Perhaps you’ve noticed. We have reached a tipping point in the country over tipping.
To tip or not to tip has led to Shakespearean soliloquies by customers explaining why they refuse to tip for certain things.
During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, customers were grateful for those who seemingly risked their safety so we could get groceries, order dinner or anything that made our lives feel normal. A nice tip was the least we could do to show gratitude.
But now that we are out about and back to normal, the custom of tipping for just about everything has somehow remained; and customers are upset.
A new study from Pew Research shows most American adults say tipping is expected in more places than it was five years ago, and there’s no real consensus about how tipping should work.
The first comment on that article when I read it, the guy says he will not tip his delivery driver if there’s a delivery fee. I can’t believe that after all these years, people still think that a driver is going to see one cent of a delivery fee. I remember Pizza Hut implementing a $1 or $2 delivery fee back in the late 90s, and our tips took a big hit. Back then, I figured that was just a learning curve, and eventually soon people would understand that it is not part of a driver’s compensation, but I guess here we are, 25+ years later.
Please don’t punish workers for a corporation’s greed. A delivery fee is not a tip.
Stop agreeing to work for greedy corps and then getting upset when customers pay the advertised price
Waitstaff get paid well below minimum wage; tips are required to make up the difference.
Delivery drivers - and everyone else who isn’t waitstaff - get paid minimum wage. It sucks, but that’s the deal.
Nah, that’s not the deal. If it were the deal, you wouldn’t see waitstaff fighting against getting rid of tips in favor of a fair wage because they make more in tips
This is regional, some places don’t have reduced min wage for tipped employees. Servers make the same min wage as everybody else and earn tips on top of that.
Really? I didn’t know that. Everywhere I’ve worked (which isn’t everywhere but it’s 4 states in the East coast and the deep south), the waitstaff got $3.10 - but I admit it’s been over a decade.
In the us, tips are not required to make up the difference, tips are allowed to make up the difference. By encouraging tipping culture you are directly allowing the business to offload its wage costs directly to the consumer.
“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. If the employee’s tips combined with the employer’s direct wages of at least $2.13 per hour do not equal the federal minimum hourly wage, the employer must make up the difference.” - https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/wages/wagestips
Your broad generalization on employee salaries is also dishonest of course.
For example, when I worked as a delivery driver, I was initially paid how you explained (except I also got a minimum $2 per delivery) However, it was changed to being paid minimum wage while inside the store and $2.13 while actively on a delivery, and the minimum per run was increased to $2.50.
Obviously every business is different in how they structure pay.
I had no idea delivery drivers were paid like waitstaff - that’s fucked up
Your broad generalization on employee salaries is also dishonest of course.
Hey now, be nice - Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Here in the UK most takeaways charge a delivery fee but pay the drivers a set hourly / nightly rate whether it’s busy or quiet. Expecting people to pay twice for delivery isn’t acceptable.
How about employers paying livable wage to their workers.
The whole forced tipping is bizzare. And the fact that for some reason workers are seeing it as a conflict with a customer and vice versa is also weird. Businesses are screwing with both parties and pushing the blame.
Sincerely, an European.
I can’t believe that after all these years, people still think that a driver is going to see one cent of a delivery fee
Let’s get one thing straight - if the customer paid a fee for delivery, and you didn’t get paid for doing your job? That’s your problem to solve, my dude. It’s not solved by introducing a tip, it’s solved by people refusing to work for corporations with bad practices, or striking, or unionising.
To be honest, I’m really getting tired of tipping. I don’t see any waiters or delivery drivers trying to save my job from getting outsourced to another country, so why am I all of a sudden responsible to help them fight the corpos?
Ding ding ding.
Stop working for shit wages and shit corporations.
Here in Australia the fee is higher and meant to cover costs like petrol and car maintenance.
But then again we don’t have a tipping culture, so I probably shouldn’t even be here.
Except to say to big companies: stop trying to enforce tipping culture here, it’s not going to happen.
