I’d rather eat a frozen pizza and drink beer in the basement for 1/6th the price.
Waiter deals with the general public. They deserve it
I work with multi million dollar companies in an office. Companies are people.
Why no tip? I do job
I mean, they deserve to make a liveable wage regardless of whether someone tips.
I only tip when I think they deserve a tip. I tipped the last meal I ate out. Nice person who checked every few minutes if we needed anything else. They kept our drinks from getting empty. The service was worth the tip so they got it. That is what the tip is for. Good service, not any service.
checked every few minutes
god damn, i would get annoyed from that much service.
She just walked by and checked. We were not the only table getting that kind of service. She only stopped when she saw a glass getting empty or when she saw we had finished the meal.
Fully agree with this but the problem is that restaurant owners pay their staff shit
Give proper wages to servers and the tipping can be history
MA had a ballot initiative that would have gradually brought the minimum tipped wage in line with the state’s minimum wage over the next 5 years or something.
Restaurants posted signs at their door to vote NO and that 90 percent of tipped workers opposed the bill.
A bartender I know told me that I should vote no because if it passed then restaurants would have to reduce headcount and servers who were bad at their jobs would get paid just as well as servers that offer good service.
So it seems like the restaurants just threatened people with losing their jobs and so they voted NO and convinced others to do the same.
The measure didn’t pass.
Yeah all of that is what is known in the business as propaganda. The more money you have the more propaganda you can put out and restaurant businesses have a lot of spare money because they don’t pay their workers shit.
I waited tables for years. (I was good at it, and even helped train everyone at a new restaurant.) Hourly pay would have definitely lowered my wage, but it’s still better than tipping. It’d be cool to get hourly wage, or even commission, so that your pay isn’t based on people’s whims.
servers who were bad at their jobs would get paid just as well as servers that offer good service.
(Note: I use the general “you” a lot. You’re just repeating what someone else said, I assume you don’t have any wait staff working for you personally.) You can fire people for being bad at their jobs. Why do you have bad staff working for you, tips or no? How about: Unattractive people will get paid just as well as traditionally attractive people. Minorities will get paid just as well as whites. Your salary doesn’t hinge on whether you can sneak extra stuff to your tables without your boss finding out or putting up with sexual harassment. Salary means that my paycheck comes from the restaurant and I don’t have to try to balance the interests of the people paying me against the restaurant.
I believe I’m a somewhat generous tipper.
Just today I rounded up a 23 up to 25. Euros that is. And I’m in Finland.
This is considered a generous tip, most don’t tip at all.
When I drove a taxi basically if I had a shift on Christmas eve, then I’d get tips. Otherwise it was like at most 3-5% of riders who gave tips. And this was back in oughts, when people actually used cash. (I literally never had someone tip me on a card when driving a taxi.)
I also don’t tip
Because I don’t go to restaurants with servers
I vote with my wallet that the whole concept is stupid, I hate paying 20% for someone to be fake nice and move food 10 feet
They should be replaced with automated mechanical food shuttles. I would tip those.
Why would you tip those?
How else do you plan to knock them over?
he tips his fedora
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This is the way. By going but not tipping you’re just fucking over the server, not the business. To hurt the business’ bottom line you have to not go. Or dine and dash, but that then fucks the server harder while also affecting the business.
That why they said they don’t go to restaurants with servers. Either go to a restaurant where you buy food at a counter and bus yourself, or go to a tipless resturant with servers. Obviously don’t just screw over the server.
Though, on a large scale, if everyone just stopped tipping all at once, nobody would be willing to work for server wages anymore, and restaurants would have to increase pay or get fucked. Too bad our economy is based on fighting for survival, and not the profit motive, because the reality is that it would just fuck people’s lives up really bad.
And I was agreeing, thus starting the comment with “that is the way,” which I’m assuming you missed.
And sure, and I’m assuming you mean more than $7.25, but there’d be a lot of missed rent and power bills along the way until they catch up.
What about dine and dash, while leaving a cash tip?
It’s not exactly legal, but a lot of places will charge the server for a done and dash.
Hmm, what about fake checks? Surely there’s an angle here where the server isn’t punished, I don’t go to jail, and the restaurant takes a hit.
There’s a good chance the restaurant will take it all since they were “owed”.
9/10 chance that goes to cover part of your bill and the waiter gets fucked, but if you could guarantee they pocket it that’d work.
