Would fucking love it if we just got rid of tipping all together. Employers -not customers- should be responsible for providing employees good pay.
Factor the difference into up front price of the food/service and be done with it.
Tipping was never the problem, subsidizing owner profits out of worker pay was.
Tipping is freedom of expression for the customer. Wage is the obligation of the employer.
If it isn’t a living wage the company shouldn’t exist. Full stop.
But it should be a hard opt-in, no “decline tip” bullshit, social engineering is still at issue
If Businesses don’t get a share of tips Square’s model dies and SE with it.
That said their model dies if you grow a pair to hit zero tip and backcharge on poisoned delivery.
Social engineering only works in this situation if you are a bitch.
If Businesses don’t get a share of tips Square’s model dies and SE with it.
Not my problem to figure out their business model.
If their business model doesn’t work and they go out of business, isn’t that the point of capitalism?
Pure capitalism? Yes.
Ordering from a place that you know pays workers in tips and not tipping makes someone more of a bitch. You’re not changing anything because without legislation there will never be enough people to make it happen. The system is too established. At this point claiming to be working towards change by not tipping is just making an excuse because you weren’t ever going to tip and it’s not fooling anyone.
Definitely. In my country, tipping aren’t expected but it’s a pleasant thing to receive in service industry, in US of A, tipping is expected and people will vehemently defend the status quo.
Not only that, but there’s a very strong case to be made that from a purely economic perspective, a tipless system is better for everyone.
It’s expected because waiters can’t make minimum wage without it. It’s not defended because people like that waiters are paid so little, it’s defended because they’re paid so little and politicians, until now, have seemed to have no interest in changing that. Like so many things in this country, the people have to come up with a patchwork solution just to keep others alive because the politicians don’t care.
So yes, I will defend tipping until this is fixed everywhere in the U.S. And I doubt it will be fixed any time soon. I’ll be surprised if it’s even fixed in these five states.
It has already become your culture, like it or not. Whether you tip or not, employer has to make up the different if the tip doesn’t add up to the minimum wage, so you’re essentially subsidising the employer as of now. Fixing the minimum wage will not get rid of tipping culture either, and exploitative employer knows that, so they will continue to pay the bare minimum and expect the customer to foot the bill.
I wonder if everyone reaction will change if we change “Tipping” to “Subsidising”, because that’s what the current status quo are.
This hits the nail on the head. Exploitative employers will always only pay the absolute minimum they can get away with. If you’re going to have a federally mandated minimum wage, then that wage will need to be adjusted frequently.
Has it been adjusted frequently?
In my country we don’t have a minimum wage. Wage ranges are determined by the market and negotiations with unions. It gets really easy to figure out which employers do the bare minimum and which don’t.
Tipping is still expected here in Washington where the minimum wage for tipped employees is the same.
Sure, because it’s easier to have the same policy everywhere than to not know whether or not you should be tipping depending on the state you’re in. I think that makes sense. Do you really want people from Washington going to Oregon and not tipping because they think they don’t have to?
Yeah, I’ve always thought of it that way too: abhor the underpaying bosses and the politicians who allow it and advocate for change, but until then keep tipping generously no matter the level of service.
If you get bad service, your server might be having a rough day and/or the place might be busy or otherwise make their job of serving you more difficult. That doesn’t mean that you have a right to deny them rent and food money.
Pretty much where I’m at. Not going to protest a shitty system by taking it out on a waiter, but will vote to abolish the whole thing and put the burden on the employer where it should be.
That doesn’t mean that you have a right to deny them rent and food money.
That’s the insane part - you do have the right to deny them rent or for food money. You shouldn’t, but under the tipping model you absolutely do.
Not going to protest a shitty system by taking it out on a waiter, but will vote to abolish the whole thing and put the burden on the employer where it should be.
That vote / change will never happen if you don’t push back on tipping, that’s just the human nature of the situation.
I mean yeah, you LEGALLY have the right, I meant that you morally and ethically absolutely don’t.
Which is why I’m opposed to tipping as a system. It’s predatory. It transfers a moral responsibility to customers that should be on the employer, which provides the foundation for guilt-based social engineering targeting the customer, and a reliance of the employee on the success of that social engineering - the alternative being not getting paid because some asshole didn’t think you refilled his drink fast enough.
Imagine if a hospital or something was run like that. Your insurance covered the doctors’ and admins’ pay, but the nurses, techs, and support staff all just rely on tips! *shoves an iPad with a credit card reader onto your lap*
It’s insane that that model is legal for any business.
I beg to differ. I think morally an ethically not letting society dictate. What you do with your own money is the correct stance. If you go to your job and you get paid that is your money and you should absolutely under no circumstances be obligated to tip because society has made you think that they need it to live. That’s your money that you need to live it’s absolutely ridiculous that people make statements trying to guilt trip you into thinking that you owe it to someone else to give your hard-earned money to them because their employer decides not to do it. Screw that. And no I’m not saying don’t tip, what I’m saying is don’t support businesses that expect you to pay their employees wages. I significantly cut down eating at restaurants because I don’t think that I should be obligated to pay employees wages, especially with the ridiculous prices. The restaurants charge for food nowadays. I absolutely hate the narrative of people guilt tripping other people because they choose not to tip. That is their obligation in right and they should absolutely not feel bad about it whatsoever.