I’m generally against tipping because in my part of Canada, tipping is “supposed to be” about 15~20%, yet we pay servers no less than any other service worker. A server gets paid the same hourly wage as a McDonalds worker.
Delivery drivers are where I still feel fine about tipping. They’re often paying for their own vehicles and gas, insurance, all kinds of added expenses. But they’re making the same hourly rate as someone in a restaurant.
I never tip these days. It’s a band-aid solution that needs to end.
When tipping, either the customer is getting fucked or the employee; never the owner. I choose to fuckover the employee because they’d rather fuck me and lots of them support tipping culture saying “they make more in tips.”
Well, good. You can “make more in tips” without me. I guess that way everyone literally wins.
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Haha I love getting help from working class waitstaff that the system has exempted from minimum wage, stiffing them, and then bragging about it online.
Why? Because I’m an edgelord piece of shit.
Yes, tipping culture is wrong, but the doesn’t make you some moral leader, or not a dick. You’re just a sad little person who gets off on being a douchebag.
Yikes.
You’re part of the problem
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While this is extreme, I understand why you would do this. I just call first and see if they require tip before I go. If they do, then I don’t go.
and there’s no real consensus about how tipping should work.
Versus how is always worked before?
Because there is consensus on that, it was a very straightfor rule.
The tip was a private transaction between a customer and an employee who went above and beyond the service that the employees’ boss require them to do, to perform the job to the customer’s satisfaction.
It had nothing to do with the boss or the company they were working for (no tipping automation on the registers, etc.).
And it wasn’t ever used in lieu of the employee receiving enough of an income at the company they worked at.
And it wasn’t ever used in lieu of the employee receiving enough of an income at the company they worked at.
Unfortunately that is not true. Restaurants in most states in the US have a law that allows employers to pay tipped employees a much lower wage (about 2 bucks an hour) with the expectation that tips will bring them back up to minimum wage or higher.
I’m talking about the past, not the current situation.
Versus how is always worked before?
Because there is consensus on that, it was a very straightforward rule.
The vast majority of people had living wages back then.
The article is saying “before” as in “before the changes that happened because of COVID”. I don’t know when the inflection point was where we shifted to shit wages for traditionally tipped jobs, but it was many many years ago. When COVID hit we were not giving living wages to servers.
The article is saying “before” as in “before the changes that happened because of COVID”.
During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic
But now that we are out about and back to normal, the custom of tipping for just about everything has somehow remained;
No. Tipping culture 100% existed before COVID. This isn’t an opinion. It’s well documented. You are either willfully ignorant or a troll. This discourse has run its course.
This discourse has run its course.
“So shall it be written, so shall it be done.” /waveshandsabout
Important to add that they’re legally required to make up the difference if it comes in below minimum wage, though this is often skipped.
Nor is minimum wage a viable income.
Restaurants in most states in the US have a law that allows employers to pay tipped employees a much lower wage
You should check the year that those laws were implemented. They are a more recent phenomenon.
Also as it’s been mentioned by someone else already, those laws included clauses to make sure if the tips were below minimum wage the employees income earned would be raised to minimum wage.
And as an aside (as I’m sure somebody will mention this), I’m not saying that minimum wage is a living wage.
But that is a different subject than the one that’s being discussed here, the responsibility of customers to tip employees so that they may have a living wage, in lieu of employers paying employees a living wage directly.
I’ve stopped using tipped services entirely now. The only tipping I do is for a waiter at a sit down restaurant.
The mini mart under my building asks me to tip when all I’ve done is bring what I want to a counter. It’s infuriating because there’s no reason for it, it’s literally just there to guilt people into an extra few bucks.
This is my test, essentially, too.
To put more detail around my lines:
-
Order at counter and food brought to me may be 5-10% on the upper end
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Order at table, food delivered to table - normal tipping rules
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Everything else? Please stop asking and starting paying a living wage or as close as you can.
