5 ms·

>People feel good about themselves when they leave extra, deriving a sense of generosity. Interesting. I never feel good about tipping. If I tip I feel bad, be

by whyoh 2y ago

>People feel good about themselves when they leave extra, deriving a sense of generosity. Interesting. I never feel good about tipping. If I tip I feel bad, because I caved in to the pressure. If I don't tip I feel bad, because the staff will wrongly think I didn't like them or their performance. Then there's the question of how much % is right... What an unpleasant social convention. Just give me higher prices on the menu.

Ekaros 2y ago
On holidays it really makes me think should I have frequented some other place where they paid staff better... Instead of seemingly exploiting them and their work...
- zarathustreal 2y ago
  Isn’t it strange how employers can make the decision to pay their workers less than we think they’re worth, employees can make the decision to take a job working for less than we think they’re worth, and yet the person feeling responsible for all these decisions is us?
  - Ekaros 2y ago
    It is end result of free market. Every side, consumer, buyer, seller, employer, employee and so on try to get away with paying least they can. This is usually by choice, not many actually combat this... The strange bit is how we have ended up in situation that there is some moral mandate that there is extra payment between consumer and employee. In all other parts system operates rationally. You pay what you have to get something. Be it the product or the labour. Paying more will have indirect benefits like better retention and maybe better quality(more effective or better selling staff). On employee side, well there is usually not option to forgo work as money is needed for survival... So their only option is to take work that is less than they might think they are worth. But this often results in poor retention as they will move for better options when possible.
    - gruez 2y ago
      >well there is usually not option to forgo work as money is needed for survival... So their only option is to take work that is less than they might think they are worth Is this somehow bad? Everything is only "worth" as what people are willing to pay for it, and labor isn't any different.
      - zarathustreal 2y ago
        This is exactly true but it’s hard to accept that some people that are willing to work simply aren’t skilled enough to make a living wage
    - atmavatar 2y ago
      Arguably it's the result of a market failure. I don't know many people who enjoy tipping, in which case, I'd expect a free market would eventually produce some restaurants where you don't have to tip, even if it ends up being short-lived. Instead, rather than see some businesses experiment with eliminating tips, I see a lot of businesses that haven't historically had tips start to request them. Worse, none of them as far as I can tell have lowered prices: it's just a new cost on top, much like bullshit fees tacked on by other industries, only with a new shame component built-in if you dare express frustration at having to pay it. It's greedy exploitation stemming from the knowledge that the "free market" rarely exerts corrective pressures as well as advertised. The invisible hand is largely invisible because it isn't there.
      - whyoh 2y ago
        Some restaurants have been experimenting with eliminating or reducing tipping.[1] But I agree that it's a difficult task for the "free market" to solve at scale. [1] https://www.thrillist.com/eat/nation/american-restaurants-don-t-allow-tipping-usa-restaurants-banned-tipping https://www.thrillist.com/eat/nation/american-restaurants-do... https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/restaurants/article/tipless-restaurants-17656381.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/restaurants/article/tipless...
  - tpmoney 2y ago
