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The one person in America happy about tipping fatigue
- batch12 2y agoI don't disagree, but find the way the stats are displayed to be interesting because flipping the numbers seems to imply that the majority of Americans feel the opposite > 35% of Americans think tipping culture is out of control, according to a 2024 Bankrate survey > 25% of U.S. customers will actually tip less when presented with suggested tip amounts on a touch screen > 29% of Americans see tipping as an obligation, according to Pew, rather than a choice (21%)
- dosinga 2y agoMaybe? The source: https://www.bankrate.com/personal-finance/tipping-survey/ https://www.bankrate.com/personal-finance/tipping-survey/ Says 66% have a negative view on tipping and 30% think it is out of control. The fact that 70% doesn't think it is out of control doesn't mean they approve
- thfuran 2y agoIf 66% have a negative view of it, it seems rather unlikely that 70% approve. Maybe in Chicago.
- hgyjnbdet 2y agoI'm not American, and the culture here wasn't to tip everyone for doing their job, but I don't mind it if I feel the food and service were good. But presented with a screen suggesting I tip, with/out a suggested amount, is pretty much a guarantee I'm not tipping. If I tip I want to make sure it's going to the people I want to tip.
- oidar 2y agoTipping culture can change. In the early 1900s, people in Berlin complained about how little americans tipped [1] . And now, Germans complain about tipping at all when coming to America. https://www.nytimes.com/1912/07/14/archives/tipping-in-berlin-americans-this-year-accused-of-lack-of-generosity.html https://www.nytimes.com/1912/07/14/archives/tipping-in-berli...
- petre 2y agoBecause one is not expected to tip in Germany, only in the Balkans. Italy and Hungary both have service tax if you sit down. For takeout they might have a tip jar where you tip a few coins. And I've only been very nicely asked to tip in Sicily, where a barista is his 60s kindly made two perfect espressos, arranged everything on a platter and jestured that I need not handle anything but the tip jar. A screen with a tip suggestion? A great way to guarantee no tip. Also, I only tip in cash. The cash should go to the people doing the service, not machines, not faceless corporations and definitely not towards more taxes.
- sofixa 2y ago> Because one is not expected to tip in Germany, only in the Balkans As someone from the Balkans, it's customary to round up at a restaurant if you were happy with the service. With card payments this is mostly going away, but you still can do it. But only if you were really happy with the service and want to reward that. None of this American "you're literally forcing the waiters to starve to slave for you if you don't give them at least 20% tip" bullshit.
- thfuran 2y agoThey're obligated to report the tips as income, so, legally speaking, it goes to taxes either way.
- petre 2y agoSure it does. Especially in the Balkans.
- goosedragons 2y agoI'm not sure the law changing will do much unless they literally ban tipping. In Canada most or I think all provinces now have no subminimum wage for servers, yet tipping is still expected. It's honestly sort of silly. I'm not entirely sure why some lady taking my order and maybe handing me extra napkins is entitled to 15%+ of my bill while the McDonald's fry cook isn't when they make the same base salary.
- basil-rash 2y agoMcDonalds does not allow tipping: https://www.mcdonalds.com/gb/en-gb/help/faq/why-are-staff-not-allowed-to-accept-tips-from-customers.html https://www.mcdonalds.com/gb/en-gb/help/faq/why-are-staff-no...
- voisin 2y agoI think it was a generic example rather than meant to be specifically accurate. Replace McDonalds with the name of any other restaurant. Why is the server entitled to 15% but the cook or dishwasher not?
- morning-coffee 2y agoIn the U.S., from what I've heard from friends who have been food service workers, the tips are collected by the server, but split up nightly among the whole front/back set of workers.
- globular-toast 2y agoIt's only just starting here in the UK. Those card payment things seem to have a tip option that can be enabled and they make you hit "no" (or choose a nonzero amount). A dark pattern basically. So many people must feel pressured to press a nonzero button. I'm going to start refusing to press them and make them get it ready to accept my payment.
- cityofdelusion 2y agoThe article briefly touches on it, but complicating things are practices like tip pooling at restaurants (tips are shared among all low wage staff, regardless if they did anything) and tips going into the revenue bucket of the business. I’m less inclined to tip when I don’t know where the money is going. Handing people straight cash frequently also ends up in tip pools from policy as well.