You’re assuming you owe the server rent and food money. Where are you the employer? How does that server deserve special benefits over the person at the drive through, the busser, the stocker at the grocery, etc? You’re an enabler, keeping an abusive system alive to benefit one small category at the expense of everyone else
Granted, I tip generously as well, but that’s because I’m a pussy who doesn’t stand behind my beliefs
but that’s because I’m a pussy who doesn’t stand behind my beliefs
Hey, at least you’re honest about it. :)
The cost of paying those people at the very least minimum wage is factored into the price of your purchase, except for the busser, who shares tips with the servers.
Because that’s not the case with servers, you tip in order for the server to get paid for performing a service for you.
You’re an enabler, keeping an abusive system alive to benefit one small category at the expense of everyone else
No. I’ve been clear from the start that tipping is a thing we have to do temporarily so that servers don’t starve or become homeless before we finally fix the system.
Maybe the only way to finally fix the system is to stop tipping, so servers will go elsewhere until pay comes up. Normally I disagree with this line of thinking because it’s not easy to change careers, but serving is usually a “job” not a career. If we’re worried about minimum wage, I claim that many minimum wage jobs are easier to switch among. If a job requires special skills and knowledge, it deserves pay as such.
That doesn’t mean that you have a right to deny them rent and food money.
Their bosses and/or their lack of wherewithal in obtaining a job that pays enough to meet their standard of living is responsible, not the customer of the company.
So yes, I will defend tipping until this is fixed
Can’t defend the status quo and expect things to be fixed, they’re mutually exclusive of each other. Human nature demands that.
You absolutely can defend the status quo until things are fixed and work for things to be fixed. Maybe you think a change should come at the expense of waiters feeding themselves or their families. I do not.
You absolutely can defend the status quo until things are fixed and work for things to be fixed.
It hasn’t so far, and human nature being what it is, makes it a safe bet that it won’t. Having said that, I hope I’m wrong.
Also, its ethically wrong to put the onus on the customer to support the status quo, that’s the employer responsibility to take care of their employees in all ways, and an employees responsibility to not work for any boss that won’t do that.
Maybe you think a change should come at the expense of waiters feeding themselves or their families. I do not.
YES! Tortuuure them, make them SUUUFFEERRRRR!!1!!11!!! /s
If the guy in the next stall asks me for a roll of toilet paper (because he’s out), I’m going to give him a roll, as a civic duty to take care of each other.
If the guy in the next stall asks me to come over and wipe his ass for him, he’s on his own.
That’s a lot of words to say you don’t give a shit if a waiter can’t afford to feed their kids as long as you don’t have to give them any of your money. I hope you don’t go to restaurants if you feel that way.
and people will vehemently defend the status quo.
Well, server employees will, because they don’t want to deal with the loss of pay and/or the upheaval in their salary intake. No one likes a negative change to how they make a living and pay the bills.
Having said that, generally speaking, is it people, or ““people”” (aka corpo shills/bots) that are defending the status quo? Certain corporations have a big interest in maintaining the status quo and shaping the narrative towards that end.
We’re not defending the status quo we’re stuck with it. But yes, going to another country and ignoring their customs would make people look at you like an asshole because you’re being an asshole unless you genuinely didn’t know. We’re not dancing around delighting in tipping people. We just know that not tipping hurts absolutely nobody except the server. Maybe you’re comfy with making someone else suffer to prove a point but I’m not.
You put too much emotional charged word into my mouth, thing i did not said, and that’s really tells a lot how you feels about tipping culture in US and will never spare a thought on why it’s as it is. I in no way should be responsible for the wellbeing of another’s employees, that is the responsibility of their employer. Not tipping isn’t making someone else suffer to prove a point, that’s like saying me not being a doctor is making someone else suffer. That’s some ridiculous kind of mental gymnastic.
What tipping does is continuing the justification of paying them subminimal wage and demand the customer to foot the bill and hope it will make more than the minimum wage as employer might have to pay their worker more if the wage + tip didn’t add up to minimum wage. That’s some late stage capitalism stuff right here you’re supporting, or rather, “stuck” with.
I told you in plain words how I feel about tipping culture. How you choose to interpret that is your business.
I don’t need you to lecture me about what goes on in my own country or about how we feel because you’re not even talking from experience. Go ahead and “fight capitalism” by stiffing people on tips if it makes you feel better. You’re not helping anyone though so stop fooling yourself. You’re just being cheap.
Well if you say so, i don’t need you to lecture me about being “generous” either. Take your opinion elsewhere if you don’t want it to be challenged in a conversation.
What a toxic country. 🙄
The only people who have the power to eliminate tipping are the customers. Even if employers randomly started paying servers $50 an hour, people could still tip…and many probably would to get that feeling of moral superiority. And that is sort of irrelevant anyway because how the fuck are the customers supposed to know the servers wage anyway? I literally have no idea what my server (or hostess or line cook or after hours cleaning crew staff) makes at the last place I ate at. Do you?
It’s really not complicated. If customers stopped tipping, and servers can’t support themselves and therefore they are forced to quit and move towards literally any other industry with a higher/stable wage. Then employers either go out of business altogether or, more realistically, raise wages to replace those workers who quit since the employer would like to keep making money instead of not making money. And thus, menu prices go up to account for the lack of tipping.
No one has ever been able to provide me a scenario where tipping ends without servers quitting due to inadequate/unstable income. But I’m certainly open to suggestions!
