10mo ago

Tipping culture npcs

673 comments

Americans be like; “If you can’t afford to pay 69% tip then don’t go out eating at all”
- If you're going to say "69%" , you need to call it eating out, not out eating.
  
  It’s only eating out if it’s 69%, otherwise it’s just sparkling oral.
  
  While getting fucked! What a meal!
- Also, complaining that things will cost too much if waiters eek by on more than minimum wage.
  
  The cost is literally the same... Restaurants would just be upfront about it then.
  
  Eek! They eke out a living on so little!
- I gotta say, complaining about being on the verge of a recession while going out for a $70 meal really puts my poverty into perspective.
- If all I had to do was 69 my waiter, I'd be eating out a lot more

Something I don't get, why is it percentage based? I mean, I get it from the waiters perspective. But as a customer? Whether my one plate of food is 20$ or 200$, he did the same thing. Scaling with more items or time spent would seem more appropriate.
- If you are are trying to find logic within tipping you might as well chase windmills. It's dumb as bolts.
  
  Chasing a windmill would be really easy tho.
- Well usually more people means a higher bill, more people is more work. Lots of places even just add gratuity to the bill once a group size is large enough.
  But tipping is dumb, and working in the service industry sucks... I have no easy solutions.
  
  I have no easy solutions.
  There's an easy one that could be legislated tomorrow by any states.
  Raise minimum wages and enforce it throughout ALL workplaces, including wait staff. Nobody should be earning less than a living wage just because they're restaraunt staff.
  
  I think the $20 vs $200 was a per person price. Like, if I order the steak for $50 and you order a grilled cheese sandwich for $8, we both got the same amount and quality of service, why do we tip differently?
- Because it's a con, and if it were a flat rate, people would see it for the con it is. By making it a percentage of sales, you can delude people in to believing they're going to make more in tips than they would on an hourly rate.
  Sometimes that's true, for the vast majority of servers it isn't.
- I see it as a sneaky incentive from management for waiters to upsell you on more sides, drinks and desserts.
  Since the more marked up extras a waiter/waitress can fool people into getting, the better tip they can hope to earn at the end because of the %-based expectation.
- If you're getting the same level of service at a restaurant serving $200/plate meals as you are at TGI Fridays, either you're being ripped off of your local Fridays has amazing servers.
- Each plate of food or drink is a transaction, each with expectations of quality, and expectations on the waiter to make it right.
  
  Make what right? They're just bringing it to my table. If the food or service sucks I'm also told that you should tip anyway, so it seems like tipping isn't based on quality (and really, it isn't).
- Serving a $200 meal requires a lot of knowledge and physical skill that the server down at Chili's probably doesn't have. The kind of restaurant that sells a $200 meal also has a larger support staff that must be given a percentage of the server's tip
  
  You're not wrong, that's the logic behind it. It's not like you're defending it so idk why you're getting down voted! What you also didn't mention is that at these restaurants is that it is a much more leisurely meal and experience, so there isn't high table turnover which lessens the tips. I suspect they also have smaller sections.
  
  You're the only one who gets it.
  Everything is probably a la carte. You gotta know what is in every dish, what pairs with it from appetizers to sides to wine to dessert. You don't walk out and ask "who had the cheeseburger?" because the expectation on the experience is higher. You're controlling the timing at the table as well. When do you fire the main after they get the appetizer? Salad? Bread? Drinks? Which SIDE of the person do you give or remove plates? And yeah you gotta tip the bartender, the bussers, the expediters sometimes, and who knows who else.
  It is still horseshit, but it's not as easy as dropping a rib basket on the table.
  Be mad about the tip line on the sandwich shop menu, be mad about 20% tip on the burger joint that has a modern industrial interior and a $22 burger, don't be mad about paying out the Friday Saturday night white tablecloth servers with a tough fucking job of conducting your whole anniversary meal. You get to have a good experience once a year, they've got 15 other once a year meals to solve and it's just a regular dinner shift.
  
  What difference is there between serving a $200 meal and a $50 one?
- $20 is like, one entree, maybe a beverage at a cheap restaurant. $200 is probably closer to 3 entrees, 2 or 3 cocktails and an app at a moderately priced restaurant. You're crazy if you think the amount of work for those two orders (putting them into the bar/kitchen, making sure they come out correct, running them, all while juggling your other tables) is equal. I also want tipping culture to end, but the price tag scales pretty well with the amount of work being done.
  
  That's insane. It's literally the job. Imagine applying this logic to any service industry job.
  
  It mostly bothers me when I just order 1 entree and a water. At one place that might cost $10, and at another place it might cost $30, and all the wait staff did was carry a plate from the kitchen to me in both cases.
  It doesn't seem fair that the wait staff at the more expensive place gets tipped more than the less expensive place just because of an arbitrary custom.
  The extra cost of the expensive meal is mostly due to ingredients, the cooking process, the location, and maaay slightly more complicated table setting.
  
  Waffle House: feed a family of 4 for $20 Tip: $4 "Fancy" Restaurant: microwaved appetizer $20 Tip: $5
  A percentage scales within an establishment, but not really across them.

