Perhaps you’ve noticed. We have reached a tipping point in the country over tipping.
To tip or not to tip has led to Shakespearean soliloquies by customers explaining why they refuse to tip for certain things.
During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, customers were grateful for those who seemingly risked their safety so we could get groceries, order dinner or anything that made our lives feel normal. A nice tip was the least we could do to show gratitude.
But now that we are out about and back to normal, the custom of tipping for just about everything has somehow remained; and customers are upset.
A new study from Pew Research shows most American adults say tipping is expected in more places than it was five years ago, and there’s no real consensus about how tipping should work.
Tipping needs to end. It’s the employer’s responsibility to make sure their employees are paid reasonably. Instead they pass that responsibility to the customer, ensuring tension between customers and staff.
I used to be a consistent tipper.
Now I refused to tip at all.
I want workers to demand what they are worth to their employers, and I’m willing to be the asshole to help them accomplish that.
If we all stopped tipping, they’d have no choice but to turn the low wage issue around onto their employers. Then employers will have no choice but the pay their workers more, because otherwise they’d leave their industry for something else.
I don’t care if that means we, as consumers, have to pay a bit more for the food and service. I don’t care if that means that some businesses won’t survive. I want fairness all around
I refuse to tip anywhere new and expand this practice… But with things like restaurants or delivery? Without organization, all that does is further underpay people for their work and increase the chances of spitting in your food
I don’t think there’s a good answer, so I just do it much less
As far as delivery, if I’m charged a delivery fee “because reasons”, that’s the extra money that is my tip. If they’re asking for a tip as well, then no.
But instead of just not tipping, I just don’t get delivery, which I haven’t since the pandemic. Two or three experiences where I was trying to order and all the add on fees plus tips meant that dinner for one was going to cost over $45 and dinner for two, over $60 (when the entrees themselves were like $12-15) and basically that was enough to convince me not to do it.
At one place there was a delivery fee, a delivery service fee, a “take out packaging” fee, a service fee, a charge for ordering less than $25, a driver fee (which they were quick to tell me was not a tip)…and of course still asked for a tip, with the options being 20, 22, and 25%. Even choosing the lowest tip, my single meal was going to cost $46 for food that I could walk in, sit down, order, eat, tip, and leave…all for under $25.
Basically I just don’t get delivery now, and while I know that won’t break the system, maybe if enough people join me it will.
I used to think that way as well. But really, if spit in my food is being used as a threat to tip someone isn’t that extortion?
I’m polite, easy to serve, and even if the food is over-cooked and way too salty (as it was for the single taco I ordered last time I was out) I don’t ask for it to be returned. I’m a model customer, except I won’t tip.
I’m not doing it to be cheap, or out of spite, or in disrespect for the service personnel. I’m doing it to apply pressure so that things will change for the better
Think of it as passive guerilla tactics against a broken system
But what about the inherent coercion of capitalism? The fear of having your food spit in is a kind of coercion, but despite the system being broken, people who rely on tips need that money to survive
It’s a messy issue. If everyone refused to tip as a matter of course and they were paid a living wage I think things would be improved, but on a more immediate and direct level you’re reducing their pay
It’s a systematic problem… Maybe it can be handled individually, but that will create a lot of issues until the pressure of individuals can prompt systematic change
I would rather they felt the pressure to move on to different employment (if they can find it) than deal with the uncertainty and fickle nature of tippers
Where I live some restaurants have started requesting no tips because they pay their workers what they’re worth. If those are around when I go out, I go there. In their absence I don’t tip
Other countries of the world have it figured out, why can’t the U.S? We can be better. Sometimes you have to take a hard stand that feels counter-intuitive to the causes you believe in, in order to push things in the right direction. Do I feel bad about not tipping? Certainly. But I want change for the better and that requires applying pressure to the right places
I’m not ideologically opposed to what you’re saying - I agree with the end goal, I’m just worried about methods. I’m even fine with tipped employees suffering for a bit during transition
But changing jobs is purposely difficult…I don’t think that’s a fair demand through effectively reducing their wages
On the other hand, you brought up something great - if you have places around that have transitioned to a living wage, why not push to go there instead? Restaurants can make this change in a couple weeks if properly motivated, but it would take months of employees struggling until they leave to affect that level of change, and I’d argue a restaurant is more likely to look around and adopt a better business model when their customers dry up than to realize the reason they can’t keep staff is due to tipping expectations
I’m all for your strategy to pressure the holdouts once the tides have turned in an area, and maybe your area is at that stage… But I don’t think most of the country is nearly there yet
For sure. It’s just that the last time I was out I wasn’t able to do that. (An old employer had asked me to help out for the day on short notice, and I was on foot because driving/parking in the area is an expensive nightmare and there wasn’t enough time to take a bus)
Frankly I’d rather make food at home. I’m a decent cook and don’t have to be concerned with morality at all :)
Been in Japan this summer. A culture where tipping is non-existent. It was such a great experience to not worry about tipping. Instead you simply get outstanding service all the time and workers are simply paid a fair wage.
