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Comment by Ancalagon | Hacker News Reader

No. I'm over the growth of tipping culture. I've actually started tipping less as a percentage because it's so in-your-face now, expectations have gotten so ridiculous, and almost every time I go out the service experience is WORSE than it was before the pandemic.

And look, I get it, times are tough and inflation is high. But begging for tips instead of pressuring businesses to pay their employees is not the way to go. I've also stopped eating out as much for dine-in food for the same reason. Food prices have gone up enough at my local Chipotle, I don't feel the need to eat out and experience a $30 8oz steak, poorly cooked, from my local Olive Garden or whatever.

Edit: Looked at a below comment, if its a delivery driver or a barista or something, yes I still tip as that involves the driver spending most of their time to deliver something specifically for me or the barista hand-making my coffee.

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>No. I'm over the growth of tipping culture. I've actually started tipping less

What a rude, entitled, antisocial attitude. What happens if everyone collectively decides you can stay home and cook your own food and make your own... drinks?

And what specific actions have you taken to ensure those workers are paid at least minimum wage, and that said minimum wage is in line with inflation similar to what is was, oh say, back under the times of Reagan that so many pine for when folks like yourself probably would have had your income above 100ish k taxed at 50%?[1]

IMO, if you can't afford both the tip and the meal, stay home, lest someone assume your startup or company is failing and short your stock or refuse to buy your products/services.

(And spoiler alert: This poster is not a barista, has never been a barista, and will literally put a bullet their own head before they go to what they endured like ten years of STEM school to avoid.)

[1] https://taxfoundation.org/historical-income-tax-rates-bracke...

It is not my responsibility to make sure the worker is paid a fair wage, it is the responsibility of their government and employer.

> It is not my responsibility to make sure the worker is paid a fair wage, it is the responsibility of their government and employer.

Can you vote? If you use said vote to ensure they aren't paid fairly, then you are engaged in abusive gaslighting to use this line of rhetoric rather than admit you do not want to pay a fair wage.

> If you use said vote to ensure they aren't paid fairly

Good thing I don't do that then.

I… said I was dining out far less? I literally am one of the ones deciding to stay home and cook my own food and make my own drinks.

Was the spoiler alert saying you never worked a barista job? I haven’t either, but I did work in other positions growing up which relied on tipping. Still the growth in tipping culture is out of hand. Going to a bar now I buy one draft beer and get a screen flipped over with tip options of 22%, 25%, and 30%…

I’m also confused how me tipping less would enable someone to short my companies stock when nowhere on my person does it say where I work.

>I… said I was dining out far less? I literally am one of the ones deciding to stay home and cook my own food and make my own drinks.

Sorry, that was too intense. I've never had that kind of economic security, so I reacted harshly since I've had some really rude people interact with me on and offline recently. I was off the mark in the tone of my comment, and I apologize for that.

(On my end, I keep having shit happen like I'm too depressed to cook because of a death or three, and someone picks that moment to abuse me for something like ordering with grubhub with a generous tip because I can't handle talking on the phone that day. Stuff like that makes you think your money is worthless, since the things you want to purchase will be forever beyond your reach even if you did become a billionaire rather than someone making ~70k in a low cost of living city.)

>I’m also confused how me tipping less would enable someone to short my companies stock when nowhere on my person does it say where I work.

I'm saying the barista might notice where you work and trade based on that information -- or give it to a friend who has enough $ to trade with. Hope that helps. (I know of at least one company that went completely "kaput" because of such a thing, paired with the fact the service worker knew it's unusual for folks to have a meeting outside the company cafeteria/campus/arcology

I’ve been both a barista and a developer, and also I’ve been a waiter. I don’t tip, and I only get take out. It’s simply not worth it at all. (The service)

Why?

The waiter/barista actually controls very little and both so relatively little as well. One job I was using a largely automated $10,000 espresso machine, which you kinda-sorta gotta know how to pack the grounds for. But that only took me about 3 minutes to learn… literally.

As a waiter you just bring the plate to the table. At the fancy place I worked at, we had runners who would also bus the table and they actually did that for us. So… I would get a 20-30% tip for basically just making the table feel cool and rich for being there. Like a food salesman.

I don’t really want to talk to a food or a car salesman myself, in all honesty. If I got paid more then yes, for sure. But I don’t.

Let’s watch society collapse under the weight of collective wage stagnation and greed!

If the tip is mandatory include it in the price or shut up

This is fair, how it is done in some places, and ideally how it would be done in the United States.

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