- buggythebug 2y agoGreat servers DO NOT want to get paid a higher wage from the restaurant instead of tips because they make so much more in tips.
- rootusrootus 2y agoAccording to the article, 'great' really means white, young, pretty...
- petre 2y agoYou mean I shouldn't have tipped the miminum wage South Asian who installed my beach umbrella? They're far from their family doing a job in a very foreign country, sleeping who knows where along with who knows how many colleagues and sending most of their income home.
- Ekaros 2y agoDo you tip your accountant if you have one? Or doctor? Or every nurse when you visit hospital? Do companies tip consultants extra beyond billed rate if they think they did nice enough job?
- declan_roberts 2y ago"Great servers"? You mean servers who deal with large bills? The amount they get as tips is determine generally by the bill not the service.
- buggythebug 2y agoSpeaking as someone who has many friends who owns restaurants - you're speaking outside of your domain knowledge
- charles_f 2y agoYes, the proportionality is one stupid thing about tipping. If I take a super expensive bottle of wine, is the service worth more? Conversely, if I take the cheapest salad, is it worth less?
- localghost3000 2y agoI worked for tips for many years before one of my regulars helped me with getting into tech (yes I was very lucky). One aspect of this issue that doesn't get talked about a lot is that there is a portion of workers (think bartenders or servers) who work for tips that prefer that system because you can make a LOT of money on certain shifts with the right kind of hustle. To put it another way, if you are working one of these jobs and you have a big expense coming up, you can work your ass off and make more money. Your pay goes up proportionally to your effort. In an hourly job that doesn't happen. You just make what you make. To be clear: I AM NOT DEFENDING TIPPING CULTURE. I am just pointing out that there is a certain cohort of folks who perpetuate it to the detriment of everyone else. When the whole fair wage discussion gets brought up, those folks are the ones who rally the hardest against it. It's kind of insane.
- yieldcrv 2y agoHospitality workers have the most glaring conflict of interest, while acting like they are marginalized people whose voices we should listen to.
- localghost3000 2y agoRespectfully, this is a gross over simplification of the problem. There is a vocal minority of folks, mostly "front of house" that stand to make a decent living. No ones getting rich. It's just that you can make a good wage without a college degree. The appeal is obvious. THAT SAID, the vast majority of workers in hospitality are making poverty wages and working 70+ hours a week in conditions that most of us in our cushy tech jobs would not be able to tolerate. If you've never worked in the industry (and your comment makes me suspect you haven't) then its very hard to understand. It's the kind of thing you have to see.
- yieldcrv 2y agoI’m not sure what the insight here is supposed to be. Well to elaborate, I see this reality manifested from them as a promotion of tipping, of tipping even higher amounts than the machines prompt, of greater disdain for people the lower their tips are, perpetuating disdain of people by race based on tipping habits. when it should be directed at management and legislation
- yieldcrv 2y agoRegulate the intermediary! Or merely apply social pressure. Just forget about hospitality worker opinions with their completely glaring conflict of interest, everyone collectively ignore them. Tell payment processors that they cant sell tipping screens to certain (or any) vendor code Tell insurers of the payment processor they cant insure them if they push tipping screens At the local level create incentives for non-tip culture businesses that go out of their way to that to discourage it, effectively penalizing the tipping culture ones
- basil-rash 2y agoPersonally I love tipping. I’ll tip even for ridiculous things like buying a bag of coffee bean. Guy seemed nice and smiled and tried to answer a question I had - sure have an extra couple bucks. Not a big deal to me, but who knows maybe it is to him. Hell sometimes I’ll even tip an additional 20% on top of the built tip at places where they add ~20% to the bill before you get it, though I reserve this for exceptional cases. On the flip side, I’ll just as happily tip near 0 at a restaurant when the situation calls for it. If we were somehow to abolish tipping, this would not be possible - prices would just increase uniformly.
- zonotope 2y agoIt would work like everything else. That "expensive" grocery store that continues to stock the high quality products that you love would still get your business even though they raise prices. In the meantime, the mediocre one would not, and they would be forced to lower prices accordingly. I just want to know what the price of something is and make my own decisions about whether or not it's worth it. The social and mental gymnastics over tipping is just exhausting.