There’s nothing wrong with tipping. I like the option to reward someone who made my experience great. Keyword there is option. Employers should pay employees a living wage, and if customers want to reward a great job with a few bucks on top of that, that should be allowed, even encouraged, but should never feel obligated to tip or shamed for not tipping.
You should feel ashamed for making someone act as your slave for minimum wage. The least you could do is pay them what they’re worth.
If you don’t like it, don’t force tipped workers to work for you. You have full control here. You could just cook your own damn food.
I said living wage, homie, not minimum wage. I think everyone should be paid at least a living wage, I just said tipping in general isn’t bad - it just shouldn’t be used to supplement poor wages.
Okay, but they don’t have a living wage, so you don’t get to have that option. Either tip or stop using those services.
What fucking conversation do you think you’re a part of? Because you’re clearly not reading my comments before responding to them.
You said customers should never feel obligated or ashamed. Never. I definitely feel ashamed of using these services and feel obligated to tip generously, and you should too.
You’re either intentionally being obtuse or are just plain stupid. Customers SHOULDNT be in a position of being forced to tip or be ashamed for normal acitivitues. Absolutely required tipping should not be a thing. It should be optional. It doesn’t matter what the current culture is, because that’s not the conversation. That’s the point.
So we’re in agreement then? Why are you lighting me up when we’re clearly on the same side? You need to learn to recognize an ally and save the anger for someone who deserves it, or you’ll find yourself without any allies.
lol no.
Pretty sure you’re not responding to the employer
The customer creates the demand.
Like with every single thing that humans try to do to help each other, corporations have figured out how to exploit it for themselves.
We feel like tipping helps people because literally handing money to someone SHOULD help them. Except what actually happens is that corporations, with the full support of the government that they own, simply use that social convention to offset the wages that they have to pay their staff.
Reminder that tipping only exists because of racist and greedy motives, not because of people being nice. Sure, you could tip because you’re nice, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, but we were told to tip from the beginning to keep blacks underpaid in their shitty service industry roles. Tipping started at the top, not the bottom.
Pizza Hut box: The delivery fee is not a tip to the driver.
Me: Then why TF am I paying it?
I can’t speak to Mega-Globo chains but
The delivery fee is supposed to cover the barest of $2/Gal gas, and $.2/mi car wear n tear.
Basically it meant if you didn’t make a single tip at all the entire night then you probably broke even on gas costs. That plus you $5-7/hr wages are you’re living on the Ritz.
That makes sense if it’s a company car. I’ve never seen one.
Pizza delivery corpos should be forced to supply their own vehicles. Stop forcing workers to use theirs.
deleted by creator
Gas and maintenance for the vehicle it was delivered in
That vehicle is owned and operated by the driver. The driver does not receive that delivery fee.
I don’t deliver pizzas, but anytime I drive my own car for work I get reimbursed a standard rate set by the US federal government, updated each year. If a pizza place did that, then the delivery fee would cover that cost.
If the federal government is reimbursing the pizza hut delivery driver then the fee still isn’t going to that cost. The American taxpayer is covering it
The government doesn’t do the reimbursing, they just specify how much each mile is worth. I assume companies follow the government’s guidelines on that for tax reasons.
Not always, Pizza Hut and Dominos have designated vehicles even in remote areas.
Saw one way upstate in NY, like, multilingual signage upstate.
Not how it is in my neck of the woods. It’s for sure the driver’s car at both of those.
deleted by creator
I delivered pizza using my own car, and I was paid mileage. That’s partially what the delivery fee is supposed to be for.