Keep this garbage out of europe please. i see it popping up. I will absolutely refuse to tip a single goddamn soul at this point going forward.
- Scotland is a goner, last time I was there all the card terminals had it. Asked a waitress if she would get the tip if I have one and she flushed, mumbled something, looked at the boss and sheepishly said it gets shared. I bet none of the staff sees any of it.
  
  Which is illegal! If you tip a waiter/waitress then the money must go to them: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/all-tips-to-go-to-staff-under-government-plans-to-enhance-rights-of-2-million-workers
  I mean I'm not sure what you can do other than name and shame the restaurant, and/or boycott it
- Tipping is pretty normal here in Germany but not required, no one depends on it. Probably because our minimum wage is actually high enough. Germany's minimum wage of 12.50€/h is almost double that of the US, which is $7.25/h or 6.76€/h if you convert it.
  
  That’s so fucking stupid, holy shit.
  Isn't it? Almost like tipping at all is dumb. But don't believe all the hype you're reading. Many states supersede that requirement with higher wages. You can see the full listing of state by state requirements here.
  https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/minimum-wage/tipped
  The most populous states (so think majority of people you'd ever talk to online on the matter) require jobs to match their minimum wage and not just the federal one. So AZ as an example (and only choosing this example since I live here), the "tipped" wage is 11.35 and the minimum wage that must be reached is 14.35 after tips. I do not feel a need to tip much more than a couple bucks if I tip. 14.35 to bring me a lukewarm plate of ever decreasing meal portions... I'd rather just get up and get the food off the line myself than pay someone 10$ to do it for me.
- Only way you can ensure a living wage is to not take part in it
- In Austria often times they expect it because of "good behaviour". Its not a fix percentage but more pocket chance. Still they are getting a full salary at the end of the month
  
  That was a big change for me coming there from the Netherlands. Tipping is a bigger thing here, but salaries are also better and waiters seem to get some level of respect as well.
- It's worse than you think -- In most US States, you can pay people way under the minimum wage as long as their tips make up for it. So an average waiter might make 2 bucks and hour on paper. If they didn't get enough tips to reach minimum wage, the restaurant would have to pay them out on top of that, but it's just this fucked up cultural thing to give restaurant owners free labor that the customers pay for.

The whole damn system exists to place the burden of a living wage on the customer while the company paying peanuts can claim no wrongdoing. And the really sad part is: it has worked.
Edit: and there are many, many businesses that wouldn't be in business if they actually had to pay competitive wages on their own. The invisible hand can fix nothing if tipping culture says to throw more and more arbitrary amounts of money at people to subsidize their wages yourself. At some point (I'd argue we're past it already), the band-aid needs to get ripped off. Only then will we see self-correction. The almost immediate loss of many businesses will likely trigger other actions. It's already a no-win scenario.
- It's on the customer either way
  
  Yes, but one way is on the company first and one isn't. Would prices go up if these places were paying living wages? Most likely. Many businesses would be insolvent because their business model was simply never designed to pay a living wage to employees. Others could remain solvent, but probably not if they continue to take so much off the top at higher positions.
  And that's exactly it: the market never self-corrects if we throw arbitrary money in excess of listed prices to solve was is ultimately an issue of business solvency and ethics. There is no economic theory that would support such an idea in any industry, but here we are.
  The sheer number of businesses out of the space might even drive down rents. That's the kind of thing I mean by "other actions". But things cannot continue as they are.
  None of this is even to mention the sheer number of people in the service industry who are also on government assistance programs. They have to be -- none of the blame is on them. But my tax dollars go to that, plus I am expected to pay extra to subsidize their wages with tips. I effectively subsidize them twice while someone reaps the rewards on their yacht. All I'm saying is the yacht people should be taking the risks first. That's part of being a business owner.
  
  The difference is that on slow nights, staff get paid less, which is fucked up.
  The business needs to wear the cost, because they reap the rewards, which is the narrative capitalism supposedly is about.
  Tipping sucks, I'm glad we don't have it in Australia.
- Tipping is good bc you van pay the employee directly. What needs to change is that tips need to be mandatory and when tips fall short of a living wage the business must pay pay to make up.
  
  What advantage does this hold versus the company paying a living wage in the first place?
  
  I agree wholeheartedly! Let's make tipping mandatory. In fact, let's add it on to the price of your bill automatically. Better still, let's just add it onto the menu price. Oh hey, we've come full circle.
  
  Fucking removed
  
  What difference is there to you, then, between "employer pays a reasonable living wage to their employees but raises the prices of the food a bit to accommodate" and "employer pays poverty wages, forcing the customers to pay their employees for them and forcing tax payers to pay up when people earning poverty wages inevitably rely on government programs to simply survive?" If tipping is mandatory, the only people that benefit is the employer since they can simply double dip - spend less money on payroll AND force the customer to make up for your lack of willingness to pay competitive wages. Yes, under current law, employers are supposed to make the difference if tips can't cover at least minimum wage, but that's not enforced nearly as much as it should be, which puts the onus on the workers being exploited in the first place, and even then minimum wage in this country is embarrassingly unfit for supporting anybody.
  The more important question to ask is "why am I expected to pay an employee when the money I already give to a business should cover wages in the first place?"
  I'm a tipped employee for my day job. I make a decent base pay, but the tips make up for that in spades during busy seasons. I've bought my current car with tip money. Despite this, I fully support getting rid of tips if it meant my livelihood wouldn't be a gamble depending on factors outside my control, and especially if it meant fewer people had to rely on government assistance and could better provide a livelihood for themselves.
  
