8 ms·

The crazier part is that it's spreading to more industries and more countries thanks to Americans thinking they should tip everyone everywhere. Thanks.

• ecb_penguin 1y ago
  Yep. It's wonderful throwing a few extra bucks to some euro waiter and watching them treat you better than everyone else.
  • omnimus 1y ago
    When they treat you better? In the last 2 minutes after you payed just before you leave?
    • JumpCrisscross 1y ago
      > In the last 2 minutes after you payed just before you leave? Definitely the next time I come back. Restaurant workers should earn a good wage. Tipping should not be mandatory. But tips, in particular large tips, are fine and work globally.
      • Gud 1y ago
        Why?
      • kergonath 1y ago
        You know what works even better? Being a friendly and nice person. It has the added bonus that when they greet you and "treat you better" (whatever you mean by that) next time you’ll know it’s not just because of your wallet.
        • JumpCrisscross 1y ago
          > You know what works even better? Being a friendly and nice person I do both. And I don’t always leave a large tip. If I’m having a good quarter or year, I’ll share it. If I’m not, I can’t. At the end of the day, they’re running a business and I’m a customer. If we’re friends I’ll buy them dinner (and they’ll comp random stuff).
          • exe34 1y ago
            > and they’ll comp random stuff You should send a thank you note to the owner!
        • ecb_penguin 1y ago
          > You know what works even better? Being a friendly and nice person. Not mutually exclusive :)
      • itake 1y ago
        What do you think about the tip-free section in: https://www.mollymoon.com/icecreamforeveryone https://www.mollymoon.com/icecreamforeveryone Quick summary: - Tipping results in lower pay for certain genders and races. - laws that protect employees don't apply to customers. Your boss can't make inappropriate comments and pay you less if you complain. But if a customer makes inappropriate comments, its perfectly legal for the customer to pay you less if you reject their advances.
        • JumpCrisscross 1y ago
          I don’t think any of this is fixed by banning tips. As I said, tipping shouldn’t be mandatory nor required for someone to make a living serving, frankly, relatively wealthy people and experience. If someone owns a restaurant, I can show gratitude by coming more. If my clients like me, they can show gratitude by giving me more business. If a server does a great job independent of their employer, a tip is a good way of showing that. (That said, if a group of employees has agreed to no tips, they should refuse them and one shouldn’t push.)
          • itake 1y ago
            customers can legally tip different depending on race and genders, employers cannot. > If a server does a great job independent of their employer, a tip is a good way of showing that. The problem is customers perceive "great job" more often when the person is from a certain race or gender or body shape. This creates an inequitable environment.
  • maxbond 1y ago
    I'm curious whether you have ever worked in the service industry?
    • happymellon 1y ago
      I have, in the UK. Probably 95% of customers didn't tip. I didn't have any problems with this. Why? I was nice to people because that was my job, but when I've travelled to the US I have definitely seen entitled customers treat staff like shit and claiming it's their right because they were tipping. Tipping as standard should go out the window, it just drives customers to be assholes.
      • maxbond 1y ago
        I worked in a fast food restaurant here in the States, people tipped but usually not well. I wasn't pressed about it, I was getting a full minimum wage. Entitled customers didn't give me trouble for whatever reason, they seemed to size up my coworkers as softer targets. > Why? I was just curious about how OP's experience informed their perspective.
        • happymellon 1y ago
          When visiting the States I have observed on a couple of occasions where a customer shouted at staff and used the threat of withholding a tip as leverage to be unreasonably nasty to wait staff. The service industry in the US is awful, and the tipping culture is really toxic. I don't understand those that defend the American approach.
          • maxbond 1y ago
            To be clear, I don't defend it. I'm mildly against it. Unfortunately I don't in it's at the root of entitled customer behavior in the States, I think there's a deeper cultural contempt for service workers. You'll see similar behavior towards workers who aren't tipped but who provide some sort of face-to-face service, like cashiers and teachers.
  • Ballas 1y ago
    In my experience they are often confused and sometimes insulted. Generally I found tipping to add friction to the transaction.
  • preommr 1y ago
    > "treat you better than everyone else." People say this, but what is better service? It's not like you get better or more food, or get the food faster since all that depends on the kitchen that isn't getting tipped directly. It's pretty much them coming to your table to take your order. I'd much rather have a free burger or drink (the equivalent of what I could get instead of tipping) with the slow service than get my water refilled every 5 minutes.
    • exe34 1y ago
      It means the pretty girl flirts with him. Otherwise why would she?
    • TylerE 1y ago
      > It's not like you get better or more food, or get the food faster since all that depends on the kitchen Oh, trust me, go to a decent place, be a regular, tip decently (not even extravagantly), you absolutely get looked after. For instance, several of my usual lunch spots my usual fountain drink is often "water" on the bill.
      • fireflash38 1y ago
        Isn't that then stealing from the owner? I just don't think of a way you can have tipping and it not create perverse incentives like that.
        • tarentel 1y ago
          It's likely not like this everywhere but I've become a regular at a few places over my life time and asked about this. At least where I've been, it is actually all tracked. Generally, at least at bars, the people coming in and tipping well, are people who come in often and spend a lot to begin with so over the long run they end up making it back anyway. And honestly, when you're new to a city/place and don't have a lot of friends/are single, and you walk in somewhere and are greeted by name and served your usual without asking it's a nice retreat.