Tipping was always stupid from day 1. I’ve spent most of my life being told I’m a moron for being against tipping culture and instead wanting fair wages and clear prices. Suddenly in recent years people realize how stupid tipping is simply cause it went to its logical extreme. People are morons.
If you are for fair wages and clear prices, that means you’re actively boycotting all restaurants right? You wouldn’t be a hypocrite to still patronize these establishments that exploit their workers and expect you to cover the difference right?
I generally do not go to these kinds of places. When I do, I still tip, but I don’t like it. But yes, I hardly ever partake in businesses that operate this way.
Every moron who doesn’t tip thinks this way. Nobody wants to tip, and hopefully someday it will be universally abolished, but until then, this is the way it is and people are just trying to supplement their minimum wages to make a livable income. So just tip them appropriately for the work they do for you already, you moron. I guarantee that as a non-tipper, you are on many service workers’ shit lists, so I guess if you’re not getting good service, it’s your own fault.
FYI, I don’t go to places that expect tipping. But thanks for presuming I don’t tip at all.
Also, as a previous tip-based service worker, I know all this already. But again, thanks for presuming only YOU know things.
Hurrdurr things are bad but I can’t fix them so I’ll blindly accept them. If you don’t, you’re a bad person.
Only delivery and restaurants that bring your food to you and bartenders get tips. That’s it. Fuck you subway I’m not tipping a sandwich artist. Fuck you Chinese buffet restaurant no tip I went and got up and got my own food.
Start being aggressive about it and I’ll go 100% Mr. pink and nobody gets tips ever.
deleted by creator
The issue is that in the US we’ve made it a part of their wage.
(Please note though that if you make below minimum wage after tips, your employer is obligated to make up the difference. Wage theft is the most common form of theft in the US. Don’t let yourself get robbed by your employer.)
Luckily, minimum wage in my state is $7.25/hr, so restaurants almost never have to cough up anything over the $2.13/hr they’re required to pay servers!
/s
Theres already a delivery fee factored in, businesses trying to get people to tip more is them being greedy and trying to push customers into paying the employee wages for them. I don’t blame the workers asking for more, but I’m not gonna give a business that makes twice its expenses in profits more of my money so they can pay their people less
It was understood if you take a bottle of water from the cooler and place it on the counter, the only extra was a thank you to the cashier.
I’ve run into this and it’s bullshit. No.
I wanted to know if it’s ever appropriate to walk away and not leave a tip?
“No,” Sokolosky said.
Also bullshit.
ETA: And this was a stupid article that was poorly written. The interview subject also had little insight. This wouldn’t have been upvoted if the topic wasn’t viscerally felt by USA citizens because there was nothing said.
This shit started to pop up in Europe. I only tip when the service was above average. And a tip is 5 bucks on top of a 100 CHF meal.
Now they ask for tips at food trucks. Yes 0 is the appropriate tip for that.
Hardly surprising it’d come to europe same time as the cost of living crisis.
Tipping has been prevalent in many Europeam countries for decades, though the amount is usually less than in the US.
Point probably still stands, the places in the US where service industry workers are the most openly hostile over any argument about tipping are places where the cost of living is the most out of pace with service worker incomes.
Wouldn’t be hard to imagine it’s similar across the pond.
The Etiquette Expert… I’m an expert in these rules to this game I just made up!
There’s only one thing I still do that requires tipping, and that’s because I want to get tattoos. After I started seeing tipping screens at restaurants where I pick up my food at the counter, I stopped eating out entirely. I don’t even do fast food. I’m tired of trying to remember or decipher what is socially expected and am just done participating in that system. Just pay people a living wage, charge what you need to charge for that, and if you’re offering a worthwhile service, you’ll be fine.
Just pay people a living wage, charge what you need to charge for that, and if you’re offering a worthwhile service, you’ll be fine.
Someone tell me the reason why this would get downloaded?
How can the US actually end tipping culture? I cannot fathom a way forward that doesn’t fuck over a lot of people in the short-term. Ideas?
Set the minimum wage for waiters same as for other professions?
Makes sense. The issue is that many service workers are making well above minimum wage via tipping, and they’re supporting their families off it. I guess raise universal minimum wage alongside tipping ban?