  A business is free to offer mandatory tipping and they do have to make up the difference if its not the minimum wage. The minimum wage could be higher of course.
  
  Or....and hear me out.....RESTAURANTS SHOULDN'T BE ALLOWED TO PAY THEIR STAFF LESS THAN $3/HR!

I just stopped going to places or using services that expect me to tip. I hate the idea of tipping.
- I look at it as Actual price = menu price + lowest suggested tip + $5 tip awkwardness penalty. So a place near me has a $12 lunch-size sub sandwich that's really good. But they ask for a 15% tip. So rather than just never eat at my favorite sandwich spot, I regard it as a $18.80 lunch and only buy it on rare occasions or when my company is paying.
  
  You're tipping at a sandwich shop? Do they even bring you the sandwich and fill your drink for you?
  
  You tip a fastfood?
  
  If I'm getting it to go, no tip. Or just the tip.
  
  Same. I multiply any restaurant price by 4/3 to account for taxes, fees, and tips when determining if I want to go.
  
  Thanks for subsidizing my $12 sandwiches I guess lol. That sure helps me out! Don't think it helps the servers much in the long run though.
- This is a valid choice. What isn't valid is still going out to restaurants, having a gay ol time, and then refusing to tip your server on principle while the owner did nothing and made a killing.
  
  I'm not really a big fan of this rhetoric. People should be able to go to a restaurant and eat without being expected to pay more than what their food costs. They shouldn't be shamed for not wanting to tip. This becomes an issue of personal morality which is why I just don't eat out, but I don't think it's anyone else's business except for the person spending the money since it is their money after all. It's not a customer's responsibility to make up the pay of a business's employee. PERIOD. Basically what I'm saying is I don't go places that expect me to tip but I 100% support people's decisions to go to restaurants and not tip because that is their right.
- Going anyway and just not tipping is also a completely acceptable and legally protected option. Sort of like saying 'no thank you' to the grocery store check out person asking for charity donations or if you would like to sign up for the store credit card.
  Again, it's optional. So people can also say 'yes' if they want and that's cool too I guess. Although tipping is inherently harmful to the server's baseline wage which is a bit problematic, if people want to tip they can and no one is stopping them. And I won't give them shit about it unless they specifically inquire about it. Since the whole thing is 'optional' after all I let them make their own decisions and if tipping gives them a nice release of serotonin or dopamine or something that makes them feel better, who am I to take that from them.
  
  Just don’t eat out if you don’t want to tip. Tipping culture is fucked but servers are just as victimized as customers.
  
  Going anyway and just not tipping is also a completely acceptable and legally protected option.
  It's legal, but not tipping at a restaurant is cheap. It's also legal for them to ban you from the restaurant, which will probably happen if you give them a diatribe against tipping.
- Cook at home, we don't want you there anyways.
  **Gosh I didn't realize Lemmy was so full of broke assholes hell bent on taking money out of service employees pockets. Very working class of you guys!
  
  LMFAO. I love people like you... If you demand everyone stay home... You know what will happen? You won't have customers in the restaurant. Which leads to less tables, which leads to less wait staff needed. You will simply lose your job. So not only do you not get tips... but you won't even get your minimum wages.
  Congrats you're ruining it yourself!
  
  Order take-out, all the food, none of the worries
  
  taking money out of service employees pockets
  Doesn't your employer pay your wage?

I remember when I realized tipping is insane (like 15 years ago at a bar). One of my friends was talking the waitress up and she was complaining about another table and the tip she expected. Some quick math worked out to she expected 40%.
- Keep in mind by doing that she probably raised her tip from your friend by at least 10%. I wouldn't assume there wasn't some strategy in that conversation.
- What was the total? That could be completely reasonable, if I order coffee and a piece of pie 40% is only a couple of bucks

"Other struggling people are not the enemy".
Op is jeff bezos alt account.
- Or even to use this same example, why not blame the restaurant owner? They can choose to pay their waiters well and tell customers there's no need for tipping.
  
  This is the point that 50% of North Americans don't understand. The restaurant owners have set the culture, and they exploit young people and customers alike. However, 50% of people think they're entitled to eat out and therefore entitled to not tip, which only rewards the scummy restaurant owner for having exploitative business practices. Choosing to eat out and not tip makes tipping culture WORSE.
  
  The idiot pro-tipping customers will still tip. They'll try to sneak a tip and dumb shit like that. And I'm not about to blame a server for accepting free money.
  But what price is fair? How is the owner supposed to just guess that?
  I'd argue the wage that an employee voluntarily agrees to is about the fairest system possible: Make job posting, state the wage and job requirements, and people who find the wage fair then apply for it. I don't see why this works fine in literally all other industries.
- Well because the struggling people are blaming you when you don't tip. They should blame the restaurant owner. But they blame the diner instead.
  That's why people take servers/waiters as the "enemy"
  
  I definitely don't see servers who support tipping as 'the enemy', just idiots.
  I was literally a server for years too.
  