Couriers (DoorDash, GrubHub, UberEats, etc.) are not employees. They are contractors.
There is no minimum wage for contractors. The base pay for these services don’t quite cover the $0.655 per mile that the IRS allows drivers to claim in travel expenses. The only money these drivers actually take home is customer tips.
If you, as a customer, do not believe in tipping couriers directly, that’s perfectly fine, so long as you DO NOT use these services. As these drivers operate almost exclusively on tips, using these services without tipping is socially equivalent to begging in the streets.
As these drivers operate almost exclusively on tips, using these services without tipping is socially equivalent to begging in the streets.
Imagine a system so broken you say shit like this lol.
All you’re saying here is that the base pay is too low.
I think the loopholes include:
- assuming a “take it or leave it” from a huge company to an individual, can ever be a valid contract
- paying “sufficiently “ for an employee while also delegating business expenses
- bending the regulations around what is allowable for contracting vs effectively employee
- skirting regulations on similar legacy business models
- fraudulent menus and pricing
assuming a “take it or leave it” from a huge company to an individual, can ever be a valid contract
Employees don’t get “offers”. Employees get “assignments”. An offer can be refused. Refusing an assignment has negative consequences. Employment worsens the disparity between huge company and individual, by reducing the individual’s ability to decline work.
As a contractor, I can work for DoorDash and UberEats simultaneously. As an employee, both of them would demand exclusivity and I would have to choose one or the other.
paying “sufficiently “ for an employee while also delegating business expenses
I think the service should collect a mandatory delivery fee from the customer equal to the IRS mileage rate, about $0.655 per mile, and reimburse the driver for it. That’s the base pay. A suggested “bid” (what they currently call a “tip”) should be provided, based on the going rate of labor in the area. The customer should be able to adjust that rate, and be warned if their adjustment goes below minimum wage. A below minimum wage offer does not imply the driver will be earning below minimum wage: orders are often stacked. Two minimum wage orders performed simultaneously earn nearly twice minimum wage.
That just makes too much sense.
False. If drivers don’t make enough, they stop driving. Enough stop driving the business has to change their model to entice new drivers. That’s how you bring about change. Not sitting online complaining, hoping that the government will get off their asses and fix it
They’re employees being exploited by a loophole. DoorDash n’ friends are predatory businesses, and are a great example of why we need better regulations on this kind of shit.
It’s not a loophole or predatory, it’s just something the people doing these one-off job knowingly agreed to. I myself certainly agreed to it years back each and every time I accepted another order. The key was to not agree to orders that don’t make any fucking sense. It was all optional.
I don’t know how we could ever regulate away the issue of people who decide not to act in their own best interest. Probably best to focus on education or something?
I refuse to use these services for three reasons. One, I think they’re unnecessary. Two, I think they’re unreliable. Three, I think they’re exploitative.
This is why I don’t use those services. They are both predatory, and taking advantage of regulatory loopholes
They do need to be fixed somehow though. I have elderly relatives with mobility issues who can really benefit from these services. Beyond more transparency and fixing the regulatory gaps, I don’t k ow how to make it both more fair to the gig worker and more affordable to those who need it though.
Maybe a subscription model? I’d pay Uber Eats a fixed price for my Mom to get as much delivery as she needs, assuming an even playing field we’re established
The “contractor” model is valid. When you hire a kid to shovel your driveway, for example, you are not “employing” that kid; you are contracting him to perform a specific task. Landscapers, builders, roofers, plumbers, lawyers, accountants, DJs, wedding planners… Most small businesses operate on a contractor basis.
The real issue with these services is one of semantics. DoorDash gives drivers a few pieces of information. They are told where the pickup location will be, where the dropoff location will be, the total distance they will have to drive, and, critically, the total amount of money they can expect to receive for performing that task. The driver is (ostensibly) free to accept or reject that offer. DoorDash may bundle (“stack”) your delivery task with other delivery tasks and offer the entire bundle as a single task.
In a contractual arrangement, the money offered in compensation for performance of a task is the “consideration”. The offering of money in exchange for a service is a “bid”. That’s the semantic issue: most of the money being offered to the driver is being called a “tip”. It does meet the IRS definition of a “tip”, but it does not meet the colloquial use of that term.
DoorDash is not actually a courier service. DoorDash does not operate a single vehicle used for package delivery to customers. DoorDash is a broker of courier services. DoorDash connect customers to vendors and drivers. DoorDash takes the customer’s task and offer of compensation and offers it to contract drivers. If they find a match, the customer gets their food. If they can’t find a match, it sits on the vendor’s shelf until closing, then gets thrown away.
You and your elderly relatives are free to use the service. You can use it ethically, simply by understanding that what they are calling a “tip” is actually a “bid” to the driver. So long as you are placing a reasonable “bid”, your use of the service is fair and ethical.
What do you suppose would happen if everyone all at once just stopped tipping and kept using the service? Like I’m serious, what do you actually think would happen?
I think DoorDash would convert it’s drivers to employees. I think those employees would earn less than they did as contractors. I think DD would be forced to offer healthcare and similar benefits, which would be contingent on continued employment, making them extortion rather than benefits. I think they would use those benefits as a bargaining chip to secure non-compete clauses. I think employed workers would be strictly limited to 40-hour weeks at lower pay, with rigid schedules. I think they would enact quotas, and strict deadlines.