    On the other hand, it also gives the consumer more power over the wages of an employee than any other business. Do you think your fast food or retail employees are under paid? Teachers? Fire fighters? Too bad, you have almost 0 power to change that (and some of those positions have policies / legal prohibitions from accepting tips at all). But your local restaurant servers? If you think they're not paid enough, you have the direct ability to make a change on that front. Sure you probably still need to convince everyone else to do it too, but on the other hand, we can see that working in the fact that the "expected" tip rate has risen over time from ~10% to ~20%. In fact, now that I think about it, since tips are a percentage of the bill, I wonder if tipped wages keep place with inflation better than retail? Not to say that this is a great system overall, but I also find the mindset that's worried about tipped wages to be odd, because like I said, if you think they should get paid more that's entirely in your control. No one needs to wait for the boss to decide to hand out raises or make market adjustments. And most of my friends who worked tipped jobs weren't bothered by the tips per-se as they were with the times when work was slow. Sure they griped about stingy tippers, but none of them ever had a top complaint of "man I wish I could just make $8/ hour flat rate instead of getting tips"
- tpmoney 2y ago
  Holidays are the time I feel best about tipping. When I first moved to my local area for school, I had no family and no place to really go for thanksgiving. And really no place was open (what with it being a holiday and all). The one exception was a local diner that's open 24/7/365. As a broke college student in a new town, that diner was my go to spot for that first thanksgiving and many a holiday after when everything else was closed and I had no where to go. Since those days, even though I have family and friends to have holiday meals with, I've made it a point every year to have a small meal at the diner even if it's just coffee and a desert. And since I'm doing much better these days than a poor broke college student, I do it because I want to leave a large tip for the staff. No big Oprah style "you get at tip and you get a tip" performance or videos for youtube, just a simple card and big tip expressing my gratitude for them being there those years ago for past me, and for being around today for all the people who don't have anywhere to go still. Whether they consider themselves exploited or not. Whether they're there because they need the work and the money, or (like I often did when I worked retail) they volunteered for the holiday shift because they had no where to be that day either. In either case, I was and remain grateful and the holidays are the one time a year I truly enjoy giving a tip.
  - Engineering-MD 2y ago
    That is nice, and I really resonate with that. But I would be interested to know: would you still tip if you knew they now no longer catered for the broke college student? Are you tipping as a thank you to how they treated your historical self, or an incentive to keep up a good culture? For me I would feel conflicted about tipping and not tipping
    - tpmoney 2y ago
      I'm not quite sure I understand you question. I would tip in this manner for as long as they remained a place that was open 24/7/365. They weren't catering to the broke college student crowd, they're just one of those diners that's always open, of which there are a handful in most states. Usually the crowd they're catering to, if there is one are third shift employees and overnight truckers. Even if they were paying their employees a full wage and not as tipped servers, I would still be tipping in this manner. It's an expression of gratitude to the people who – whether by choice or by necessity – make it so that even someone with no place to go on a holiday can have some place to go. If that doesn't answer the question you were asking, as I said, I wasn't 100% clear on it so my apologies.