  How about we all agree that restaurant owners are the enemy? I don't care that the 20 year old server working for the weekend doesn't understand the nuance of the labor they engage in. They're being exploited and you think that they're the root cause of tipping culture, when in fact, it's always been the restaurant owners.
  
  Doesn't matter who gets blamed, if things were ~~corrupt~~ (correct) the customer would be paying the same amount as tipping that much. Tipping culture just gives the customer a chance to shirk.
- Disagree. Most servers and bartenders are in favor of tipping culture and want it to stay this way with zero wages and societally enforced tips.
  Yes, the corporations are the enemy, but these other struggling people are on the side of the actual enemy.
  
  Of course they're in favor of it you idiot its how they make a reasonable living. The people choosing to go to a restaurant are not victims in this arrangement.
  If you can't afford to dine out then maybe demand your boss pay you more. They're the ones screwing you, not the waitress at Olive Garden.
  
  Well sure, anyone would. If you give me $20 on a $100 bill, and you were in my section for an hour with 5-6 tables that all had similar bills and tipping percentage, I'd be ecstatic! That doesn't mean it's a good system for everyone. Hot girls make the most amount of tips while dudes serving break their back to make 15%. That hot 20 year old server that you had last time you went out to eat goes to Mexico once a month on her tips.

I don’t really get why the expected percentage went up. 15% was the standard for a LONG time. 20% meant you thought they were great. Now 15 is considered shitty, like an insult, and we’re supposed to do 18 or 25 or 30. Meanwhile prices also went up. Why am I supposed to tip 25% now? Service hasn’t changed.
- Tipping in general should be for a good service or out of convenience. It shouldn't be expected
- Service has gotten worse at many places.The servers are still great, but quite a few places have adopted the model of having you scan a QR code, you order online, pay with your credit card plus tip, they have you pick it up at a window, you eat, and at the end you bus your own table. Then they have options like 18, 25 and 30% to guilt you into the middle one. It's like, damn I haven't even talked to anyone yet, you're jumping to the end first
- 15% is standard, great even. It's this one weird trick I do. See: how this works is I'm the one with the money which means I'm also the owner of the yardstick that measures average, good and great.
  I'm baffled by comments like this. One ought to be empowered to decide if someone has met or exceeded your standards, and to what degree. Letting social pressure dictate that is nonsensical.
- I thought 10% was standard.
  
  It was, and I still tip 10% unless the service was truly exceptional.
  
  It was in the 1970s.
- Yup. The effect for me has been that I simply go out much less often.
- Because minimum wage for servers stayed dirt cheap while inflation skyrocketed, and now businesses are fighting to keep servers employed (but still aren't willing to pay a living wage).
  It's all fueled by cyclical logic where the business refuses to accept that they're immoral for requiring tipping. Might be legal- it's still a concious failure of responsibility to short your staff and expect someone else to make up that difference.
- I've always tipped 20% for good service and 15% for average or below. I usually don't tip less that 15% unless it's just abysmal or I'm picking up a to go order in which case I usually do 8-10%. Several of the restaurants around me have changed from 15% / 20% on the suggested tip to 20% / 25% and a few have even added 30%. And I've also noticed the suggested tips are calculated on the after tax amount, and some restaurants that charge a credit card processing fee calculate the suggested tip on that amount. I tip on pretax and pre-fee totals and cap at 20%. If it get worse, my eating at restaurants will start becoming less and less.
  
  Why on gods green earth would you tip when you’re picking up a to-go order? Insanity! Stay strong - don’t do it!
- They went up because customers (on average) agreed to them and approved the higher suggested tip. It's not anymore complex than that.
  If every place that raised those default options instead received lower tips as a result, it would stop. It's not rocket surgery.
  So ya, why do you tip 25% now? Great question. That seems fucking crazy to me.
- It didn't. You're just online too much. There is no "expected" amount. Anything you've heard to the contrary is just people removed online.
  
  Why would you assume I got this impression from talking to people online?

I've literally never seen a waiter get angry about not leaving a 25% tip. Can we please avoid manufactured outrage?

Every time we go to Toronto we go to the same restaurant because they don't accept tips, they just pay their staff really well. Fantastic restaurant and I love supporting them.
- That's how it should be. Tips supplement incomes so restaurant owners can pocket the profits that would have gone to paying their staff better. If all restaurants moved to this model, everyone would be a lot happier.
  
  And it's such a great restaurant and makes you feel like you're helping hospitality be a great industry.
  
  Tips supplement incomes so restaurant owners can pocket the profits that would have gone to paying their staff better.
  I hate to defend small restaurant owners because so many of them are complete assholes but they are not exactly Scrooge McDucks dealing with Elon Musk levels of money. Elon Musk could cover the tips of everyone in America.
- What's the restaurant called? The tipping in CA drives me nuts, it would be nice to have a simple option in Toronto to go for!
  
  Richmond Station. It's SO good. The food is amazing.
- Welcome to nearly every restaurant in Europe.
  
  Are you from Europe? This absolutely isn't the UK, nor is it many of the countries I've visited here...

Restaurants when they expect a 40% tip after you drive to the store for pickup
- The debit machine is preprogrammed. Stop looking for problems where they don't exist.
  