I think employee drivers will be pissing in bottles to meet quotas and deadlines. I think instead of stacks of 2-3 orders, they will be stacking 5-8 orders, and delivery times will be longer and longer. I think employee DoorDash drivers will be treated as employee Amazon drivers.
I think that switching to an employment model would hurt drivers and customers, and benefit DoorDash and vendors.
That all seems a bit much compared to doordash just raising their service fee in order to pay their contractors enough to be willing to deliver orders in this new tipless world, but ok. I appreciate your attempt at answering the question nonetheless. Although it is pretty odd you consider a stable wage, hours and healthcare benefits to be a bad thing. And I still don’t understand why employees are willing to piss in bottles to meet quotas and stuff. I wouldn’t agree to a job like that. You probably wouldn’t either. Especially for the lower pay you described. Unless of course the stability and healthcare benefits made up for it all…in which case it would be a better deal than before.
That all seems a bit much compared to doordash just raising their service fee in order to pay their contractors enough to be willing to deliver orders in this new tipless world,
DoorDash already has a “earn by time” option, where drivers earn an hourly wage, but only while they are engaged. DoorDash sets an hourly rate of $12 in my area. They still pass through tips, but they also (effectively) require drivers to take every order assigned, no matter where it is from or where it is going. 8-floor walkup in a sketchy neighborhood, giving the local meth heads 12 minutes to steal your catalytic converter? Yeah, you don’t get to skip that order, sorry.
We already know what DoorDash will do if they get to set the rates, because they are already doing it. I would much rather the negotiation happen between me and the customer rather than me and DoorDash.
Healthcare should be a government function, not an employment function. The idea that I should only have coverage while I am well enough to work is truly barbaric. Employer-sponsored healthcare is extortion. It is a tool to make it harder for you to detangle yourself from the company when they do something shitty. I know healthcare was the primary reason why I stayed at a job that forced me to work 60-hour weeks for 13 months straight.
Healthcare should be a birthright, not a benefit.
Which is the more stable job:
A: you have to wake up at the same time every day, clock in at the same time, clock out for lunch, clock back in exactly 30 minutes later, clock out again after exactly 8 hours of work.
B: you show up whenever you want. 8am. 11pm. Noon. Three days a week, seven days a week. Skip town for two weeks straight, clock back in and nobody says a word.
The first is not “stable”. The first has an attendance policy that punishes you for any instability you might experience in your life. Kid gets sick? Attendance point. 6 points, and you’re written up. 9 points in 12 months, and you’re fired.
The second job is completely tolerant of any instability in your life. You can show up whenever you like, leave whenever you like, and the job just adapts around you.
And I still don’t understand why employees are willing to piss in bottles to meet quotas and stuff.
I don’t understand either, but I don’t need to understand. Quotas are a function of hourly (employee) labor. Piecework laborers (contractors) don’t face quotas. Drop the hourly labor, offer a piecework rate that will earn an entry level worker minimum wage, and your most proficient workers will be earning what they are actually worth.
I don’t see how it’s my responsibility to give my money that I earned doing my job to someone else for doing their job and I shouldn’t have to avoid the service because of that. If I want to use the service I should be able to because, why not, I want to. I shouldn’t give that up just because someone wants me to pay their wages.
A kid comes to your door, asks you what you would be willing to pay for his older brother to shovel your driveway. The older brother is going to be doing the job; the kid is asking you what you are willing to pay. Is it your “responsibility” to “give your money that you earned doing your job” to the older brother for shoveling your drive?
DoorDash is not a courier service. DoorDash is not shoveling your driveway. DoorDash owns and operates neither a shovel nor a delivery vehicle. DoorDash is a broker of courier services. DoorDash is the little kid, asking you what you’re willing to pay. The drivers are the older brother actually doing the work.
Paying DoorDash’s delivery fees and not offering a tip is the equivalent of paying that little kid $3, offering nothing to the older brother who will actually be doing the work. and still expecting your driveway to be shoveled.
The older brother is forced to honor the agreement the kid made with you. If he doesn’t, the kid will have to give back the $3 he got from you. The kid will then pout and refuse to line up any additional work for the older brother. The brother “tolerates” this, because most customers are reasonable people and either offer a reasonable amount for the older brother, or decline the service entirely. The older brother makes all kinds of money from reasonable people.
If the “reasonable people will pay the older brother” argument isn’t enough, continue the analogy: the kid got money from you. The kid is going to keep trying to get your business so he keeps getting money from you. But the older brother isn’t getting paid for his work.
You’ve found a loophole where you can get your driveway shoveled without paying the guy doing the shoveling. The kid wants to keep doing business with you, but it would be far better for the older brother if you never talked to the kid again. So, you’re going to get your driveway shoveled for a pittance, but all that snow is going to end up in front of your door, or burying your car.
Lol the older brother is just an idiot. He isn’t ‘forced’ to do anything at all. The business arrangement makes no sense unless the little brother being the salesman adds value somehow.
I am an older brother and I assure you if long ago my younger brother was like "hey you need to shovel the neighbors driveway for $3’’ I’d be like “lol, no, go give that nice man back his money. If you want to be my salesman, I need the guarantee of $10 in my pocket minimum. If you can find a guy who pays $11, by all means keep the dollar. Oh, also I get any tips provided after the job.”
Do you actually think any older brother is going to just keep shoveling driveways for $3 when he thinks he deserves $10?
Upvoted for the last line.
