FR version is available. Content is displayed in original English for accuracy.
Advertisement
Advertisement
⚡ Community Insights
Discussion Sentiment
66% Positive
Analyzed from 2374 words in the discussion.
Trending Topics
#tip#service#tipping#don#tips#pay#price#wages#more#isn
Discussion (63 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews
Not knowing how much people get paid probably also frustrates collective bargaining.
It also leaves the price / performance relationship up in the air for customers. They're tipping, but they don't know how the tips are being split. Between people tipping habitually, and not knowing where your tip is going, I'm not sure that "reward for good service" is a meaningful incentive. It may be as much a reward for quality management.
Disclosure: Both of my kids are tipped workers. They both receive a split of the tips depending on what job they're doing. I also receive cash tip income as a musician, but it's not my main job.
Why do the payment companies do this? Because they get ~1% of the tip.
I hate tipping so much, I want to start a "no tipping" movement. Then hopefully the industry will figure out how to pay their people a living wage without making paying a game of social pressure for me.
No problem tipping for good sit-down table service, or a good bartender at a bar. But at carry-out and self-service places, there's no service provided so nothing to earn a tip.
Pay for value, the percent is a suggestion.
I never tip at my local Starbucks counter. They ask for it before any service has been rendered. That’s not how a tip is supposed to work. And who knows how the tips are getting to the workers.
I tip in cash after a service is rendered. If it’s on a screen there are renter seekers between you and the person who helped you.
Tip the person if they do a direct service to you, which may involve touching your body. Barbers, massage therapists (all kinds, you know!), Facials, nails etc.
Also (as per another comment in this thread), no tip if we pay before we use the service (or food).
If it isn't any of the above, say "Thank you, I enjoyed your great service. But at this time, I don't have money to spare. How do I get past this screen?"
I don’t tip at point of sale simply because it isn’t fair. I don’t tip at grocery checkout. Why would I tip for a drip coffee?
- We are conditioned to expect that the price listed is not the actual final price. If I see 1 euro as a price in Italy, I can hand them 1 euro and walk away. In the US if I see $1 as the price I could get a bill for??? 1.20? then tip? 1.40? Some random magic number I have no idea how it happened? The price listed should be the price paid. Period. Stop pretending taxes aren't part of the price.
- We have legislation that makes tips part of expected compensation. Minimum wage is different for servers. Get rid of any legislation like that. Every job should pay a living wage (including benefits) or shouldn't exist. If that were in place you would see a lot fewer places begging for tips since the cost of things would be higher to match the salaries they would need to pay. So right now if you don't tip you are actually taking away someone's paycheck and that is wrong on all levels.
Of course all of this is also part of the American psyche. We really like being lied to about price. Show us a lower number, even though we know it is fake and we will end up being charged way more by the time the transaction is done, and we will hop there. Take the taxes off the price and don't include the cost of labor on the listed price and we go 'Look! A bargain!'
Anyway, the most egregious tip request I’ve ever seen was in a self-service airport kiosk. I chose my bag of nuts or whatever; no human even in the kiosk, completely unmonitored; I scanned and tapped my credit card and there it was — [15%] [18%] [20%]? So insulting.
Are you saying you wouldn't reward someone like that with a few extra bucks?
But have you thought about the poor shareholders? /s
Even with reliable good nights the off nights eat away at that margin.
It's a false economy.
It's the same as looking at an American engineer's bonus that's 3x a foreign engineer's whole pay and calling them a beggar.
But even if we take that last point into consideration, a good waiter that cares about their customers can offer a cheaper, more suitable bottle than something expensive. How can they receive a higher tip than the person who does not offer suggestions but merely pours a more expensive bottle?
This is not even mentioning that the baseline of "performance" is sub-par indeed. Americans tend to gloat about how their tables never receive water top-ups or someone never asks how their food is going so they have an opportunity to ask for condiments or napkins. But most people in the world typically know how to ask for themselves if they require something, and don't need a pseudo-butler hovering over them. Not to mention that when it comes time to actually pay the check and leave, Americans tend to be some of the slowest at actually fulfilling this process.
That doesn't explain the $7 vs $700 though. It would $10 vs $40
In traditional tipping culture, the tip is calculated on the subtotal for food and drink, minus your bar bill. Therefore, alcohol, taxes, fees, whatever? Those are not part of your tip calculation at all. For tipping a bartender, or if all you did was drink, I'd usually drop a fraction on each drink served, whatever they were.
The POS tipping prompts are all wrong, and they're encouraging more than just mandatory tip-shaming: they are forcing a shift in the basic calculations which was never intended by ordinary tipping customs. A $700 bottle of wine in a restaurant warrants an identical tip to a $7 bottle.
I recently had one at one of the big coffee chains where it offered 10%, 15%, 20% and an unlabeled fourth option. The fourth option went into a submenu with 5%, 10%, 15% and this time a labeled none option, which sent you to a another yes/no screen.
I don't avoid the business but I do not feel bad at all not tipping when there is no service involved. And, no, the 3 second interaction of handing me out goods from behind the counter doesn't count. When there is service involved it usually is already included in the price and rounding up is a courtesy but not required.
Firstly, the business is permitted to pay below minimum wage and play accounting games with "tip credits" and having the employees pool/share their tips in common. So, the business contributes less to those wages overall, and therefore can hire/keep more staff than it would, ordinarily, and run on a slimmer margin, when food service is generally not very profitable.
Second, the business can advertise lower prices! If tipping pays wages, and tips don't need inclusion in the menu prices, then your $5 hamburger isn't going to cost $5 at checkout, but if you're the owner, you still get to print $5 on the menus and put $5 burgers on your website.
At this point, customers are being shamed and goaded into tipping, because if we don't, we're the bad guy: we're the wage thieves; we're the rude customers who can't afford to eat but do it anyway.
It is a valid strategy to boycott/avoid businesses that mandate tipping unjustly, but ultimately, that seems to be another way you're hurting the workers trying to make a living, where that includes being forced to accept a job in a "mandatory tipping" industry.