  You can reprogram it to not do that.
  
  A sandwich shop that is only every a pick up counter (not even seating if you wanted to) that has not only a point of sale equipment declaring expected tip (no, point of sale equipment doesn't lock the operator into demand a tip mode, the operator chooses it), but also a tip jar.
  Even if, somehow, it were the case that operators were locked into nagging for tip for some bizarre reason, it would still be a problem.
  
  Who do you think programs it?
  
  Maybe one day we have the technology for a second button. You should've tipped the programmer
  Or should the customer get the tip for doing the work running around with an order? That's a question for the future.
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK98YADi7FU

Actually pay restaurant workers a decent wage goddammit!
- I can't agree more. Tips should be considered an "occasional" extra. This kind of bullshit try to shift the responsibility of the indecent low salaries to customers who already pay the full price of the service.
  
  We call it charity elsewhere. It's a good thing but you shouldn't build an economic system in top of it
- I mean, the city I live in requires at least minimum wage paid to service staff. It's like $20/hour. They're not going to decrease their tipping expectations because you know, greed is a thing
  
  Which is why I decrease the expectations for them regardless of their opinion on the matter.

It does annoy me slightly when POS systems have placeholder tip amounts but they're like 18%, 20%, and 25%. Sorry, but I just do the standard 15% in most cases so now I gotta calculate it out in my head.
- I'm gonna go with the standard 0% or round up the number if i feel like it.
  
  Right? Like why is people's STANDARD giving money away.
- I just had a POS machine recommend 20%, 25%, or 30% for percentages. It seems like it's increasing
  
  I had one do that (well, even higher, 25, 30, 35, Other) for a retailer recently. Like, it took them under 10 seconds to ring me up and they should automatically get 25%? I chose zero.
  
  The standard tip at a POS is 0. Generally the same for carry out.
  If you're not getting personal service by a human, you don't need to tip.
  They do it because they can get away with it and it makes money off of suckers.
  
  I just keep reading this as Piece of Shit machine, and I don't think I'm too off the mark here.
- As a non-native speaker, I assume POS != Peace of shit?
  
  Point of Sale.
  But you're correct in that most of these Point of Sale systems are also Pieces of Shit
  
  POS in normal talk means piece of shit. POS in business talk means point of sale.
  
  Often it means that but in this case it means "Point Of Sale"
  
  Point of Sale.
  
  Point of Service (?) aka the machine that handles the transaction
- If my tip is to be decided before I see my order in front of me, 5% tops if at all.
- Fun fact. When I was a kid, the "standard" was 10%. So food prices have shot up faster than inflation, but you're still tipping 50% more than what the norm was when tipping was already well established.m, even if you ignore the expensive food you're tipping for.

Why not pay hospitality workers a halfway decent wage, and leave tipping for exemplary service? That's how it works in the rest of the developed world.
- Because the US is a failed state hiding under a developed world costume.
- That's how it works in the developed world.
  Ftfy
- Some cities require minimum wage paid toward service employees. This is about $20/hour before tips. They don't lower their tip expectations because, as you might expect, greed is a thing. You will get treated worse if you don't tip

we're on the verge of a recession I gotta cut back
someone should make and serve my meals for me

One thing: We're not on the verge of a recession. The right wing media needs to make things up to attack and that was one of them. I couldn't believe all that talk, nothing happened, nothing was about to happen, but they fear mongered for months.
- I personally 100% think we were on the brink of a recession and Biden dropping a trillion into the economy avoided it.
  
  Biden should be talking up the soft landing every time he answers a question, imho. Uncle Joe saved us all a lot of pain with that.
- It's been about a year and a half since we've been right on the brink of a recession.
- Really? More people are living with parents much longer, pay hasn't nearly increased with food and housing costs, fewer people are having children, interest rates shot up like 6% in a couple years, the average price of a new vehicle is now $51,000, since 2010 housing costs have shot up about 100%, debt has vastly increased, the wealth gap has straight up gone insane, and depression rates are climbing.
  They've been putting up bandaid to try and hold it off, but the damn will collapse. The dollar menu didn't turn into the $2.89 menu for nothing.
- Wait until next year when they win and put us on the gold standard plan 2025

How about increasing wages to promote more consumer spending? Henry Ford-- a literal Nazi-- of all people, knew this!
- Henry Ford paid those high wages to his own staff. He did not prevent any other local companies from also paying low wages.
  So Ford’s strategy had a significant advantage over minimum wage laws, in that his strategy didn’t destroy any jobs.
  When you increase minimum wage, there is a sliver of the market that gets shut down: the set of jobs that made sense between the old minimum and the new minimum. Those are jobs that people were happy to work, but which they aren’t allowed to any longer. Those people are now out of a job.
  When Henry Ford decided to pay his own workers well, he did so with his own money, and in a way that didn’t break anyone else’s existing economic arrangements.
  In other words, he didn’t violate anyone’s consent in order to enact his version of economic activism. This matter of consent is the key difference between the actions of a private entity, and the actions of a government.
  
  That's complete and utter BS. Spain has risen the minimum wage from 735€ (2018) to 1080€ (2023) and unemployment has gone down. And if the raise in minimum wage is the reason you have to close your business you weren't having a benefit on your customers but on your workers. And that has another very different name.
  