Please! For the love of God! Get rid of tipping!
I hate tipping! As the consumer I should not be responsible for proving a living wage for someone else’s employees!
as a European I have to say both the Tipping culture and the not showing the full price in stores with VAT included is just mindblowing.
It’s literally a culture of hiding true costs, weird af.
Hotels too. The advertised price is never accurate because their stupid resort fees.
What now? First I’m hearing of this. How much extra?
Again, it’s prevalent in the US market, not sure about others. They advertise say $199 / night, but when you go to check out, there’s something like a ~$35- $50 /night resort fee to “pay for amenities like WiFi/ gym /pool”. You can’t reject paying the fee, so your hotel room is actually like 25% higher than advertised.
Yeah, that’d be quite illegal down here. I spent basically half a year living in hotels straight due to work all across the UK and primarily London then continued for a few years after. So we’re likely talking +300 nights. I have never seen an additional charge.
It’s literally a culture of hiding true costs, weird af.
Makes me happy though in this day and age that people are waking up to this fact, and are starting to push back on it.
In the past corporations/governments thought people were a lot more unaware, than they are today.
It’s a culture of trying to get away with whatever makes the most profits. We also have that, but there are some reasonable laws working against that. One of my favourites is the duty to display per kg or per litre price. Before that, shops made the package sizes deliberately confusing.
We actually do have that in the US as well, but it’s typically in very fine print and a lot of people don’t even know about it.
I don’t think there’s any law like that in the US. If there were, 2 out of 4 national supermarket chains local to me are breaking the law and have been for years
It’s really not that weird at all. It’s a simple consequence of the EU having better consumer protection laws. Unfortunately the far right in the US is a lot stronger than in most of Europe and has been since the post-war era.
We also, in the US, have an old and antiquated system that was deliberately designed to be difficult to change because the founders had to convince the slave-owning class that abolition couldn’t be forced on them if they agreed to join the newly-formed union. How did they do that? You guessed it! By making the Constitution almost impossible to change, which is one reason why it required the bloodiest war in our history to end slavery.
Again, there’s nothing especially “weird” about it. As is true of a lot of contemporary reality, it’s largely a consequence of history.
Interestingly, tipping culture is also at least tangentially a product of slavery as well, but that’s a bit more complicated so I’ll save it for another comment.
And if you’re starting to suspect that a ton of what ails the US can be traced directly back to slavery, here’s a hint; you may be on to something!
That said, it was the European colonial powers who brought slavery to North America in the first place, which kind of brings us full circle.
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Have lived in both eu and us.
Agree, but the challenge on tax is that it’s not harmonized across municipalities. This means that stores that are across the street from each other may have identical prices/profit margin and a different net price to the consumer. This would lead to consumer preferences biased by physical location and have lots of other weird side effects. You can see this in areas that border state lines when the tax is appreciably different.
Step one is a harmonized tax rate, but that’s easier said than done.
The true cost is different no matter how it’s advertised, no? Harmonized tax is great and all, but lying about price is still bad, irrelevant of the actual price.
I was going to say this but fear of mass downvotes kept me quiet. Glad I’m not the only one. I’ve worked for tips but I’d rather just work for a reasonable wage instead, remove the guesswork and chances for abuse.
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One way or another, you’re paying those employees wage. One of them doesn’t get taxed or advertised is all.
Yes and no. All tips are supposed to be reported to the IRS. Whether they are or not is not really relevant. What really matters is that the customers aren’t forced to do an owners job. If an owner needs their customers to prop up their employees then the owners shouldn’t be in business.
I used to make $2.35/h when I was in the service industry. Without my customers I would’ve been fucked. What’s worse is on a slow night, I really did get fucked.
I used to make $2.35/h when I was in the service industry. Without my customers I would’ve been fucked. What’s worse is on a slow night, I really did get fucked.
I think that should be the point, employees should not be taking on the risk of a business doing poorly. That’s the business owner’s responsibility and risk, to be mitigated by them. Not screwing over a waiter because it was a slow night. Or because they were unlucky to work a tuesday night over a busy Saturday night.
You dont have to tip bro its okay
It’s not okay. I can hear some of my customers’ anxiety when they struggle to tip me. Some people lord it over me like I should revere them for their blessing. There is an unnecessary layer of stress to the customer service routine for everyone involved except the owner who benefits from this system. Not to mention some businesses pool their tips and share it with everyone, sometimes redirecting these funds into unscrupulous items like snacks without consent. >:(
Tips don’t motivate me to provide great customer service to my customers. Tips serve to maintain cheap labor, but more important to me is how they erect social barriers. I can’t blame someone for wanting or being motivated by tips when they’re stuck near the bottom of the socio-economic ladder. I’m there too so I understand, but there’s just no reason for tips when we can get/provide great service without adding layers of paranoia; When we can provide a satisfying quality of life for everyone in the process with a
not-so-simple wage increase (and God forbid, better budgeting and management from business owners).They also in general make my job harder, especially when an old person who’s basically blind can’t find any of the buttons or follow simple directions (PRESS 3 FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, MARIANNE)
I’d like to supplement that I’ve had access to my various employer’s records multiple times… because why lock the admin computer.
With my current employer, my entire wages for the month are paid for with net profits in a single day thanks to the skeleton crew we operate. I get to work knowing every other day is going straight to my boss’s luxurious life-style because it’s certainly not coming back here.
