Choosing Beggars

Honestly fuck the American tipping culture in general.

I stopped going to a restaurant after the employees said I was a shitty person for not tipping a girl who walked the food to my car $5. It was a $15 order. All she did was walk 50 feet. I get $10 an hour to break my back all day. Fuck you.

Well then if $5 is as good as zero, then you'll get zero.

Service people: "I hate when customers stiff me on a tip or leave a really lousy one."

Me: "Ok, let's eliminate/discourage tipping then and just factor a percentage increase into the item prices on the menu instead."

Service people: "No way, I'll make less money that way!"

You can't win, man. I've tried to argue with them before. They get one table in a blue moon with added gratuity plus somebody who tips really well on top and they don't want to let that go. Bartenders are especially contentious about giving up tipping because whale drunks subsidize their entire paycheck.

Essentially, they want all the upside of guilting people into leaving a bigger tip without the downside of occasionally getting somebody who decided that the price on the menu is exactly what they're going to pay when the bill comes.

This is a big problem with the growing popularity of service fees. Instead of raising wages employers are adding service fees to push labor costs on to the customer; which is already what tipping is. So, they raise the cost of goods for more profits, add service fees to increase wages without increasing labor costs, and then the customer has to decide if they're going to top or not. It's a hell of a decision because the worker and the customer are both already getting fucked, and the customer then has to decide which one of them is gonna get a little more fucked than the other.

Ask your damn employer for a living wage, not the customer.

Tipping is a way to take any tension between the employee and the business owner, and between the customer and the business owner, and make it between the employee and the customer.

I live in Australia. If you ask for a tip here you will be fired or told to fuck off.

the real argument should be "TIPPED WAGE ISNT A REAL WAGE"

This shit is still happening, yet people are still complaining about the restaurant industry crumbling.

Where I live, there isn't a separate minimum wage for servers, bartenders, etc. Minimum wage is minimum wage across the board. Despite this, tips are still expected because of the US, and certain people complain that the new normal should be 30%.

I'm not broke, but I'm also certainly not rich. If the only options are to throw away money to people earning about the sams amount that I make, or not going at all, I'm not going. I'll tip well for good/decent service, but an attitude like the one in this post would guarantee that I would never return. I work too hard for my money to be obligated to give it away.

I've seen so many articles about Millenials/Gen Z killing various industries. They want us to pay for all of these extras, but with what money? Of COURSE a lot people are going to eventually stop going to these places. Places that tend to have this general attitude close pretty quickly in my city, because there are many places that don't have that attitude, and are also inviting to customers. Those places get the tips.

I'll tip a complete stranger before I ever tip someone for being snitty.

Y'all need to unionize.

People need to learn to yell at their boss, not the customer, to get more money in their pocket.

It's not tipping culture, it's underpayment culture.

IMHO It's psychological trickery to make customers pay more under threat of making them feel like a bad person. It cleverly shifts costs from business owner to customer.

As in contrast stands asking proper price for well done job. Getting people loyal by quality thus positively motivating them to pay the higher prices.

just an FYI if you didn't drive my food to me or you didn't serve me dinner as a waiter or waitress you're not getting a fucking tip

One of the unsung reasons that Americans eat so much fast food is because, somehow, the tip crap didn't get into that business model (yet), so if you have $8 for lunch and the McValue Meal costs $7.50 you have lunch money and change coming back, end of story. No tipping, no percentages, no shaming, just buy your food like a regular item and go. It would seem like every place outside the US acts like that, so no wonder we love McDonald's and shit.

Knock wood and touch brass for luck that it stays that way. I am not tipping at Taco Bell.

I... I think I just managed to actually quit nicotine over this shit. The vape shop suddenly had a tip setup starting in 2020, and the clerk had to push some sort of button to get past me putting "no tip" into the screen, because absolutely not. Now I've stopped, and that's one less tip screen in my face.

I've been following inflation and wage growth closely, too. Wage growth has leveled off, inflation is slowly, begrudgingly coming down. Cash money says these tip screens aren't going away, no matter what.

don't forget the whole tipping before you even get what you ordered thing. all you did was take my order.

A TIP IS NOT A WAGE!

$5 on a $30 meal is absolutely a tip. A pretty decent one at that (roughly 15%).

I tend to over-tip (20%+), but we also don't go out all that often and I am only tipping wait-staff and barbers. None of this other new bullshit about take-out orders or anything like that.

Here's the real tip

If you don't like the tip I give you, get a better job.

Tips are for going beyond what is expected of your job. You did more than the bare minimum, and beyond what you were paid for.

The door dash driver that dropped my unwrapped utensils on the ground next to my order, and placed the bag next to my door so I'd smack it when I went outside to grab it - he does not get a tip.

The Uber eats lady that drove past my front door and made me meet her a 1/4 mile down the road - she doesn't get a tip either.

If your job is to sit behind the counter, and take or make my order, I'm sorry there isn't much opportunity for you to go above and beyond. But that's not my problem

I burst out laughing when the cashier at my grocery store spun the tablet around for a tip

I live in a culture where tipping is not expected. For most of my life, there really wasn't a way to tip, unless perhaps when paying in cash. Which almost nobody has done in decades.

If I got shitty service, I would tell the management. I don't remember ever having to do that. It turns out that people can behave without people waving a bunch of bills in front of their eyes.

I almost never tip. It's the employer's responsibility to pay the employees, not the customer's.

Maybe we all should stop going to restaurants. Seriously, do we really need it? We can cook at home or buy refrigerated meals in the supermarket if someone really can't cook... Just until the industry collapses. Maybe what rises from its ashes will value the workers more...

But probably won't.

What I really don't understand is Australian restaurants adding a tip area on the bills.

Seriously, fuck off. Your already gouing us on the price. I'm never supporting or participating in a tipping system in this country ever.

Now do the "round up for charity" and other solicitations to donate to some corporations pet charity at checkout.

It's been a few years since I worked in the service industry (bar) in Canada. Tipping was never really controversial. Some didn't like it, most tipped, even if it was the bare minimum of their change.

Whatever. You'd complain to your co workers occasionally, call someone a cheap bastard and that'd be the end of it.

I never saw much of this "$1 is not..." and so forth entitlement. Seeing this I'd just assume you were fuckong awful at your job. Canadians typically will tip just fine for good service and leave nickles for shit.

Enjoy the nickle.

But, all that aside, a livable wage and the eliminating of shit like living on your tips needs to end. It should have never been the case or wait staff would be working on full commission.