If I’m going to tip someone for taking my order, then it’s either insulting to those who perform table service or the top tip % has to go up. I say people should get paid by their employer and let’s end this tip thing.
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You should tip gig workers too. They aren’t getting even half of what you pay. Some rides/deliveries are literally 3 dollars without a tip.
And again, why is that my problem?
Ugh, gig workers need to be brought into some semblance of a minimum wage. Uber and Doordash are just techstortion.
I agree but just like restaurants please don’t punish the drivers.
I just refuse to order off Uber Eats or Doordash. Does that count as not punishing the drivers?
Yeah. If the business model isn’t viable then it will change.
I don’t use gig services because of the tipping. I’ve cut out any food delivery and don’t use Uber/Lyft. I’m not tipping on top of the +25% service charges those services add.
Lol, read that the other way at first. That’s perfectly fine.
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Just don’t use services that rely on exploiting the most vulnerable workers.
When you’re hungry, learn how to cook pasta or something.
Nah I’ll just curl up in a corner.
“Etiquette expert” whatd do they do? Just going about yelling at people for doing things a different way. “YOURE SUPPOSED TO HAVE YOUR PINKY UP WHILE DRINKING TEA!!!”
That was last year, now it is an offence if you have your pinky up…You HAVE TO STAY UP TO DATE, MAN!!!
This is exactly why we need the expert!
Ah dang I missed a few episodes of etiquette news.
Ah, nevermimd… Just got the info a few minutes ago, it’s mandatory again.
Missed it while I was powdering my nose.
Want to win governor? Run on outlawing tipping. Just pay a fair wage.
If only one could ignore state government so easily.
… Do you know what a governor is?
Do you know what state legislative bodies are?
Okay, and? The governor still has a huge impact on the priorities for the legislative bodies. If they don’t agree, then the bill will likely never be even introduced in the first place because there’s no point in trying. They can also help along negotiations for compromises where they would be focused on other things instead
I wonder how much Tax revenue is lost because tipping? When I worked for tips the only tips that got reported to the government was credit cards and I mainly got cash so I could see it being 12-13 thousand a year unreported and I wasn’t making even close to other cute waitresses who were easily getting 3-4 times more than me a night and they didn’t report cash tips either
Way less than is lost to tax avoidance by the ultra-rich, or indeed deliberate under-taxation of the ultra-rich. Enjoy your tips and don’t feel bad about it.
I never felt bad about it, taxing poor people is the governments bread and butter so you would think they would want to end tipping so they could take ever single cent from poor people.
This assumes everyone working for tips is poor
It’s not a zero sum game. We could be losing money to rich tax dodgers and also to tips.
(There’s unlikely to be any tax losses anywhere near what we lose to tax dodging - but it’s not a competition.)
That said - it’s not the tippee’s fault (yeah I’m going to call them tippees and there’s nothing they can do about it). The employee (commonly referred to as a “tippee”) isn’t being paid a living wage, so the employer makes up the difference with tips. The tips aren’t taxed (they’re only taxed for waitstaff since their tips are a “part of the salary”), and don’t go into the business owner’s books - so they can (“truthfully”) state that their business is successful at their current rate of pay, and there’s no real record of the reality.
Tipping everything was starting long before covid. It was introduced with new interact devices. I first saw it at subways in like 2015
Try this on for size: Tipping is a Legacy of Slavery
This opinion by Michelle Alexander always stuck with me.
I mean so are roads but we still use them. This is hardly an argument against anything, much less tipping.
Roads? What are you smoking?
Think less “road outside my house” and more “concept of modern roads” - those roads were built by Roman slaves, bud.
If you think I’m painting with too broad a brush here, that’s good! That’s literally the point of my above comment. If you’re reductionist enough to equate tipping and slavery, then pretty much everything can be directly linked to slavery.
People just forget there were slaves in places other than America.
The actual argument this person would be making, if they were intellectually honest, is that tipping comes from purchasing prompter service and is more akin to “premium” models of transactions than how we use it today. Today, tipping is a hidden cost of services, and people don’t like that.