Hmm, maybe slip it to them when asking for the bill?
Sure, that might work, or give it to them up front (protip btw, you want GREAT service? Frontload that tip, your server will break the law for you if you do that lol).
That’ll get them fired for looking like they conspired with you
you’re just in a different income class. nothing wrong with that.
but people with the money to burn tend to prefer enjoying nicer things, such as personal service, so they pay for it.
I’d pay people to fuck off and not talk to me.
I see “personal service” as an annoyance.
How would you know that, they didn’t say what their income is. They said they were voting with their wallet, not that they couldn’t afford to do it.
If you live in a place where food service workers are underpaid and you don’t tip, you’re an asshole. This is not a morally defensible stance unless there is a system to protect those workers already in place.
You’re correct. Their wage is often ~$3/hr. It’s nearly slave labor.
They’re not employed by me. Wages are between them and their boss. Any more from anywhere else should not be treated as anything other than the optionally-given gift it is.
Tipping culture essentially amounts to legalized wage discrimination.
You’re right. I should just not go there at all, watch the business collapse, and see them beg for jobs at the next shitty restaurant. That’s the better option apparently?
Yes
That is the high road tbh… plus you can just go to joints that not require tipping. They are on the rise.
Also, many places just slap 20% now anyway… so we are in some clown reality where it is now a service fee and owner can just take it because they pay minwage lol
Peasants can never win here.
While I’m totally for the workers being paid great, it’s not really MY job to do so (unless i own the restaurant I’m eating at. And at those the waiters are paid way above average and don’t need tips). Here we tip for excellent service, not the bare minimum to get my food on the table.
If you tip to pay salaries, YOU are the actual asshole that keeps a system alive that is the absolute dogshit in dystopian shitholes with no worker-rights like the US.
And you think the customer is the asshole because the system works.
No, it’s because their manager who manages the business(hypothetically) isn’t paying them.
I tip if I order food at a sitdown place out of habit and social pressure. Maybe my ignorance is the problem in the world but, I don’t understand how I could feel the service went above or beyond handing me a bag if all they do is hand me a bag.
Just like groceries don’t include tax in the advertised price. the system is designed to screw us over.
Just like groceries don’t include tax in the advertised price.
Nah, that’s just in America, because Americans are dumb. Tipping doesn’t exist here BTW, because it’s idiotic and why would we do that.
(if Americans aren’t dumb, why did they vote for Trump twice?)
(I finally found an upside to the Trump presidency!)
Almost 70 million people voted against him, myself included. We’re not a monolith. Also, only 11 states tax groceries.
Americans are dumb af. Source: am American
Tipping doesn’t exist here BTW, because it’s idiotic
Idk where “here” is, but I’ve seen plenty of foreign countries’s restaurants adopting tipping, particularly at higher end establishments, as business owners realize they can just ask for extra and get it.
American culture is still seen as something to emulate in many parts of the world. Hopefully less so after the next four years. We’ve had the same stupid tipping culture emerge here as well - seems like a sign that taxes aren’t high enough at the top end.
American culture is still seen as something to emulate in many parts of the world. Hopefully less so after the next four years.
We used to export our culture to our satraps in Mexico and Germany and Japan and Korea. But now we tend to import more than we export.
I don’t see this as cultural though. It’s just a money thing. People ask because they know their customers will say yes. That’s all there is to if
Canadians do tip as well, and you can’t blame Trumpets for that 😁
Australians don’t tip, and Canadians are just Americans with a French accent.
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It pits the well being of the customer against the well being of the server. It’s a pretty evil system. Pay everyone a living wage. Everybody deserves to live.
To be fair, no products sold (that I’m aware of) include tax on the sticker price, and here in TX groceries (unprepared food) are not subject to state sales tax.
Exactly.
The reason, from my understanding, is that taxes on products can vary from region to region, so it’s impractical to expect the store to have the price listed with the sales tax included, especially on advertisements. The sales tax in my state can vary by 1% or so between cities/counties, and advertisements are frequently at the state level, if not national level. My next door city has a 0.10% lower sales tax rate vs my city, and the resort area in the county has 1.5% higher sales tax than the rest of the county.
Food is taxed at a different rate, and the tax is split about 50/50 between state and local. Our state has been discussing ending the tax on food, but that would only end the state portion (1.75%), so the local tax (1.25% pretty much everywhere) would remain.