Don’t be surprised when you hear of another staff walk-out~
Fuck tips, support good living standards for everyone!
No. I actually kinda do. Like if I’m out with friends I literally get judged if I tip poorly let alone if I don’t tip at all which is social suicide.
And if I have a coupon for a meal, say 50% or something like that I still have to tip on the original amount before the discount was applied.
Moreover, and most importantly in some restaurants tipping is the only source of income the server gets. Regardless of how I feel about it I am still responsible for this person’s wage.
I hate tipping culture.
You have friends? Wow that must be nice
It’s not socially acceptable to not tip servers in a full service restaurant in the USA. It’s becoming a required social norm to tip fast casual.
The pandemic really changed the tipping norms in the USA.
As a german the whole tip system in the US is both redicilous and hilarious to me.
We have tipping here, too (we literally call it “drinking money”). With the difference, that it’s pretty much voluntary and if you don’t have much money (e.g. as a student) noone will expect you to tip.
Having tips be part of the actual wage totally defeats the point of them…I was so confused the first time I went to Germany. I asked someone there about tipping and they said, “you can, but you don’t have to.”
That didn’t really clarify it enough for me so I just tipped like I do in the US. Didn’t want anyone thinking I was a jerk.
That’s how it started here too.
https://time.com/5404475/history-tipping-american-restaurants-civil-war/
After the Constitution was amended in the wake of the Civil War, slavery was ended as an institution but those who were freed from bondage were still limited in their choices. Many who did not end up sharecropping worked in menial positions, such as servants, waiters, barbers and railroad porters. These were pretty much the only occupations available to them. For restaurant workers and railroad porters, there was a catch: many employers would not actually pay these workers, under the condition that guests would offer a small tip instead.
“These industries demanded the right to basically continue slavery with a $0 wage and tip,” Jayaraman says.
As an American and former tipped employee, living in a country without tips is so much better. However, there are some groups trying to make tips happen here in Japan. If you get good service, tell the manager or corporate. If you’re a regular, give them an actual small gift (this happens anyway because people exchange gifts when they go on vacation and such). If it’s a bar employee, buy them a drink. I like this much better.
“Ballot measures pending in Michigan, Arizona, Ohio and Massachusetts, and a bill being reintroduced in Connecticut”. There.
MVP
So that should cover everyone in this day and age since everyone asks for a tip now /s
Great. I’m never tipping again.
Paying your employee’s is not my responsibility.
I live in a state that pays minimum wage to tipped workers. The annoying thing is they still expect you to tip. They’ll even add 5% for worker healthcare and an 18% gratuity then give you a receipt with a tip line.
We need to do away with the whole concept of tipping. The employer should pay their workers end of story. The problem with tipping is it is never enough. If employees complain about low wages, the employer will just go to the customer for more. It used to be that a 10% tip was enough, then 15, then 18, then 20, now I see 25 and 30.
100% agree, pay your employees a decent wage, if you need to raise prices to do that then do that. If I can’t afford it then I’ll make different plans. Don’t charge me menu price and then expect me to subsidize your payroll off-the-books. If you can’t pay employees maybe your business plan is shit and shouldn’t exist.
If they’re taking extra are you workers actually getting the health insurance and coverage you deserve or are they straight up lying? I’d believe you, the worker, before I believe anything a corporate entity has to say.
That’s… not how it works. The key word here is “minimum” wage which we all know is woefully inadequate. Going from making $2.13 to $7.25 isn’t going to pay anyone’s rent without help
Do you tip everyone who works minimum wage, though?
This is why I’ve been saying we should be focusing on raising minimum wage before worrying about tipping. I’m telling you right now almost nobody is going to put up with the ass tier job of being a server for minimum wage. It’s short sighted to be worrying about tips just because they annoy you now when that’s nothing compared to just letting everyone make a living wage.
Everyone? No. Most places can’t hire if they’re paying minimum, so not a lot of people working non tipped positions are paid the absolute minimum.
Food workers, yes.
Regardless, this is a bad faith strawman argument
There is nothing bad faith or strawmanning about my question. I’m just going to take that accusation as a sign that you know you don’t actually have a valid argument and don’t want to continue.
Not to mention, by using the service which “forces you to tip to compensate the worker” at all, if you don’t participate in the tipping, you’re simply exploiting the worker with the business owner who got his money and doesn’t give a fuck about the worker thus the $2.13/hr. The only ethical option to “not tip” is “not order,” opting instead to heat up your own nuggies, or pop in a Freschetta, or find a business that does pay fairly and support them, or start one. By ordering, paying in full, and not tipping the delivery or wait staff, you’ve affected no change beyond exploiting that worker and making it harder to afford rent, even if they quit they will be just replaced and the cycle of exploitation begins anew.
Minimum wage is sad, yes. I wish it were higher. But fast food workers and many others make it work without the tips. There is no logical basis for tipping servers if they are being paid the same minimum wage as many other people doing equal (or sometimes harder) work in other contexts.
Fast food workers A) make more than minimum and B) so accept tips depending which establishment it is
Also, they don’t “make it work” because you can’t live on that without assistance. If your sole job is McDonald’s or Walmart, most of those people are also on food stamps
I understand where you are coming from but the purpose of the free market doctrine is to allow both consumers and workers to choose where they buy from and where they work at.
No one is forced, gun to head, to work at (X) location or buy at (X) location. If you believe you are worth more, you need to work somewhere that is willing to pay you what you’re worth.