That discussion should be had, but it’s never the discussion people want to have, for some reason.
Tipping in the US is literally “a legacy of slavery and racism and took off in the post-Civil War era. Almost immediately, the idea was challenged by reformers who argued that tipping was exploitative and allowed companies to take advantage of workers by getting away with paying them low or no wages at all.”
It is very relevant, within the context of the US, to point how tipping in America is a legacy of slavery and racism and that, while the country has progressed and pushed for reforms, this subversive practice has continued to this day and is in fact seemingly increasing.
The fact that complaints often come from customers doesn’t change the fact that the practice is exploitative towards workers and has its origins in the post-Civil War era and the abolishment of slavery.
the idea was challenged by reformers who argued that tipping was exploitative and allowed companies to take advantage of workers by getting away with paying them low or no wages at all.”
Ok but that’s not how markets work. Tipped employees don’t make less money than non-tipped. If they did, they wouldn’t do that job.
So like, the base premise for this idea this person is trying to correct us demonstrably flawed and predates any modern understanding of economics.
Tipping is just hiding the true price of the labor. The labor still costs what it costs, it’s just servers gamble that the variance works out in their favor. It clearly does, or people wouldn’t choose to be servers instead of other jobs.
So like if the core premise is flawed, I sort of think it’s a bad idea to promote the idea.
I’m all for raising prices and ensuring the servers make their income, I just think the prices will be higher than people expect and that the ensuing sticker shock will upset people.
Tipped employees don’t make less money than non-tipped. If they did, they wouldn’t do that job.
That may be true in part, especially with modern laws regarding minimum wages and reforms that have occurred.
Even with that being true, it’s still exploitative of workers. It allows a business to extract value from a workers labor without compensating them appropriately for that labor. Essentially having their customers subsidize their business.
I just think the prices will be higher than people expect and that the ensuing sticker shock will upset people.
People are already upset about tipping in its current form. If a business can’t afford to pay a living wage without tips to subsidize their workers pay then that business should fail.
There’s a reason the National Restaurant Association has spent decades fighting increases to the minimum wage at the federal and state levels, as well as the sub-minimum wage paid to tipped workers like waiters. It’s not because they’re concerned the workers aren’t getting paid enough.
Every worker deserves a livable wage (not minimum) for their labor. A tip, or gratuity, should shouldn’t subsidize labor costs but should serve as a bonus or a sign of gratitude for exceptional labor.
It allows a business to extract value from a workers labor without compensating them appropriately for that labor. Essentially having their customers subsidize their business
This doesn’t actually happen though. Consumers still pay the additional cost. The cost is just hidden.
Tipped employees don’t make less money than non-tipped. If they did, they wouldn’t do that job.
doesn’t “any modern understanding of economics” predict that, in this case, non-tipped employees would quit their jobs and get tipped jobs instead?
Do you think that there is more competition for roles in, say, food service as a server or food service as a cashier?
That answers your question.
Problem is if this scenario is flipped and tipped workers make less money, service quality degrades. That can be disastrous for a restaurant
I get that you’re trying to do a reductio ad absurdum but your post really falls flat on its face.
The Roman Empire no longer exists in any shape or form.
The United States of America is a surviving institution that has continuity to its darker history as it pertains to slavery.
The problem is not simply that slavery is causing some sort of moral taint; it’s that there are still institutions today that continue to have advantages that stem from the unjust practice of slavery in the US.
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Kinda blows that whole “To Insure[sic] Prompt Service” myth out of the water, doesn’t it?
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The thing that made me want to eliminate tipping is the abuse servers have to suffer in order to justify it. I was front of house for 18 years, and in that time I’ve seen servers sexually harassed, sexually assaulted, regular assaulted, food thrown at them and I’ve even heard customers flat out say they base their tipping decisions on the race of their server. The attitude among servers is that you can either tolerate being treated like a second class citizen, or you can go to bed hungry that night.