AFAIK, Europe includes it because it’s imposed at the government level (I think EU?), not the local level.
I still think it’s dumb, and it should at least be on the price stickers in the store so I can have a chance at estimating the final bill before I get to the register.
Replace waiter with “CEO” and you begin to understand why socialists believe what they do
*Manages the business, pretty sure that is their actual job, but…
I believe in socialism because the lions share of value should be returned to those who exerted the majority of effort, not the inverse, which is the stupid system we have now
Yeah. Co-ops of sufficient size have CEOs it’s just that the workers are the board
While I agree with you - who can say which workers exert the majority of effort?
By the amount of physical effort - sure, blue collar workers do the most. But this effort is also easy to find from others - everyone can do unskilled labor. So should they receive a lion’s share of the company profits just because, what? They managed to get hired?
By the amount of admin, maybe it should be IT or HR or some similar department. Without them, you wouldn’t be efficient. Without them you’d never be able to expand. But they don’t work on the actual product, they’re just there for the ride and would be doing the same thing for any other business.
Should it be sales? Engineers? Security? All these categories have the same pluses and minuses going for them.
And now let’s say I start a small business. I go through the trouble of being good enough in my field to come up with a product or service that people will like. I invest my own money into this small business, and I sometimes don’t get paid so I can afford to pay my suppliers. I have months where I cut electricity at home so I can keep it on in the office. I fight the beaurocracy of the state, with its million forms I have to fill in and it’s million hoops I have to jump through. And this business takes off, and I finally make enough to have it be worth it. And you’re telling me I should share with the others? With everyone else who hasn’t put as much as me on the line, but now wants to be part of the success? Motherfucker I will cut you.
Or let’s say I don’t keep the company, I sell it. It goes to some conglomerate who keeps it functioning but installs a new CEO to cut costs and streamline processes. Are you telling me they paid me tens of millions of dollars for the company just so that they can share the profit with the workers? So that they can take directions from them? From the workers, who paid nothing? Who offered nothing in exchange for the rights to the business? Fuck, I’m taking you to the parking lot and breaking your kneecaps with a baseball bat, where the fuck do you even get the balls?
Or let’s say I go public. I sell shares, and people buy them. A lot of people invest a lot of money into the company, and want to get their money back. You’re telling me that when I turn a profit and decide to share it, I shouldn’t give dividends and reward the shareholders who believed in me - instead I should reward the workers who’ve been getting paid all this time, who’ve been risk-free in this enterprise, who’ve been profiting whether I go up or go under? Eat shit and die.
There is no universe where workers, who are staking nothing in a company, should get rewarded over those who have a financial stake in it.
Your comment is weirdly aggressive and is entirely predicated on the idea that we can’t have any economic system other than the one where the ownership class and the working class are distinct.
The whole point of workers owning the means of production is that they will take on the risk as well as the reward. The belief in that idea conjoins with the belief that it shouldn’t be possible to profit from the labour of others purely because you have money to start with. It’s conjunctive with the belief that the investor class is surplus to requirements.
An argument against this is, how would we maintain productivity if no wealthy people were investing in new businesses or in reviving dying ones? There are entire industries that exist only to feed into this machine. This system, that claims to be only motivated by increasing productivity to increase profits, is only putting the brakes on human advancement and betterment of our quality of life. Advertising is, by many measures, the largest industry in the world. So much talent and effort is exerted on how best to sell people a product they don’t need, an art form mostly now perfected to convince us we can’t live without these things, all in the name of profit.
I’m not well read enough to say that I definitely believe that the world would be better if we enforced worker co-ops. There’s so many other ways things could go wrong. I do think you need to open your mind to the fact that the systems we have in place exist only due to opportunism of those who came before us.
Your comment is weirdly aggressive
Yeah, sorry about that. I was imagining myself in those situations and offering my own reply to the supposed request of someone different taking the credit for my own hard work, while not taking any of the risks.