  • closewith 1y ago
    I think most of the time this happens, you just don't realise the wait staff is patronising you. You certainly aren't buying better service.
  • iammrpayments 1y ago
    When I visited the US I’ve noticed some waiters would treat you worse or just ignore if they found out you were a tourist, so when I could I would order something small and pay right away with tip, just to get basic service. So your comment makes 0 sense.
  • Panoramix 1y ago
    That sounds a lot like bribing
  • kelnos 1y ago
    That feels disturbingly like a lite version of paying someone to be your friend. Maybe we should just all treat each other well (in both directions) and not reduce manners and social graces to a financial transaction.
• CalRobert 1y ago
  Living in Ireland from 2013-2023 I saw tipping get _much_ more common, sadly.
  • closewith 1y ago
    [flagged]
    • CalRobert 1y ago
      I spent half my adult life in Ireland, had kids there, built a house there, etc and like to think that during said time I learned a few things and noticed changes. I do think part of it related to POS systems normalizing it. But it is certainly possible that our experiences differed. It was more common in Dublin 2 than in Offaly I'd say... Honestly something that was a bit galling was that the Irish would moan about Ireland morning day and night but the instant a foreigner made _any_ observation that wasn't rainbows and sunshine we were out of our lane and needed to shut up. And I spent much more of my time extolling Ireland's virtues than complaining about it! It was surreal to be chatting with taxi drivers and trying to make the point that Ireland wasn't an utter kip.
      • closewith 1y ago
        > Honestly something that was a bit galling was that the Irish would moan about Ireland morning day and night but the instant a foreigner made _any_ observation that wasn't rainbows and sunshine we were out of our lane and needed to shut up. Not to be rude, but have you considered this may have been an issue with you and your attitude, rather than everyone you met, if even people who you seemed to think liked you couldn't stand you.
        • CalRobert 1y ago
          No, not really. My experience there was generally positive and I met lots of great people. That being said it’s fair to observe that different cultures have different traits. I have a friend here in the Netherlands from Roscommon and he gives out about Ireland -much- more than me, and when I mentioned we’d lived in Offaly he described it as “the beating heart of Irish begrudgery”, which checks out. Anyway this conversation is a net negative to my day and I’m bowing out.
• KennyBlanken 1y ago
  No, it's spreading because corporations are waking up to what an insanely good deal "pay my employees for me" is. In my state an employer is only responsible for raising an employee's effective wage (for the entire pay period) to minimum wage if the tips don't. You can tip someone working as a waiter $100 and unless they've already hit minimum wage for that pay period, all you're doing is handing $100 to the owner because it's $100 they don't have to pay in wages. Once the waiter has met minimum wage, then the money actually goes to them.
  • coderatlarge 1y ago
    my wife worked under this regime of we-pay-below-minimum and you make it up with tips, when she was a student. it’s illegal in multiple states. including the state where it was done to her. but if you need that sort of job you’re typically probably not in a position to go after your employer…
  • kelnos 1y ago
    In California we've set the tipped minimum wage to the same as the non-tipped minimum wage (so employers have to pay their employees the same regular minimum wage regardless of whether or not it's a tipped job). Unfortunately, that hasn't fixed the tipping problem. Of course, a living wage in California is quite a bit higher then even our above-average minimum wage, so that's a big part of it.
    • xp84 1y ago
      I'd argue that (our socially-obligatory form of) tipping is a deceptive pricing practice (not really any better than a store labeling shelves with a giant $4 and a .99 written so small you need a magnifying glass to perceive it). As such, if banning it is too impractical, they should disincentivize it with the tax system. I can't figure out the best way, but it's disappointing that our government is obviously not trying to. Note: I don't care one bit if someone wants to recognize an exceptional act by handing $20 to a worker -- that's great. That's not the same as giving a bartender $4 for spending 12 seconds pouring vodka and redbull into a glass or tipping $3 when I stood in line to order at a counter and came to fetch my food when my number is called.
• TrackerFF 1y ago
  My take is that it is spreading not due to culture, but due to how all new point of sale systems / card terminals come with a "tip" feature implemented. I'm from Europe, and have traveled here extensively. Tipping is pretty rare, but for the past maybe 5 years, almost all new payment terminals have the tipping option.
  • Lord-Jobo 1y ago
    This is absolutely true, but that is exactly how culture spreads now. Through products/software/media. American business software, American movies, American YouTube channels. They will inject American problems and solutions into your country, like it or not. Microsoft may treat your privacy slightly better because of the GDPR, but those invasive systems are still there, toggled off. Waiting for Microsofts lobbying to chip away at the privacy laws until they can turn them on.
    • rdm_blackhole 1y ago
      Microsoft doesn't need to chip at the privacy laws of the EU, the EU is doing that itself by introducing massive state surveillance laws every 6 months.
  • HamsterDan 1y ago
    If the EU can force every person on earth to dismiss a cookie popup on every website they visit, surely they can pass some regulation to rein in the expansion of tipping. For example, just make it a requirement that the default tip is 0% in point of sale systems.
• Mudbugs 1y ago
  Because they know they can get away with it. It is also not "tip" anymore, it is just "whatever pays the most" gets the service. It is just to maximise profit out of suckers, something US have perfected (from insurance to fast passes).
• Der_Einzige 1y ago
  This is why power/hegemony are good. This is what Euros get for their lazy, easy lives of "work to live" and siestas. You don't get to have your own culture anymore. Start working hard or continue to fade into obscurity.