I used to work the service industry and ended up getting my red seal as a chef and around the same time I got my red seal I abandoned the industry. I saw where it was going, I trained to make 5 star meals and then once working at a five star restaurant got paid minimum wage and treated like shit by both employer and customers alike.
I took out loans and went to university and because I did this I will die in debt, but I will at least die having access to somewhat reasonable accommodations and food.
My advice to anyone stuck in a similar situation as I was is to avoid college/university and get online accreditation and certification for network security or similar. You can practice the materials for free and when ready pay for the certification tests then leap from whatever unfavourable job to one that pays, in some cases, obscenely more than necessary.
Greedy employers leverage tipping to pay their employees the least amount possible. It’s fucking disgusting.
And too many people who receive tips don’t realize that it’s their employer fucking them over rather.
It’s worse than that, most of the time, employers are skimming from the tips. Don’t tip for things that were previously non-tipped and give the person cash if you can.
The scummiest thing I’ve seen is restaurants adding a percent service fee before asking for an extra tip on top. Not a delivery service or 3rd party, the restaurant itself. Basically it makes customers tip less because they see the service fee so it’s just flat out stealing the tip from workers.
most of the time
Citation needed. When I worked for tips, my tips never got skimmed.
Not them, but every tipped job I’ve had has been skimmed.
Whether to pay the cooks, dishwasher, or just straight pocketed by the owner, I only ever got 50-75% of the tip.
I’ve had my manager take our tip pool for snacks. The justification being that the snacks are for everyone even though half of us didn’t eat the snacks. >:( I don’t want chips, especially when it’s my customer’s good will directed towards me.
Surely you’ve got a source on this highly illegal activity. Or is it more likely you’re making stuff up?
IT’S ABOUT TIME.
How is it a minimum wage if you dont have to pay it in full?
There’s a loop hole where companies don’t have to pay minimum wage if tips amount to the minimum wage that would have been earned by the employee.
It’s a shitty way for companies to not pay their employees and expect customers to pay them.
While I abhor the whole concept of tipping, the thing that really grinds my gears is that we are expected to pay a percentage of the bill for service. If I order a basic cheese pizza or a 16 ounce tomahawk steak with a big chunk of foie gras and all the trimmings the server does not have to do much extra work for the latter. But if I have to tip $5 on a $20 pizza, why the fuck do I have to tip $100 for almost the same amount of service for the steak? Sure it weighs more and you might need to make an extra trip to serve the trimmings, but WTF, the server is not providing any more value by serving an expensive dish.
If I order an expensive bottle of wine it takes no extra effort to serve, why should I pay a shit ton more service charge?
USA, get your shit together, this is so not right. Land of the free? My arse.
Because restaurants decided to enforce tipping by percentage after world war 2 in order to keep payroll down. They lobbied for laws around it and ran advertisements to the public. Corporate governance is a huge problem in the US and tipping is just one facet.
Thanks for the background.
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While I do tip. It does suck that eating out pretty much requires a donation because we all agree that food workers don’t make enough to live on. And I live in a State where they get full minimum. Just give the workers food and boarding and we can call it a deal, oh wait… Let’s not.
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You’re going to get banned from a bunch of restaurants then. Anywhere worth eating enforces tipping. Some of them have it already included in the bill.
I understand your frustration but that’s going to add far more stress to your trip, will result in servers being underpaid, and could result in the police being called if you refuse to pay a tip that’s already included on the bill.
I’d like to see that in court.
Sure thing buddy. Here you go. As for the charges sticking? Who cares? You just got arrested on holiday.
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Because we care about profits more than we care about people.
Then I’ll turn around and counter-sue the restaurant, and make the restaurant owner’s life a living hell for the rest of their life. Maybe they’ll even end up on the street after their house gets taken from them.
Counter sue what? They aren’t sueing you and they didn’t arrest you. The legal advice to restaurants is to have the police come even for removing people because that shifts the legal liability.
You can’t just make it up. The courts will dismiss your car and charge you money for the pleasure.
Absolutely no establishments are going to ban a customer for not tipping.
I’ve seen it happen.
Since Lemmy is trying to be better than Reddit, can we agree that titles should be like ‘5 US states…’? Not every person that reads news here lives in the United States 🕊️
Americans are so self centered that they think anything in English is automatically based in the US unless said otherwise.
Are there other countries that have"states" and not provinces?
many federal countries have states. Examples: Mexico, Brazil
Oh shit I didn’t know Mexico had states o.o I assumed a lesser known country would have states. Thanks
Yes.
Can you name a few…?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federated_state#List_of_constituents_by_federation
It’s not that hard to find if you’re genuinely interested in learning about it.
I’m not interested, I just want to be proven wrong.
Go figure.
Nice.
- Restaurants lobby US government to pay their staff less than minimum wage
- Restaurants tell customers if they want better service, they should tip their server
- Customers begrudgingly begin tipping their servers
- Sexually attractive female servers in their early 20s absolutely destroy, making people think there’s a scam at work (seriously, I’ve seen girls I’ve worked with go on back to back WEEKEND vacations to Cancun on their tips, and I live in Canada, but it’s not a scam, it’s just horny dudes simping for their server)
- People start to complain about tipping culture, seemingly blaming the server for just working a job and not the restaurant owner for paying their staff starvation wages (we are here right now)
- States mandate minimum wage for service industry staff
- Restaurant prices go up to pay for wages but tip culture begins to go away
- Servers are making less money so they go get easier jobs that pay the same (working in a restaurant can be fucking BRUTAL)
- Restaurants hire more and more Indian immigrants, while hard working, are indicative of an even larger societal problem
- Restaurant owners continue to make out like bandits, while customers and staff get shafted.