by whyoh 2y ago

Ekaros 2y ago

On holidays it really makes me think should I have frequented some other place where they paid staff better... Instead of seemingly exploiting them and their work...

zarathustreal 2y ago
Isn’t it strange how employers can make the decision to pay their workers less than we think they’re worth, employees can make the decision to take a job working for less than we think they’re worth, and yet the person feeling responsible for all these decisions is us?
- Ekaros 2y ago
  It is end result of free market. Every side, consumer, buyer, seller, employer, employee and so on try to get away with paying least they can. This is usually by choice, not many actually combat this... The strange bit is how we have ended up in situation that there is some moral mandate that there is extra payment between consumer and employee. In all other parts system operates rationally. You pay what you have to get something. Be it the product or the labour. Paying more will have indirect benefits like better retention and maybe better quality(more effective or better selling staff). On employee side, well there is usually not option to forgo work as money is needed for survival... So their only option is to take work that is less than they might think they are worth. But this often results in poor retention as they will move for better options when possible.
  - gruez 2y ago
    >well there is usually not option to forgo work as money is needed for survival... So their only option is to take work that is less than they might think they are worth Is this somehow bad? Everything is only "worth" as what people are willing to pay for it, and labor isn't any different.
    - zarathustreal 2y ago
      This is exactly true but it’s hard to accept that some people that are willing to work simply aren’t skilled enough to make a living wage
  - atmavatar 2y ago
    Arguably it's the result of a market failure. I don't know many people who enjoy tipping, in which case, I'd expect a free market would eventually produce some restaurants where you don't have to tip, even if it ends up being short-lived. Instead, rather than see some businesses experiment with eliminating tips, I see a lot of businesses that haven't historically had tips start to request them. Worse, none of them as far as I can tell have lowered prices: it's just a new cost on top, much like bullshit fees tacked on by other industries, only with a new shame component built-in if you dare express frustration at having to pay it. It's greedy exploitation stemming from the knowledge that the "free market" rarely exerts corrective pressures as well as advertised. The invisible hand is largely invisible because it isn't there.
    - whyoh 2y ago
      Some restaurants have been experimenting with eliminating or reducing tipping.[1] But I agree that it's a difficult task for the "free market" to solve at scale. [1] https://www.thrillist.com/eat/nation/american-restaurants-don-t-allow-tipping-usa-restaurants-banned-tipping https://www.thrillist.com/eat/nation/american-restaurants-do... https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/restaurants/article/tipless-restaurants-17656381.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/restaurants/article/tipless...
- tpmoney 2y ago
  On the other hand, it also gives the consumer more power over the wages of an employee than any other business. Do you think your fast food or retail employees are under paid? Teachers? Fire fighters? Too bad, you have almost 0 power to change that (and some of those positions have policies / legal prohibitions from accepting tips at all). But your local restaurant servers? If you think they're not paid enough, you have the direct ability to make a change on that front. Sure you probably still need to convince everyone else to do it too, but on the other hand, we can see that working in the fact that the "expected" tip rate has risen over time from ~10% to ~20%. In fact, now that I think about it, since tips are a percentage of the bill, I wonder if tipped wages keep place with inflation better than retail? Not to say that this is a great system overall, but I also find the mindset that's worried about tipped wages to be odd, because like I said, if you think they should get paid more that's entirely in your control. No one needs to wait for the boss to decide to hand out raises or make market adjustments. And most of my friends who worked tipped jobs weren't bothered by the tips per-se as they were with the times when work was slow. Sure they griped about stingy tippers, but none of them ever had a top complaint of "man I wish I could just make $8/ hour flat rate instead of getting tips"
tpmoney 2y ago
Holidays are the time I feel best about tipping. When I first moved to my local area for school, I had no family and no place to really go for thanksgiving. And really no place was open (what with it being a holiday and all). The one exception was a local diner that's open 24/7/365. As a broke college student in a new town, that diner was my go to spot for that first thanksgiving and many a holiday after when everything else was closed and I had no where to go. Since those days, even though I have family and friends to have holiday meals with, I've made it a point every year to have a small meal at the diner even if it's just coffee and a desert. And since I'm doing much better these days than a poor broke college student, I do it because I want to leave a large tip for the staff. No big Oprah style "you get at tip and you get a tip" performance or videos for youtube, just a simple card and big tip expressing my gratitude for them being there those years ago for past me, and for being around today for all the people who don't have anywhere to go still. Whether they consider themselves exploited or not. Whether they're there because they need the work and the money, or (like I often did when I worked retail) they volunteered for the holiday shift because they had no where to be that day either. In either case, I was and remain grateful and the holidays are the one time a year I truly enjoy giving a tip.
- Engineering-MD 2y ago
  That is nice, and I really resonate with that. But I would be interested to know: would you still tip if you knew they now no longer catered for the broke college student? Are you tipping as a thank you to how they treated your historical self, or an incentive to keep up a good culture? For me I would feel conflicted about tipping and not tipping
  - tpmoney 2y ago
    I'm not quite sure I understand you question. I would tip in this manner for as long as they remained a place that was open 24/7/365. They weren't catering to the broke college student crowd, they're just one of those diners that's always open, of which there are a handful in most states. Usually the crowd they're catering to, if there is one are third shift employees and overnight truckers. Even if they were paying their employees a full wage and not as tipped servers, I would still be tipping in this manner. It's an expression of gratitude to the people who – whether by choice or by necessity – make it so that even someone with no place to go on a holiday can have some place to go. If that doesn't answer the question you were asking, as I said, I wasn't 100% clear on it so my apologies.