Tipping Prompts Are Suddenly Everywhere
wsj.com
wsj.com
And as usual most folks are pissed at the audacity of people, making far less than could ever afford a home and paying more than half their wages to rent, asking for just a little more.
Y'all are angry at the wrong people.
Don't like all the tipping jars popping up? Act like almost EVERY OTHER DEVELOPED COUNTRY IN THE WORLD and abolish tipping. Make the employers—ALL EMPLOYERS—pay their workers a full wage instead of passing the buck to the good will of individual patrons. Then Americans wouldn't get the side eye whenever we try to tip when visiting a civilized country.
"Service est compris."
After all, we already do it for "parties of six or more." Just reduce that number to one, raise the prices 15% in those sectors, and pay for the damn labor.
But I can see another side. When you run a service business, you should be overstaffed sometimes in order to be ready for busier periods. During those slow periods, there's not enough to keep staff busy and neither is there much revenue coming in. But during busy periods, tips raise staff compensation to match staff effort expended.
So maybe institutionalize the tips? Just add them to the bill? Or... here's a radical idea... just incorporate them into prices AND then ban tipping ? Just make sure they actually go to staff, or else the owner spends a few nights in jail.
Your radical idea is to restate what I just said?
Not in my version.
> After all, we already do it for "parties of six or more." Just reduce that number to one, raise the prices 15% in those sectors, and pay for the damn labor.
You forgot the part where it has to guaranteed go to the workers. There have been big lawsuits about just this issue.
As for wage theft by employers, that is indeed a major issue already for both tip and non-tip workers. Why would anyone assume that problem would go away regardless of the existence of tipping?
I'm all for punishing wage theft aggressively, though that is a separate issue entirely.
Would you further wish to make it illegal (pay a fine or go to jail) to pay “more” for services you like?
What? Many countries have tipping, including ones that have never had any sort of racial caste system.
AND, and I only tip AFTER I RECEIVE the order, but NOT BEFORE.
I absolutely detest tipping in advance. Strikes me utterly wrong.
I'm not sure that's something we should be supporting.
I'll admit that my actual radical idea is this - businesses should charge customers what it costs to deliver services and then pay their employees to do so.
A tip is supposed to be a monetary reward for going above doing the bare minimum job, and therefore I agree with OP, the tip should come after the service, not before it.
It’s not abusing a service worker by not paying them extra money for doing their literal job with bare minimal effort.
I understand the point you’re trying to make here, but it’s not this simple in the US. From the department of labor [0]:
> An employer of a tipped employee is only required to pay $2.13 per hour in direct wages if that amount combined with the tips received at least equals the federal minimum wage
It is both true that the service worker depends on those tips because base pay is allowed to be unreasonably low and it is unreasonable to expect a good tip for poor service.
Given the structure of the system as it currently exists, I’d argue it approaches a moral obligation either to factor tipping into your plans if those plans involve service workers or to intentionally avoid establishments that force workers to depend on tips.
For me, this means: doing the bare minimum gets you a middle of the road tip. I’ll tip well for going above and beyond, and only tip poorly if the service was truly terrible. And if a place has a no tipping policy, I’ll give them my business over others.
While I’ve encountered workers who had unreasonable expectations, that’s pretty rare. The true “entitlement” here comes from establishments that continue to force their workers to depend on tips. Another form of entitlement would be eating at such establishments while refusing to tip.
The fact that the employer is required to pick up the slack is of little consolation, and certainly not a reason to assume that not tipping is ok. This rule would be more meaningful if minimum wage was a meaningful number.
Put more simply: until there are broader changes to tipping culture, it is perfectly understandable that people expect a tip.
That is not to say that entitlement doesn’t exist, and I’ve had a server or two get upset for a middling tip after mediocre service. But it would be similarly entitled to assume that the minimum wage fallback somehow makes not tipping acceptable.
(None of this should be construed as an endorsement of tipping culture).
However when I eat at a sit down restaurant, the size of the tip I pay is very much determined by the quality of the service I receive. If you frown the entire time, don’t come back to refill our drinks at all, screw up half of the orders at the table, and make me wait a ridiculous time after we’ve finished our meals for the check, you don’t deserve a good tip.
Then you would not accept the payment model that you desire for restaurant workers?
Tips are supposed to be a aww thanks, you thought I did a good job. I'm fine with tipping being an option, just don't expect it, particularly if you just give me mediocre or less service.
The solution is to abolish tips in the tax code/minimum wage laws and have employers pay the full wage directly. No more tip jars anywhere, just like in every other developed nation in the world.
"Service est compris."
Kind of an absurd notion to throw onto someone paying to have someone else deliver something. There shouldn't be a power dynamic here at all. If that means getting rid of tipping entirely, then I support that.
I agree, but when you leave a blank box determining the pay of the person providing a service, then I don't see how you avoid it.
In one case the firm charging a substantial service fee for delivery isn’t paying the delivery driver adequately? Well, yeah, that should change.
Forget percentages and tip $2 (or whatever) per hour per diner no matter where you are.
Retail and service industry jobs were never intended to be a long term career that you support a family with. They were meant to be summer jobs for children or a way to get side money for college students.
Higher paying jobs usually involve something that makes you harder to replace.
For jobs that require college education, that’s several years of school in a high demand field. Most of the college students getting service jobs chose their major poorly.
For other high paying jobs there’s a willingness to do work that is hazardous or very unpleasant.
"Retail and service jobs were never intended to be a long term career that you support your family with" only became the predominant thought AFTER young white college students started joint their ranks, which is fairly recent—post World War 2 with the Baby Boomer generation.
You¹ need to normalise paying people a living wage and eliminating tips altogether. It is absurd that businesses rake in profits and on top of that pressure customers to directly cover employee costs, who have to live with the permanent anxiety of not knowing it they’ll make enough to live that month. It’s more bonkers than listing all prices without tax, but not as crazy as all the tax breaks given to rich people. The USA has an insane and unhealthy relationship with money.
¹ Forgive the “you” but “we” doesn’t apply universally in this context. Where I live (not the USA) people acquire goods and services by paying the establishment which in turn pays its employees.