  Those are jobs that people were happy to work, but which they aren’t allowed to any longer. Those people are now out of a job.
  Happy to work starvation wages? Are you high? Desperate, the word you are looking for is desperate enough to work for starvation wages.
  I swear this supply side fanfic is so out of touch with reality it would be laughable if I didn't realize people actually try to set policy based on it.
  
  There was no set minimum wage and companies at the time were against increasing it, until Ford set the precedence and the rest followed suit. He was the trend setter.
  When you increase minimum wage, there is a sliver of the market that gets shut down: the set of jobs that made sense between the old minimum and the new minimum
  Makes sense but...
  Those are jobs that people were happy to work, but which they aren’t allowed to any longer. Those people are now out of a job.
  Yes, I'm sure people were sad to see their old workplaces shut down who provide poor pay and toxic work environment, instead of moving to better alternatives!

Look at Mr. Fatcat over here eating out while we're on the verge of a recession.

Ahh yes, verge of a recession, but there's enough money to patronize a sit down restaurant where it's well known that the owner pays their staff starvation wages. Fuck your server!
- Yeah...... If you can't afford the tip, then you can't afford the meal. If you're morally opposed to tipping culture, then don't give money to the restaurants who rely on tipping.
  Not tipping at a restaurant isn't some revolutionary act, it's just being a dick to workers. Waiters aren't some sort of class betrayer, they're just another worker being screwed over by management.
  I don't like tipping culture either, but at the end of the week that waiter is still going to have to pay rent.
- Yeah, if you're not tipping, you're not fucking over the owner. You're not railing against the tipping system. You're just fucking over your server. Which makes you a dick.
  
  If everyone stopped tipping, the wait staff would demand more money, or leave. The owner would have to pay more to employees.
  So yeah, not tipping is fucking over the waiter, unless everyone stopped tipping. Then that would fuck over the owner.
  
  If tipping is mandatory, it isn't tipping anymore.
  Enjoy what you get and get lost. If you can't handle not getting extra money, go for a good job, where doing the bare minimum of your job also won't get you extra money, surprisingly.
- Weeg, I honestly don't have a list with wage tables for each restaurant that I visit.
  Don't restaurants have to obey minimum wages? If they do, the waiters earn just like everyone else. If they don't, then why the f don't they?
  
  Where is minimum wage livable?
  
  In most places wait staff only need to be paid the minimum wage if their next-to-nothing wage plus tips doesn't exceed minimum wage.
- The waiter isn't patronizing the establishment in either sense of the word....
  
  In no interpretation of the English language did my sentence imply that the waiter was the one eating at the restaurant.
  
  You almost got it. So close.
- The meal is plenty affordable until the wait staff demands the outrageous amount if 25%.

25%?
Nope: Get fucked lol
- I use the same logic to say get fucked to 20% ... and 19%... and 18%.... and so on. To it's logical conclusion.
  
  I just tip based on the service I get: If you are shitty, you do not get a tip.

Don't hate the player, the owner is the one to blame
- Yes and no. It's a vicious circle, why would an employer, the owner, start paying a proper salary if they dont have to, no one else does, and they would probably go out of business by doing so?
  At some point the player needs to put the foot down and start making demands. Few rights were handed out for free throughout history, usually someone need to wake up and start fighting for them.
  The US has some catch up to do, its not only waiters. White-collar folks could do better too.. I've (Europe/Australia) heard from too many American colleagues and managers that they wished they also had paid sick leave, parental leave, so much PTO, and long service leave (look it up, an Australian thing, a few extra weeks off after a few years of service, hoe many depends on the state you live in).
  
  At some point the player needs to put the foot down and start making demands.
  And if you're in an at-will employment state, they can fire you for that. Then poison you to all the other places in town where you might get a restaurant job.
  I don't think you understand how difficult it is to do any sort of labor action in the U.S. It's frankly amazing that any of the Starbucks franchises have been able to unionize.
  I would love everyone to be in a union, but it's too easy to stop employers from quashing that idea. They can and will continue to get away with paying waiters less than they should and there are enough people desperate for work to take them up on that offer.
  So I will continue to tip. It is not the fault of someone who just needs a job that they aren't being paid what they deserve. The least I can do is give them a hand.
- If I went up to a kid and was like 'hey kid, can I buy your bike for $50' and he was like 'yeah sure that sounds great I agree' ... I'd be pretty fucking pissed off if he was going around telling everyone I ripped him off when I bought his bike and trying to pressure people into giving him an additional donation.
  For fucks sake kid, just say no to the $50. Say yes when you actually agree to the pay. It's really not hard, and it's all completely and totally optional.

Getting real sick of the customer holding the weight of being the financial planner for a business and the owners getting by with no blame for wage stealing and shitty business practices in this circumstance.

$70 is a few days worth of food if you do groceries. Plus $0 tips

On the verge of a recession is gonna be new go to excuse.
“Sorry babe, can’t do a bday gift this year. Nothing has changed for me, but there may or may not be a recession lurking in the shadows”

Lmfao 🤣 Same face my chauffeur makes when he doesn’t get his Christmas bonus cause we’re on the verge of a recession

Last night, my wife and I ordered Chinese for Valentine's Day. Cost $100. Tried to tip the delivery guy a $20, and he turned it down lol. He then gave my cat a temptations treat, out of a freshly opened bag he had in his pocket. Dude was amazing!