I feel like enough attempts and takes have been had at workers owning the means of production, by all communist states that have existed. And since they all had the inherent flaw that they are ran and populated by humans, they all end up in corrupt enterprises where there are still just a few sitting at the top, while the masses are fighting for scraps. Arguably the best implementation of it would probably be coops, but the people managing the coop are as susceptible to corruption as any other and are also likely to end in embezzlement/power trading.
the systems we have in place exist only due to opportunism of those who came before us
Oh, I fully agree. However, I was literally a few months away from being born in a communist state. All my life I heard stories from my parents and grandparents about the small daily injustices they lived through. I’m 100% sure capitalism benefits a handful of people and the rest are suffering - but they’re not suffering more than in communism, I’ll say that much. People aren’t disappearing from the streets if they criticize the CEO of coca cola. They don’t get found years later in a government camp, or in another communist country, or not at all. You don’t need to hide your comments about the head of state in a layer of fable-like obfuscation. You don’t have to worry about if the friends you’re joking around with will rat you out to the government because 1/10 of the population is recruited by the secret police, and even more are collaborators. For what it’s worth, you have these small liberties under capitalism. I was almost on the other side of that line, and it really annoys the shit out of me when I see people who are only arguing in favor of communism from the safety of their capitalism-created life, unaware that if the situation was the opposite and they were a capitalist in a communist country, they couldn’t even dream of making their pro-capitalist thoughts public for fear of their and their family’s life.
Except instead of 25%, it’s 250%.
And the company owners do not walk or have to deal with customers.
It must be hard not knowing even the most basic math. How is this CEO getting more money than I pay for the meal?
Who’s the cheap one in this equation?
… the customer who is paying the owner of the restaurant for the food AND is obligated by social convention to pay extra to the waiter who is underpaid.
or
… the restaurant owner who doesn’t mind living in a world where we have normalized underpaying restaurant workers to the point where we pass down that responsibility to the customer who is already paying for the food.
Pay your workers a proper wage and get rid of the idea of tipping.
I have no problem with tipping, I have a problem with expected tipping.
Waiters should be paid properly and tips should not be expected or even mentioned. If I get exceptional service, I may want to leave a tip. There should be an optional tip section when paying the bill, but no separate screen or list of expected tips (or even percentage calculations) anywhere at all.
Don’t like tipping? Protest the policies by not going to restaurants, dont shove it on the workers who are stuck in the system.
The owner is 100% happy you came to pay him and not the waiter he didnt wanna pay anyway.
Thats one way of looking at it… but if everyone would stop tipping, they would be forced to pay them a living wage or go out of business when all the staff quit. Its actually in the consumers power to effect that change, but only on a mass scale. Unfortunately its an awkward social coercion tactic at play now, which just continues to perpetuate the problem pitting us against each other just as capitalism intends to.
If tips are bad, the worker quits. If sales are bad, the worker is fired and might collect unemployment benefits.
So we don’t need OSHA? We can just let construction workers quit if the contractors make them do dangerous stuff?
Youre a bit oblivious to your privilege. People can’t just quit or yknow, they starve.
How does this form of protest translate into a change of the tipping system?
Yeah this protest only works if there are also another set of restaurants that specifically tell you not to tip that you can give business to. I have been to some but they are very rare where I live.
At this point youre just being disingenuous. There’s a thousand comments in this thread answering that question, and explaining why stiffing the workers doesn’t really affect the owners, or incentivise them to change anything.
Fuck that, there’s federal mandated minimum wage if waiters don’t make enough through tips. You’re a misinformation spreading lunatic. Probably right wing too.
Tipping is fine, but as in “keep the change”, not “we need to change this tipping culture”
And who is hurt by not tipping
The staff member who is likely significantly impoverished…
OR
The business owner who got the $12 he’s charging you for tendies?
The business owner doesn’t give two shits if you tip, they get paid either way and $7.25 an hour per employee is pocket change to them.
Here’s the equation. Restaurants keep food costs low by paying servers next to nothing. If they paid them what they deserve, the cost of your meal would increase.
So by not tipping, you are benefiting from the low cost of food while screwing over the person that has no control over the situation. YTA
If you don’t want to tip, don’t go to a restaurant that has servers.
Now, other places that actually pay a living wage and also have a tip button (ie concession stands at a sporting event) can get fucked.
Except that I’m fine if the cost of my meal increases if they paid their servers what they deserve.
Honestly if you think about it. The cost of your meal going up and the cost of tipping are not different in their end result for the consumer.
The employee still gets the short end because people won’t always tip. Or even show up.