- basil-rash 2y agoExcept here the grocery store pricing is “name your price” and folks are free to pick the price that suits the level of service they desire/receive. It’s a leaver we have, and it’s rather powerful if you know how to use it. Doing away with it because “the mental gymnastics” of calculating ~1/5th of a total is too much for some folks to handle is just ridiculous pandering to the lowest common denominator. I’m happy to receive the best service available at the places I frequent because the staff knows I will compensate them generously. If folks are unwilling to do so, that’s fine: they can still get food/drinks. But they’ll always be further back in the priority queue than me, because I value the time of the wait staff.
- contrarian1234 2y agoI find the tipping-before-service stuff down right creepy. Each time I hit zero I feel I'm taking a gamble they're going to spit in my cappuccino. I don't think this needs legislation - just avoid businesses that use these dark patterns next up, don't forget to tip your surgeon and your lawyer
- User23 2y agoAs anyone who has ever worked for tips or traveled abroad knows, tipping is observably a cultural phenomenon. Me, personally, I think complaining about it is tacky and shows poor character. I even tip (albeit less) for takeout. Why? Well for one the kitchen staff did just as much work as they would have had a waitress brought my order. And second and far more importantly, because that’s how I’d like to be treated and I generally aim to follow the golden rule in my dealings. As another aside, normally there is significant hysteresis between prices and wages. Percentage based tipping has no hysteresis and is thus observably a more just compensation model for servers. Especially in a time where grocery prices are up 20% over the past four years. Also, wage theft is a pervasive problem and tipping is resistant.
- Swizec 2y ago> and is thus observably a more just compensation model for servers Except for the several studies showing tips have little to no correlation with service quality and depend primarily on the customer’s self perception as a tipping person. For example with takeout, you tip at time of order. You don’t even know yet what kind of service you’re gonna get. There’s also that famous mythbusters episode where they showed tips correlate perfectly with the server’s boob size. Very fair indeed
- Narishma 2y agoSo what happens if you don't tip? Asking Americans here as we don't have a tipping culture in my country, at least not to this extent. Also, is it just in restaurants and food related businesses or services in general? Are you expected to tip your hairdresser or mechanic or plumber?
- lotsofpulp 2y agoNothing, 99.99% of the time. Especially for counter service. I always hit no, and move on. Bartenders at a busy bar might make make you wait longer, but even then, I doubt it happens most of the time.
- stevenwoo 2y agoOne time our party had bad service at our first time at a restaurant (lunch with coworkers), waited 60 minutes for our meals when other people who arrived after us got their meals and us asking for an explanation and getting nothing while waiting, we tipped a dollar for 100+ dollar meal to give them a message. When we were leaving the manager and server stopped us and asked for their tip and tried to guilt trip us into leaving a bigger tip. You can never go back to the same restaurant again because we joke you cannot trust them to not tamper with your food or ignore you or make you wait much longer for every thing. It's a bizarre guilt trip experience that has spread to every food serving business, the business pays less to employees, so the customers have to pay for their food plus extra for the employee to do their job with a smile - cashiers/counters where you pick up food/drinks expect a gratuity and it's built into point of sale touchpads where you are forced to select from different gratuity amounts. It's very weird when compared to any other country I've been to.
- davemp 2y agoOne of the big problems with tipping at the moment is that menu prices have increased and % gratuity expectations have also increased making gratuity dramatically outstrip inflation. Say that twenty years ago the norm was to tip 15% on your $10 burger ($1.50) now it may be 20% on your $20 burger ($4.00) which is a 167% higher tip for your 100% more expensive burger. At the same time median income went from ~$60k to $75k or a 25% increase. Eating out/tipping is simply much less affordable in current times. There are plenty of other problems with tipping but I think the raw price is what people are feeling the most. []: https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1b7rss8/30_years_of_dining_out_tracking_us_inflation_oc/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1b7rss8/30... []: https://www.statista.com/statistics/200838/median-household-income-in-the-united-states/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/200838/median-household-...
- motohagiography 2y agowhile I dislike tipping culture on everything, working for annual bonuses, RSUs, options, sales commissions, and other conditional or discretionary comp is the middle class version of it. ironically, the justice in tipping is that the person doing the work is getting equity in the transaction and direct consideration for their work.
- DannyWright 2y ago[dead]