Went to my normally favorite bar today and they updated their tipping button recommendations to "20%", "69%", and "100%". The 69% was the default option which while I know they're memeing, seemed really uncool as I nearly clicked approve without noticing.
- I definitely support this! Gets people to actually think about what they are agreeing to and reminds everyone that tipping is optional.
  
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_pattern
  No. Putting shit like that is literally deceptive as shit. It's a bar... you're expecting your patrons to be inebriated. I personally think that asking for tips as part of any checkout process should be illegal when you know you're primary demographic cannot make reasonably informed decisions.

If you can't afford the bill then don't eat there. That sucks to hear I know. However the only way we're going to reign in costs is by sticking to what's affordable. If restaurants can't charge that price then food distributors have to lower prices too. We all benefit by sticking to affordability.
If you're worried about money you absolutely should open up the restaurant's menu on their website or before you order and figure out what you can afford with a 20% surcharge. That said tipping was created by the industry to externalize costs and it needs to go die in a fire.
- I don't eat out at resturants ever - and guess what! When that happens, they removed and moan about my not supporting local businesses, and steal millions in PPP loans!
- You'll hate to hear this, but restaurants struggling to fill positions and having to offer more benefits and pay to attract wait staff is the only way to end tipping culture. Tipping will never end itself.
  
  We can also straight up ban it. But yeah I know businesses aren't just going to willingly stop it.
- I think the point isn't about the bill but the expectation of massive tips. It's too out of control to me, I used to tip 20% everywhere. Now I've gone back to 15% for regular service, and 20% if it's really exceptional.
  
  I've never had anyone say anything about a 15-20% tip.
  
  20% minimum unless the service is horrible. It's not your fault the servers are paid BELOW minimum wage because the employer expects you to tip. But it nonetheless is the expectation and is the right thing to do. If you can't afford to tip correctly you can't afford to eat out.
  To be clear, i think we should get rid of tipping economy, but while it is the norm, you absolutely have to tip.

25% is INSANE, even not during recession.
It's literally 1/4 of the meal.
INSANE.

I honestly don't know why people go to restaurants in the US. I don't want a guilt trip from the waiter with my expensive meal. Talk about a buzz kill.

If I should tip 25% for a $70 meal, the meal shouldn't be $70. It should be $88. If the waiters are shit that's fixed by me (and other people) never going to that place again, not by waving a bunch of money at their faces and telling them to dance.

Here in Brazil, tipping is not normal. Instead, restaurants and bars will add a 10% service cost to the bill. This 10% is then weekly divided between cooks, waiters, bartenders, etc, the proportion being decided by the restaurant.
That is of course not a law, but it is so common that restaurant workers already consider that when thinking how much they make. My sister worked as a bartender at a restaurant recently, and she would add R$300 (roughly $60, yes it's not much, but remember we're a middle income country) to her monthly paycheck from this.

I used to tip most of the times when I got to Spain but I was told so many time it's simply not something people do here that I mostly stopped. There no way tip when you're paying with a card and I carry less and less cash so without any pressure to tip I simply lost the habit.

Never once have I had any person be rude to me for a 20% tip.

I will probably get hate but I also tip based on the before tax portion.

The worst is when NPCs call people NPCs.
- Dehumanizing people is the first step down the road to genocide.
  Stop doing it.
- Sooooo you just called yourself a NPC ?

This is why I never eat out anymore. Restaurants are complaining that their customer base is shrinking. I wonder why...

Tipping is more than just a custom; there really is a culture to it. If you're tipping only because you know the server makes less than minimum wage from the restaurant (or that greedy restaurant owners are completely to blame for this injustice), I think you may be misunderstanding an aspect of this culture.
Working in a restaurant is as hard a retail job as there is, and working as a server is often the hardest job in the restaurant. Being a truly good server requires a rare mix of people skills, math skills, memory, and a thick skin. So why do people choose to take the hardest job there is in the whole restaurant, when it pays less than all the other jobs?
Most servers end up getting paid better than the people doing other jobs in the restaurant. In most restaurants, servers make more than minimum wage. At the end of their shifts, most servers in turn tip-out the front-of-the-house employees, such as hosts and bussers, who often do only make minimum wage.
A truly excellent server may be the highest-paid employee for an entire shift -- that certainly includes the manager and anyone else on salary, and it may even include the owner, when you add in labor and upkeep costs.
In order to make all that money, however, this server has to work at all the times that everyone else is out having fun -- Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday morning. This server must put up with drunks, picky eaters and other narcissists, as well as seating errors and kitchen mistakes, all with a smile, for six or eight or ten hours straight. This server, who earns more than anyone else on the shift, is working harder than anyone else on the shift.
This is the other aspect that I wanted to address. Tipping culture is what gives that excellent server the opportunity to earn a better wage, more appropriate to the effort and expertise they devote to the job.
I'm sure this all sounds very capitalist, because it is. This may not be the most capitalism-friendly forum, I know, but I'm not trying to make any larger argument here.
I'm just saying that to me, it seems like this should be a "don't hate the players" (owners, managers, servers, rich/drunk people who like to leave big tips) "hate the game" (tipping culture). And even if you do hate tipping culture, it couldn't hurt to consider how it works for the people who don't hate it.

