Comment by slackdog | Hacker News Reader

Comment by slackdog | Hacker News Reader

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> In the US now, businesses expect you to tip on take-out orders, at drive through windows, at every form of eatery, there's even tips expected now at some retailers.

This does not match my experience at all. You may see tip jars in those places, but there is never an expectation (in the soft-obligation sense) that anybody tip into any tip jar ever. The only place where tips are considered soft-obligatory are waitresses and food delivery, and in those cases you leave the tip on the table or hand it to the person yourself. Tipping into jars may be desired but is never expected.

Are you perhaps an immigrant to or tourist of America? I can see how foreigners might get confused by the tip jars and not pick up on this nuance since it isn't explicitly spelled out anywhere on the jar, but I don't think people integrated into American culture perceive any sort of obligation to tip into jars. If you sit in a shop and watch people order, you'll surely see that the overwhelming majority of people never put anything into the jar.

(From what I have seen in Canada, all of this is true there as well. Tips for waitresses are socially obligatory, while tips into jars are not.)

In Canada, almost everyone pays by debit or credit card instead of cash. What has happened in the last few years is that the tipping function has been enabled on debit/credit terminals at many more businesses than it used to be, including many fast food chains. On the machine it pops up with recommended tip percentages like 15%, 18%, 20%, which are all calculated on the final total post-tax (which isn’t how it should be done but results in higher tips). So you could argue that this is just the digital equivalent of a tip jar (since many people don’t carry cash), but by presenting it in this way (with recommended percentages) it creates the implication that tipping is normal, and you don’t want to be the jerk who doesn’t leave a tip. So that’s why there’s this outrage (at least in Canada) about “tip creep.” It may be similar in the U.S. for people who pay by card vs. cash.

I have seen the tip buttons on those terminal screens before in America and Canada, but have never felt any obligation at all to tip through them. Same deal as terminals in supermarkets asking for charity donations, pressing the "No" button is just muscle memory and I don't even think twice about it. If anything those screens make it easier to not tip, since you're interacting face-to-screen instead of face-to-face.

I don't think tipping on those screens is considered soft-obligatory in America, but maybe I'm guilty of a few social faux pas in Canada..

It’s basically a “dark pattern,” especially when the UI gives different presets and highlights one as “recommended” even though that amount isn’t actually normal to locals. If nothing else it’s taking advantage of visitors who don’t actually know the correct local customs, or trying to subversively change the norm by guilt-tripping the customer into thinking the workers depend on tips the way restaurant waitstaff do. I think that’s the root of the feedback reflected in the original survey.

> > In the US now, businesses expect you to tip on take-out orders, at drive through windows, at every form of eatery, there's even tips expected now at some retailers.

> This does not match my experience at all. You may see tip jars in those places, but there is never an expectation (in the soft-obligation sense) that anybody tip into any tip jar ever. The only place where tips are considered soft-obligatory are waitresses and food delivery, and in those cases you leave the tip on the table or hand it to the person yourself.

What about taxis? I've been harassed by taxi drivers when I forgot to add a tip because I've not been in a country with tipping for a while.

> Are you perhaps an immigrant to or tourist of America? I can see how foreigners might get confused by the tip jars and not pick up on this nuance since it isn't explicitly spelled out anywhere on the jar, but I don't think people integrated into American culture perceive any sort of obligation to tip into jars. If you sit in a shop and watch people order, you'll surely see that the overwhelming majority of people never put anything into the jar.

I don't know where in the US you are but every time I'm in california all the electronic payment systems (essentially an Ipad running some special software) ask you for a tip when paying by card. The minimum selection unless putting in manually is usually 15%. I haven't seen a top jar in the US in ages, they are very common in countries without tipping culture like Australia and NZ (funnily enough I feel much more inclined to put something in those instead of tipping in the US).

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