This is a problem as well. I read at Casa Bonita they eliminated tipping and started paying the staff $30/h. And some of the staff are mad about it, which I kinda get but it’s a feast or famine type deal. Some days you really make a ton on tipping, and some days you get left a fake $100 from some evangelical asshole. I’d rather count on a guaranteed wage than a maybe. Full disclosure though, I’ve never worked in a tipping profession so I may be missing some things.
No, raise the wage and make tipping optional. Simply move from ‘tipping is part of their wage, they need it because they make below minimum wage’ to ‘tipping is a reward for good service’. You can leave it but they will not starve without it.
Why would it? That’s not what’s being suggested at all.
Why would it?
Well the most obvious reason is that tipping culture is robbing workers who it’s supposed to help.
In my state, “tipped” positions’ minimum wage is 2.12/hr. Despite the fact that tipping isn’t guaranteed or mandatory. There are other “tipped” positions than waiters. How often do you tip the car hop at sonic that brings you your drink? They often make less than minimum wage. The dude making your sandwich at subway? Yeah, they deduct that guy’s tips from his hourly.
Tell me why we shouldn’t end a system that exploits the culture to get away with paying out poverty wages?
The biggest opponents of ending tipping are the bartenders and servers. There aren’t many other jobs where they can make hundreds of dollars in a few hours on a busy night, and they would not give up that even when offered $30 an hour
I don’t doubt that, and it would be fine if it were just servers. Now that tipping culture has spread, it’s actively hurting people who the population at large doesn’t feel like they should have to tip
Your understanding of minimum wage is incorrect - under the FLSA, if an employees tips do not bring their wages up to minimum, the employer must make up the difference. https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/minimum-wage/tipped/2020
Still horseshit though. If you can’t pay employees a fair wage, you don’t deserve to be in business, and it shouldn’t be on the customer to subsidize your employees’ shitty pay rate.
I realize that. The idea is that these employees make minimum wage no matter what you tip them. The only tipped position that routinely breaks that is a restaurant server.
and there’s no real consensus about how tipping should work.
Versus how is always worked before?
Because there is consensus on that, it was a very straightfor rule.
The tip was a private transaction between a customer and an employee who went above and beyond the service that the employees’ boss require them to do, to perform the job to the customer’s satisfaction.
It had nothing to do with the boss or the company they were working for (no tipping automation on the registers, etc.).
And it wasn’t ever used in lieu of the employee receiving enough of an income at the company they worked at.
And it wasn’t ever used in lieu of the employee receiving enough of an income at the company they worked at.
Unfortunately that is not true. Restaurants in most states in the US have a law that allows employers to pay tipped employees a much lower wage (about 2 bucks an hour) with the expectation that tips will bring them back up to minimum wage or higher.
Important to add that they’re legally required to make up the difference if it comes in below minimum wage, though this is often skipped.
Nor is minimum wage a viable income.
Restaurants in most states in the US have a law that allows employers to pay tipped employees a much lower wage
You should check the year that those laws were implemented. They are a more recent phenomenon.
Also as it’s been mentioned by someone else already, those laws included clauses to make sure if the tips were below minimum wage the employees income earned would be raised to minimum wage.
And as an aside (as I’m sure somebody will mention this), I’m not saying that minimum wage is a living wage.
But that is a different subject than the one that’s being discussed here, the responsibility of customers to tip employees so that they may have a living wage, in lieu of employers paying employees a living wage directly.
I’m talking about the past, not the current situation.
Versus how is always worked before?
Because there is consensus on that, it was a very straightforward rule.
The vast majority of people had living wages back then.
The article is saying “before” as in “before the changes that happened because of COVID”. I don’t know when the inflection point was where we shifted to shit wages for traditionally tipped jobs, but it was many many years ago. When COVID hit we were not giving living wages to servers.
The article is saying “before” as in “before the changes that happened because of COVID”.
During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic
But now that we are out about and back to normal, the custom of tipping for just about everything has somehow remained;
No. Tipping culture 100% existed before COVID. This isn’t an opinion. It’s well documented. You are either willfully ignorant or a troll. This discourse has run its course.
This discourse has run its course.
“So shall it be written, so shall it be done.” /waveshandsabout
I’ve contemplated not tipping altogether, already thought it was stupid. Your paycheck should not depend on someone’s charity.