25% ??! Damn I remember when it was 10%, or maybe just the tax if you were cheap. The American public is way better at giving underpaid workers wages that keep up with inflation than the government!
- But a fixed percentage already includes inflation
- There are places where sales tax is around 15% too.

Yhea f off with that tiping culture .
- Then I hope you'll be writing your congressperson to eliminate the server wage system. Patronizing an industry that acts brazenly unethically and forces their staff to take starvation wages makes you just as bad. Don't condone the industry's predatory practices.

Rude - Atleast they could have played them a nice piece on the world's tiniest violin!

if your job does not pay a livable wage without begging then maybe get another job
- They (and many others) are getting paid below a living wage because that was the best job they could get. The wage problem isn't our fellow workers failing to hustle harder, it's systematic oppression of organized labor.

I generally always tip what I feel is generous if I'm able to, because thankfully I just have the luxury of spare change to blow from being a little more frugile these days, watching my spending and all that jazz. But honestly, if I was smart, and truly frugile, I'd be saving that money by not tipping, but also by making a meal at home instead whenever it's an option. But I'm willing participating in the machinations of the local service economy whenever I order delivery, or go to a restaurant, or do many things that would involve tipping. That said, retail tipping feels kind of weird except for some specialty shops where it's totally unnecessary but something to consider when you get excellent service.
But fuck all the profiteers behind all the schemes in the service industry that exploit workers by forcing them to rely on tipping, it's actually fucking bullshit. Wait staff and delivery drivers can get paid as low as $4/hour once they've received some balance in tips, when they should probably be getting around $20/hour and up in most cases. It's actually third world level.
But nah fam what kind $70 meal we talking? If you paying $70 for a steak, a couple drinks and whatever else at an especially nice place, you bet your fucking ass you'll tip $17.50 if the food and service is worth it, because you're spending 1-2 hours at that nice restaurant and your service occupies an amount of man-hours that might otherwise not be well compensated. Actually, maybe 25%/$17.50 is a bit much, it really just depends on the meal and the place. I feel like I would do 15% if service was ok, 20% if good, 25% if great but again it's all about setting.

Service industry employees have lowkey become the most entitled folks ever after COVID. "We were essential" the fuck you were. Every single god damn place has 18% as the MINIMUM tip. If I see that I legit don't even tip, and then take my business elsewhere. Absolute height of disrespect.
Edit: Just had a hotel stay, my bed was turned over once. FOR SEVEN DAYS. Guess who didn't get a single tip?

Look at this comment to votes ratio. About 400 votes total and 170 comments! That is an awesome, active community!
- The fuck? What kinda bot are you?
- Tipping is a very controversial subject apparently.

I mean, they are paid significantly less than minimum wage. While it's not your responsibility to pay them fair wages, it's their bosses, they do rely on tips to survive if you can tip, you should, but you should also advocate for paying service industry workers fair wages.

We're not on the verge of a recession though.
Edit: lol why am i being downvoted? I'm just stating reality.
- You're right, we are far beyond that

If you live in a tipping culture and can't afford to tip, then you can't afford to eat somewhere with a waitress.

Or just tell them: I am sorry I didn't come to visit this country to experience this awful part of the decadent American culture.
- Woah there, pardner! Them's fightin' woids.

Tipping service workers is one of the very few times in our life when we can say "The people directly serving me deserve to get paid more, and while I can't raise their wage, I can at least make sure they're getting paid well while they serve me" and the fact that people are upset about that and actively refuse to tip is just crazy to me.
Like, there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, but tipping generously is one of the times when we can come pretty close! Maybe instead of having a $70 meal on the brink of a recession, have a $50 meal and tip up to the $70 that's in your budget?
- Are you tipping 50%?
  
  I aim for 25-30% tip when I get standard service and when there aren't any comped apps/drinks/desserts. If the server is amazing or if they're giving us free stuff, I give more. 50% is very rare for me to hit, but I did leave 50% at a family dinner a few weeks ago.
  Why did you ask about 50% specifically?
- It just incentivizes being an asshole. Assholes give zero tips and get to keep more of their money, while normal people have to pay the empathy tax.
- It's sad how much flak you're getting for this reasonable take. I'm lucky enough to be able to afford eating out a couple times a week, and I'm not scared of sharing a bit of my wealth with the neighborhood.
  
  It's the last bit. His first paragraph is a good outlook. Encouraging everyone to tip 25-50% is insane and stupid.
  People tend to vote based on the worst part of a comment.
  
  Right!? If you're lucky enough to be financially secure right now, tipping can even be seen as a form of mutual aid!

Look at this guy, paying $70 at a restaurant. How many are you buying for? 5?
- My bills for two people regularly come out to $50, at normal unfancy restaurants (sometimes even just fast casual). So $70 would be 3 people for me.
- That's a pretty normal 2 person meal nowadays, cheap if for 3. I'm not even in a high cost of living area.
- Yea, buying a $70 meal then complaining about money being scarce is kinda... questionable.

673 comments