The owner gets the long (?) end because they don’t have to pay their workers a higher wage (very bad if it’s a slow day) and the customers who otherwise wouldn’t have eaten there if the prices were high will still eat there and not tip.
So it really doesn’t effect the consumer at all but it does effect the employee quite a bit for sure.
Same here. I’m just saying don’t protest tipping by not tipping. You’re screwing the wrong person.
Are you suggesting that food prices will go up by more than the cost of the tip tacked on?
Because if not it’s really just more honest pricing, and the same (or reduced) impact on customers, but without having to do math or having the option of being a leech.
If tipping ended and restaurants paid their servers, food prices would go up. That is undeniable.
You are eating at a discount with the expectation that you will pay the owner’s employee for them. Yes, it is unfair and sucks but the one making out like a bandit here is the owner.
So, not tipping is your way of benefiting personally on a discounted meal AND STILL giving the owner money. And the only one you have punished in your equation is a server (the leech???) who is generally living off that tip day to day.
So if you want to make an impact, quit going to restaurants that have tipping as an expectation! That’s it! Otherwise you are just encouraging the owner to keep the status quo!
It’s not a discount if you are expected to pay more to add a tip.
But dude, quit changing the subject, I’m not talking about people not tipping within the current system, never have been, and neither was the person you originally replied to. I’ve worked tipped positions, so I very much understand how they work.
So again, are you suggesting that if we do away with tipping, costs of food would increase by MORE than the present amount of a tip that gets tacked on? Because that’s the only way prices for the end consumer actually meaningfully raise. Most likely they will actually go down overall. Because again you have to pay the tip too.
You are really bad at reading comprehension btw. That, or you are a piss-poor troll and intentionally misrepresenting literally everything… the option to be a leech is the customer, who in the present system can skip the tip. Like a leech.
Also, there aren’t any restaurants around me that scrapped tipping, not a single fucking one within at least an hour of where I live, so your suggestion is impossible for me and very privileged.
Here’s another part of the equation, the owner gets enough of a share of the business profit where they can buy a new house, expand to multiple locations, buy new cars, etc.
The extra couple bucks an hour per employee is a tiny drop in the cost pool per business operational hour compared to that. They could perfectly well keep prices the same without paying sub-minimum wages by taking a smaller cut themselves.
So by not tipping, you are benefiting from the low cost of food while screwing over the person that has no control over the situation. YTA
Customers aren’t the assholes for the failures of the restaurant industry, just as customers aren’t the assholes for the refusal of the federal government to ensure restaurant workers are paid a living wage.
Customers who don’t tip are not the enemy.
*artificially low cost of food
The owner is evil, but anyone who doesn’t tip a waiter that earns too little to be able to afford to live is an asshole.
Here’s a tip: that waiter should unionize.
You heard it here folks, it’s just that easy. Unionize today! I’m sure there is a well established Union already in your area ready to take you on and fight for you and your $15 a month in dues! Go gettem, tiger.
Of all the reasons I’ve seen for why people struggle to unionize, I have never seen anyone suggest that unions don’t want members.
It’s not that they don’t want members, it’s that people assume all unions are massive machines capable of turning your life around in a second, where in reality most of them will give you some legal packets so you know your rights, and a pat on the back if you take your employer to court. There isn’t a large restaurant union in my city, just a few small ones that are focused on single businesses. We all have to start somewhere, but just up and joining a small union isn’t going to help when the owner of the business can just let you go and hire someone else who isn’t unionized.
Sorry for the downvotes. Lemmy users can be remarkably shitty
As someone who works in the service industry, this is the argument that I see all the time. “We aren’t going to subsidize your wage because your owner is an asshole.” Weird, you have no problem being a patron of his establishment. Do you think that your refusal to tip somehow hurts him? Because it doesn’t. It only hurts the staff. My argument always has and always will be that we increase the cost of menu items by 18% and then split that additional 18% with the staff. However, that idea always falls flat with the owner because, “We’ll be the most expensive restaurant in town. No one will come here.” Which is a valid concern. And so, we are at an impasse. He can’t afford to pay me what I’m worth, and he can’t increase the cost of the menu or he’ll outprice his customers, and I can’t quit because it’s not better at any other restaurant. In the end, in any direction, the customer is going to pay more, either as a tip, or just for the cost of the food, or they’ll pay with worse service because the experienced staff can’t afford to work there anymore. Refusing to tip isn’t a protest, it’s just being cheap and making yourself feel better about it. If tipping went away, prices would have to increase, and either way, the buck stops with the consumer. Want to eat cheaper? Cook at home. I’m sure you’ll be just as good as any of your favorite restaurants with their specialized equipment and cooks with a decade of experience.
