm all hears for a solution to this problem. I've been thinking about it and failing at it. The system is really ubiquitous at the moment.

glhaynes 14y ago
Many regions of the world work just fine without tipping, so the difficulty would be in the transition. Have any cultures successfully made the transition from tipping to not-tipping? Seems like the only start toward doing so would be to force minimum wage standards to be applied to all workers. This would benefit some but cause significant hardships to some others, so it seems to me unlikely to be achievable.
- kyt 14y ago
  What does 'just fine' mean? There is a large restaurant service disparity between the US and Europe.
- twoodfin 14y ago
  Many regions of the world may "work just fine", but I'll put the service you'll get at an average priced sit down restaurant in an averaged sized city of the U.S. against a comparable establishment anywhere else on Earth. That's not to say there aren't friendly, competent staff everywhere, but at least my anecdotal experience has been that the U.S. and its tipping culture excels at providing good to excellent service on average. The chief advantage of tipping is that it encourages people who are skilled at providing customer service to stay in the industry and those who are not to leave. Other feedback mechanisms might be possible, but they'd be much more complex.
loumf 14y ago
How much of a problem is this? You said that it wasn't money -- that it was just not knowing the cost. If that's true, I don't understand at all -- the cost is 20% more than the listed price. If you see a burger at $10, that's really $12 -- it's the same problem as dining in a foreign currency -- the exchange rate for $ to R$ (restaurant dollars) is 1.200.
- ufo 14y ago
  For the longest time I was wondering why you were saying that the exchange rate from US dollars to Brazilian Reais is 1.2 when its actually closer to 2.0 ...

glhaynes 14y ago

Many regions of the world work just fine without tipping, so the difficulty would be in the transition. Have any cultures successfully made the transition from tipping to not-tipping? Seems like the only start toward doing so would be to force minimum wage standards to be applied to all workers. This would benefit some but cause significant hardships to some others, so it seems to me unlikely to be achievable.

kyt 14y ago
What does 'just fine' mean? There is a large restaurant service disparity between the US and Europe.
twoodfin 14y ago
Many regions of the world may "work just fine", but I'll put the service you'll get at an average priced sit down restaurant in an averaged sized city of the U.S. against a comparable establishment anywhere else on Earth. That's not to say there aren't friendly, competent staff everywhere, but at least my anecdotal experience has been that the U.S. and its tipping culture excels at providing good to excellent service on average. The chief advantage of tipping is that it encourages people who are skilled at providing customer service to stay in the industry and those who are not to leave. Other feedback mechanisms might be possible, but they'd be much more complex.

loumf 14y ago

How much of a problem is this? You said that it wasn't money -- that it was just not knowing the cost. If that's true, I don't understand at all -- the cost is 20% more than the listed price. If you see a burger at $10, that's really $12 -- it's the same problem as dining in a foreign currency -- the exchange rate for $ to R$ (restaurant dollars) is 1.200.

ufo 14y ago
For the longest time I was wondering why you were saying that the exchange rate from US dollars to Brazilian Reais is 1.2 when its actually closer to 2.0 ...