How’s the customer getting Shafter in this scenario?
The state of Texas is committed to ending slavery in the coming decade. As a first step they are proposing that minimum wage should cover an entire cardboard box living quarters. And we’re not talking shoebox size Amazon hand me downs that still have the return address tag! They will remove the tag and provide enough duct tape to seal that portion of the box. Under article 17 of the 2024 end of slavery pact, they propose that men and women under the age of 27 shall not be responsible for sealing and or weather proofing their cardboard boxes. Older people are not covered yet, but may be covered as soon as two or three more migrant babies are sold back to their respective Mexican families. Indeed, Texas is making strides to accommodate the world’s demands for fair treatment of human rights and the people who should have them.
It’s also bullshit that tipped workers rarely pay taxes on the vast majority of their earnings. We’re subsiding their wages, access to infrastructure, and social services.
Lmao this has got to be the most misplaced anger ever. You’re mad at people that don’t even make minimum wage aren’t paying taxes on the maybe $35k a year? How about the billionaires that basically don’t pay taxes? Maybe we should deal with that first.
It’s been a long time since ither of you’ve been a server, huh? They’re doing better than that unless they are part-time.
Your point stands, that taxing billionairs is good, but a full-time server is probably doing 50k+ in all but the lowest cost of living areas. Because a tipped employee earns a % of goods sold, they are hurt less by inflation. The rising prices people pay result in higher tips. But since most places aren’t cash, only the vast majority of their tips are via card and thus recorded and reported.
TLDR, they aren’t as bad off as people think, and they are mostly taxed correctly.
50k ain’t shit these days
That’s at the minimum. My friend clears 100k working fine dining, but I know that’s an exception.
Considering a 4 top will be guaranteed, get a bill over $100 their averages have risen. And since I am in California, they get their county’s minimum, which is $17/hour plus tips. So my friends who serve part-time make about 60k annually here. Not bad for part-time work.
This is why I think most states should be moving our direction, as the article states.
Servers aren’t getting a constant influx of people every day that they work, it varies from day to day except for the most popular places, even then tips aren’t consistent amongst different groups of guests at popular places.
It’s not their fault that their income comes from untaxed tips because their boss isn’t paying them a taxable wage.
All business is like this, which is why we average our earnings in these discussions.
When I managed a grocery store where tips were super rare and never % based, the slow days were about $36k earnings, and the busy days were about $92k. Unfortunately, a server still has to be present on slow days, which may be low earning days, but often that’s balanced with another preferred shift.
Did they take the job? Who’s fault is it that they’re showing themselves to be ‘taken advantage’ of?
Not everyone takes a job because they want to, a lot of people wait tables because they need some source of income. They’re being taken advantage of because they’re willing to work for anything.
For reference, Musk paid 8.3 billion in federal taxes in 2021, after all the evasion tricks. So even if the servers are being taxed correctly, who cares, it doesn’t actually impact the economy.
It does. That’s how taxes work. Musk’s taxes don’t benefit everyone equally. The server’s taxes will be split, and the portion that goes to their state may be one that a billionaire doesn’t pay into.
But it doesn’t matter since you’ve created a straw man argument. I don’t disagree with anything you’ve said about taxing the rich. You just take exception to me stating that servers also pay taxes for some baffling reason.
How much is that expressed as percentage of his total wealth?
A quick search revealed $185b, which is probably his net worth and not his total wealth, but we’ll go with it:
8.3 / 185 * 100 = ~4.49%
For reference, I paid over 20% of my total wealth last year.
So I actually paid more than 4x as much tax as Musk did, relative to the amount of wealth we have.
If he paid 37 billion dollars in taxes, you would be satisfied? I find “wealth tax” to be completely separate from income tax discussions.
I’ll be satisfied when the quality of life for average citizens starts going up again.
I feel like this was true when cash was more widely used, however, anytime recently I’ve been out it’s always a tip on the card (which they can’t “hide” from the govt).
They don’t really avoid taxes now. Anything tip charged to a card gets taxed. Cash tips might not be claimed but that’s very little for most tipped workers. Additionally tipped workers paid below minimum wage make the employer responsible for making up the difference if they don’t have enough tips reported to avg min wage. That means the employers are very motivated to ensure their employee tips are reported.
Also, even years ago when cash tips were a significant % of tips, being predominantly low wage workers those employees would get virtually all their taxes back after filing a return as well. They wouldn’t get SS taxes back but otherwise for most not reporting tips didn’t amount to a lot of missed taxes. There were some exceptions where people made decent money - maybe high end restaurants and salons - but today with little cash use there aren’t many taxes missed.
They have to report their cash earnings for taxes… Maybe some don’t but most businesses will at least require it.
I never worked at a place that made the servers produce all of their cash tips for accounting purposes. I only knew one server who was claiming everything all the time and it was because she was trying to get a home loan and minimum wage wasn’t going to cut it (most people seemed to claim enough to make just over minimum wage so that they didn’t have to have their paycheck adjusted later).
Well, that’s illegal so 🤷♀️