I hope all you downvoters have something of value to contribute… Oh, no, you’re just downvoting to show your solidarity with the rest of the cheap-os? Ok, enjoy your meal.
So… If i read this correctly… The net difference is zero? Except when I’m being an asshole and I dont tip.
So in the end, this boils down to offering the option of being an asshole to your customers.
As an european I always find this discussion weird. And when visiting stateside I never really can “gauge” what I should tip. Am i in a joint which underpays the server? Is (s)he fine? Is 10% enough? More? Should i just make it whole? I just never know. I sometimes even have resorted to just bluntly ask the server or a patron what is customary. (my weird accent helps getting an honest answer)
It’s quite honestly a shit fest. There is an amount on the billl… But that isnt the real amount, except when you’re an asshole. And if you over tip you’re still an asshole, just a stupid one, and if you’re undertip you’re also an asshole.
Come to think about it: it really boils down to which kind of asshole do you want to be.
It’s a VAT, but it’s a choose your own VAT, and it’s based on what the service is worth to you. The customary amount is 20%, but a lot of people go between 15% and 20%, with my average take home being around 13% because of the people that don’t tip. So, choose your VAT. In the end, when adjusted for the cost of living, eating out in the EU is about the same as eating out in the US and adding a tip. The tip is just already included in the meal cost. If we could all agree to do that in the US, then it would be fine, but we can’t, so it isn’t done. It’s part of the establishment at this point, and change is something hard to sort out across 330 Million people all at once.
Only thing that stands out to me is the percentages you’ve listed. I was always taught (and most of my peers seem to have been as well) that the normal tip for average service was 15%. Poor service (that is in the waiter’s control) gets 10%, and good/great is 18-22% (but usually 20%).
I was born in the early 90s if it makes a difference.
It used to be that way, but now standard is 20%.
I was also taught that egregious service (like bigoted remarks from the waitstaff or getting told to go fuck yourself) gets 1¢ to assure you aren’t just someone who doesn’t tip
Varies regionally. For example, San Francisco techies should be tipping 20% (for typical sitdown service).
No idea why you’re being downvoted so much, you’re absolutely on point for US restaurants. I’ve served in them, I’ve managed them (still didn’t fucking get paid doing that)
And this press the union button bullshit above is insane. Restaurants have like a 5% success rate already, if they can just yeet entire Starbucks/Walmart locations on a whim, how the fuck do you guys think that’s going to go with a restaurant?
Unionizing may be the best route, but we have to stop pretending it’s a walk in the park to do.
I’m getting downvoted by the same people who think that it’s OK to pirate all the current running TV shows and movies. Everyone is selfish, everyone wants it for free.
I don’t know why you’re downvoted, it’s the average decent opinion: the pay has to be somewhere, either fixed in the prices or in decent tips.
Makes me glad I live in a state that got rid of the tipped minimun and just has one across the board minimum wage.
I’m so sad we voted against it. Legalizing magic mushrooms had more support than making tipped minimum wage the same as normal minimum wage.
Fellow mass-hole! Felt the same way, even our allegedly liberal Governor came out against both. I talked to servers and bartenders who thought they’d make a lot less money, or their restaurant would go out of business if it passed. Presumably because the owners told them so.
Tipping is bullshit. Restaurants should pay their workers properly. But I’m not gonna punish the server for that. She has zero control over that.
If I can’t afford to tip then I just don’t go to the restaurant. People would prefer to make up excuses for why they don’t wanna tip and how that doesn’t make them an asshole while taking huge huffs of their own farts. If you don’t like the tipping culture just go to a fast food restaurant or make your own food. Why is everybody such whiney bitches about everything?
Drag never tips while eating out.
Drag also lives in a country with a livable minimum wage and no tipping culture.
Well yeah, if you live in a country where they make a decent amount so that tipping isn’t necessary for them to be able to eat that day then of course you shouldn’t have to tip. That’s the way it should be everywhere. But in many countries like the US this isn’t the case, and tipping has been used as a way for restaurants to pay next to nothing to employ people and the servers are at the mercy of kindness from the people serving them. Lots of these people think that they should just be slaves that serve them for free and justify it by blaming the restaurant, which is just shifting responsibility and making weak excuses for being entitled and cheap.