“Etiquette expert” whatd do they do? Just going about yelling at people for doing things a different way. “YOURE SUPPOSED TO HAVE YOUR PINKY UP WHILE DRINKING TEA!!!”
That was last year, now it is an offence if you have your pinky up…You HAVE TO STAY UP TO DATE, MAN!!!
This is exactly why we need the expert!
Ah dang I missed a few episodes of etiquette news.
Ah, nevermimd… Just got the info a few minutes ago, it’s mandatory again.
Missed it while I was powdering my nose.
it’s not your waiter’s fault that they’re stuck in a scam on the scale of a whole culture
Is it mine?
yea
Ah… My bad :(
It is of you decide they can starve over it.
When sustainable wage ain’t the minimum wage tipping ain’t a reward for good service, it’s the wage earner’s solidarity tax.
It’s not the fault of the employer who’s underpaying them?
It can be multiple people’s fault at once. You’re still the one stiffing them until the law makes their employers pay them fairly, don’t like it, don’t use the services.
Tipping is depending on the kindness of strangers. Don’t like it, don’t get a job that requires tips to survive.
If you don’t want to tip then don’t ask for the service of tipped workers and get pissy that they ask for a crumb of solidarity while the fight for a living wage remains ongoing.
Don’t like tipping, go grocery shopping for your food and cook for your own selfish ass self.
Goes both ways. Don’t like it if a person decides not to tip, which is well within their rights? Get a different job rather than continuing to support an industry that’s exploiting your labor even more than most do.
It is of you decide they can starve over it.
Wanting them to work somewhere with they are paid fairly does not equate to that you have no problem with them starving.
It does when you don’t tip them.
No, it doesn’t.
You can wish the best for them, and want them to have a happy and healthy life, and not tip them when they don’t do anything deserving of a tip.
Deserve ain’t the metric when they’re being paid below a living wage.
You’re arguing they should provide five star service and suck your dick to “deserve” not needing to choose between heating and electricity that month.
Deserve ain’t the metric when they’re being paid below a living wage.
The two are not connected though either.
You’re arguing they should provide five star service and suck your dick to “deserve” not needing to choose between heating and electricity that month.
No, I’m not. Please don’t put words in my mouth, especially emotionally hyperbolic ones.
Cool cool cool - so we have the solution. After everyone who got bamboozled to work a job without compensation starved the tip crisis is over. Problem solved; just wait it out.
A waiter isn’t going to starve because I didn’t tip them.
gtfo with that solidarity tax bullshit lol
And whose fault is it at the Self-Checkout?
And the cashier at 7/11?
In some states, like mine, someone working for tips is not getting paid minimum wage. So if you don’t tip the waiter, then they could be worse off than a cashier at 7-11 who makes minimum wage.
There is no state in the union where a tipped employee can make less than minimum wage
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-29/subtitle-B/chapter-V/subchapter-A/part-531/subpart-D
Ideally yes. There are laws, sure. However, in the real world, it doesn’t work that way. In my state, there is a different minimum wage for tipped workers. Back when it affected me personally, it was $2.85 when the minimum wage was $7.25. Now it’s like $10 and $14.
And yes, if the tipped employee doesn’t meet a minimum wage then the employer is supposed to make that up. How often that happens though, I’ve never seen it. And what is an underpaid employee supposed to do? Sue a chain restaurant with all the money they don’t have? Get a pro bono lawyer willing to waste months of their time to help recover the difference of like $300?
I get the altruism, and the simple satisfaction from pointing to laws to try to disprove a person who experienced things in real life. But at some point in your life, you should learn that the real world doesn’t work by pointing to a rule book and crying foul when someone breaks the rules.
deleted by creator
Employers must make up the difference if the employee makes less than the federal minimum wage if they don’t make it with tips included is what they’re saying.
deleted by creator
I’ve never been asked for a tip on the PayPad at a 7/11
My waiter probably prefers tipping culture because they make a hell of a lot more than they would otherwise. If not, it’s their fault they chose their job.
they might, but not every waiter gets rewarded with a “good shift”. the system is bad.
But not every shift is a bad shift. That’s why tipped staff wants to stay tipped staff.
If every shift is a bad shift, they should reconsider their job