Drag remembers being a pre-teen with little understanding of the world, and going onto internet forums. Drag would sometimes take advice from Americans, who felt very strongly about what they were saying, and then get in trouble because that’s not how we do things here. The Americans didn’t clarify their advice was only for Americans. And drag was just a kid, so drag didn’t know any better. It’s not like drag made an account and commented, drag was just reading what a bunch of supposedly wise adults had to say about life and the world.
where does drag live?
A small Asian country
Can you just not tip? We live in a tipping society too, but tipping is just goodwill. Like if your waiter is really nice, and the whole thing was 115 dollars, you might give him 120 and he can keep the difference. Sometimes just a roundup, fromm 5.60 to 6 bucks or something. But it’s not expected.
Presumably, your country pays its servers a living wage so they don’t have to scrape by on tips. This has been the state of the US labor market in most non-fast food restaurants for decades:
A tipped employee engages in an occupation in which he or she customarily and regularly receives more than $30 per month in tips. An employer of a tipped employee is only required to pay $2.13 per hour in direct wages if that amount combined with the tips received at least equals the federal minimum wage [$7.25 per hour]. If the employee’s tips combined with the employer’s direct wages of at least $2.13 per hour do not equal the federal minimum hourly wage, the employer must make up the difference. Many states, however, require higher direct wage amounts for tipped employees.
If you don’t like the tipping culture just go to a fast food restaurant or make your own food.
You know in other countries there’s restaurants that specialize in different dishes. They make stuff that you might not know how to make. They make stuff in bulk that’s hard to make to-order. There’s a lot of reasons why you might eat out rather than make it yourself.
Tipping isn’t essential to this place. If you specialize in making pigs feet and you open a pig feet restaurant, you can charge people whatever you want them to pay for your pigs feet, and if they want it they pay it. But if you expect to hire waitstaff to do all the customer service, you better pay them a fair portion of what you’re charging customers. Giving them pennies and then telling customers “Oh just pay the help whatever you want, it’s extra” is just fucking evil. But instead of one shitty business model drying out, it became the norm in only your country.
Yet another case of a stupid american not understanding how the world works outside of america… no vision of how things could work otherwise. Just arrogance and contempt.
I don’t live in the US bro. But this post is obviously about tipping culture in the US. This is not an issue in other parts of the world where tipping isn’t expected so that the servers aren’t getting starvation wages.
Customers are NOT punishing staff by refusing to tip.
Our school teachers all did a great job at getting us to blame other students when when one student did something bad, and the teacher punished all of us for it. My teachers did this gaslighting bullshit many times when I was in school. And now a whole new generation of adults are perpetuating the cycle. But it’s wrong.
The restaurant owner is the one to blame for poor wages. The owner will say that the restaurant cannot afford to stay open otherwise. This is probably true. Many – if not most – restaurants in america cannot afford to exist unless they effectively steal wages from their workers. We either need legislation to fix this, or we need to let these restaurants die.
He is the one to blame lol, we all agree.
When you go to the restaurant, pay the food (owner) but not the waiter, you are playing right into the owners game (who is to blame).
So congrats on supporting the assholes creating this economic problem (they can’t run a profitable business). Next youre going to tell me human traffickers are the assholes buuut people should just stopped getting trafficked and leave, so that human trafficking stops being a thing. Because power dynamics have nothing to do with this of course.
So you hate the tipping culture but also hate people who want it abolished. That’s just beyond stupid.
No, I hate the people who say they want it abolished and use that as an excuse to not pay their waiters. I made it plainly clear in my explanation, I honestly don’t know how to dumb it down for you anymore man.
Lol yeah the “I went to the restaurant but didn’t tip to teach everyone a lesson” is the same as “I voted for the third party to teach everyone a lesson.”
No, you gave the restaurant owner their profit and the employee nothing. You helped no one, you taught no lessons, and if we could harness your mental gymnastics as physical gymnastics we would have infinite renewable energy.
Since a lot of places require the employees be paid at least minimum wage including tips, it would impact the owner directly and immediately…if everyone stopped tipping.
Keyword if, if everyone voted third party they’d win too, the rub is “that isn’t going to happen.”
Furthermore, so everyone doesn’t tip, now that employer has to pay the guy a whole $43.50 for the day, the employer barely notices and the waiter chooses whether to pay his power bill or his water bill this month.
I HATE EVERYONE
Like not tipping is going to abolish anything. You walk in, pay the owner and leave the worker hanging. Why would the owner care?
It’s not like all the waiters can stay home waiting for something to change, people gotta live. Stop going to restaurants if you don’t want to tip
To be fair, that’s not the actual alternative for the waiter. The waiter either accepts their income as it is with some people not providing a tip, or they can opt for other employment like the rest of the workforce that isn’t tipped. They don’t have to sit at home waiting for things to change like helpless puppies.
I’m in California though so we don’t have any of that wage fuckery where they can be paid less than minimum wage if tips make up a significant portion of their income. It’s $17.55 hour minimum plus tips where I’m at.
I’d really rather see tipping outlawed along with all other obscured fees and just pay what you need to pay to have waiters and charge what you need to charge to have a business transparently printed on the menu.
Ahh yes other employment! How come nobody ever thought of that… Just get another job of course. Taxi driver don’t like their wage? Why dont they change jobs. Improper ppe? Just quit. Minimum wage at mcdonalds not livable? Change jobs bro. Bad / dangerous working conditions? You know it… Change jobs! Why do we even bother with oversight like OSHA when all construction workers need is to change jobs when things arent properly done. Contractors will figure it out eventually! California should do away with their pesky wage rules,“to be fair” they aren’t necessary, workers won’t be sitting at home waiting for it.
It’s so ridiculous of an answer ill go back to arguing with those who think they shouldn’t tip. We’d all prefer to see it outlawed.
Don’t like the country you’re in? Just move! Homeless? Just quit being poor bro. Addicted to drugs? Just quit! Have ADHD? Just pay more attention in class (thanks mom, that never occurred to me. Heavy eyeroll.)
It boggles the mind how someone can dismiss the legislation that enables the exact scenario the person they replied to described. Yes, the best solution is to have a reasonable minimum wage that isn’t modified by tips. Then you don’t have to leave your job, because they have to follow the law.
…or did you not bother reading past the first sentence?
Why do you hate me for not wanting to tip, and not the employer who does not want to pay a living wage to it’s worker because the law does not oblige him to.
Why do you blame me and not the government who regulated the law to allow rich people to become more rich by having part of their salary expenses covered by the public?
This is a perfect example of privatizing the profits and socializing the losses
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You really showed me now, huh? Shame, I actually really thought you were the kind of person to clash viewpoints with and come out with something constructive after.
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Who hurt you?
Why do you assume the waiter is a she?
my guess is cuz the server in the Reservoir Dogs clip this is referencing is a she
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This could’ve been an “oops, you’re right- corrected, thanks.” But instead you got weird about it
Nah, the people who are hyper focused on the gender of the server as opposed to their actual quality of life in these situations are the weird ones.
Lol no u
Exactly, gender isn’t important. You could have done the convenient thing and they/themed the imaginary waiter. Why did you choose to go to the effort of assigning a gender when gender has nothing to do with your point?
Because it doesn’t actually matter what gender I used so I went with she and didn’t put much thought into it. I didn’t think people would be so soft headed as to actually give a shit because it isn’t relevant to the point at all. If I had said “he” nobody would have given a shit, something is wrong with y’all.
It’s not an attack, you don’t need to get so defensive. It just stood out to me.
Because serving is a female dominated industry where I am I guess?
So you’re maginalizating male service workers now? Are they less important?
Nobody is less important to me than you and your dumb ass opinion on the genders of waiters that has absolutely zero bearing on the point getting made.
This place is just as toxic as reddit lol, it was a valid question.
Edit: and before people get confused by my username, I haven’t been back to reddit since the day RIF stopped working.
Reminds me of that episode of Scrubs, where Dr Cox was going around with a tip jar, because if a guy pouring coffee gets a tip, he should get one from the people whose lives he saved.
“Why tip someone for a job I’m capable of doing myself? I can deliver food, I can drive a taxi, I can and do cut my own hair. I did, however, tip my urologist. Because I am unable to pulverize my own kidney stones.” -Dwight Schrute, “The Office”