I didn’t listen to the interview, but what is the “going rate” for tipping up front (e.g. DoorDash, Instacart, etc)? For DoorDash, I do a custom tip depending on how far away the restaurant is, not based on the cost of the food. I assume that if they don’t like the tip, they wouldn’t take my job over others (could be wrong). But for grocery shopping, I tip higher because they’re doing a lot more. Just curious what others do.
That’s a bid, not a tip.
Just curious what others do.
I stopped using them. I feel like the food delivery services are falling out of favor pretty generally which is a good thing. Especially because no matter how much the tip is, it’s always the same cold food with multiple stops in between the restaurant and my address. That part is not always up to the driver, but still a good reason to not bother with it anymore.
I find it annoying to see the option everywhere, but I have continued to just tip on the things I always have at the % I always used. I hate the recommended amount with a passion… the last time I saw it it took the entire order amount and recommended % amounts where based off that. I have never tipped on total, why would after taxes be part of the tip %? Also I have heard mixed things about this but beer and mixed drinks are also removed as well before calculating the total for tipping. I at least will add a dollar for each drink since it’s what I would tip if I was at the bar.
Here in Europe we have something called “salary” and when there’s a price on something, it’s the price. The salary should be fair, at least the law says it has to be and mostly it is. And tipping/bargaining is a business practice that will and should die, too much room for greed/fraud/scamming etc, these times are over. And I don’t bargain. Very few people I know do it like to do. And that’s a good thing. I don’t even bargain with business partners, I expect a fair price calculation from the beginning and that’s what we do with our customers. And there’s a growing trend in business to do this. The room for greed, nepotism and cheating is getting smaller and smaller, some day we’ll have a fairer business landscape, for everybody. If a customer or business partner asks why something has that particular price, I just tell him or her. Easy. If he/she goes to someone else, he’ll or she’ll get a product that hasn’t got our quality, he’s (or she’s) free to do so and people did. And 100% came back to us, not 99%, 100% came back. And if it isn’t like that, there’s something wrong with us or our product. And it makes it so much easier and fairer for everybody. Times are a’changing!
Well yeah. Every one with a card reader realized they could enable the prompt. Whether or not tips actually go to the workers.
If they don’t they open themselves up to a massive lawsuit since there’s a record of it, unlike cash tips which are often stolen by management
And yet wage theft remains the largest form of theft in America. Almost like the punishment isn’t a deterrent.
I went to tip a local burrito place with my card a couple months ago, and the lady said don’t bother. She doesn’t get any credit card tips.
Wage theft is huge.
This shit started to pop up in Europe. I only tip when the service was above average. And a tip is 5 bucks on top of a 100 CHF meal.
Now they ask for tips at food trucks. Yes 0 is the appropriate tip for that.
Hardly surprising it’d come to europe same time as the cost of living crisis.
Tipping has been prevalent in many Europeam countries for decades, though the amount is usually less than in the US.
Point probably still stands, the places in the US where service industry workers are the most openly hostile over any argument about tipping are places where the cost of living is the most out of pace with service worker incomes.
Wouldn’t be hard to imagine it’s similar across the pond.
Wow, this “etiquette expert” grift is more interesting than the article itself. https://www.valerieandcompany.com/
Internationally recognized as a National News Contributor, Valerie is an expert in her field of leadership presence and personal branding. She is one of only 20 Master Brand Strategists worldwide and has received front-page press coverage in the Wall Street Journal as a pioneer in executive coaching.
How is this grift? These are all corporate words for “I train existing leaders”
It’s very much a real job.
It’s very much a real job.
There’s no such thing as a “master brand strategist.” Look into David Graeber’s Bullshit Jobs theory. Hers is most likely a bullshit job.
A job who’s qualifications comes from news media exposure and being
one of only 20 Master Brand Strategists
Is an absolute corporate grift.
Her job is literally to help other people get positive exposure lol
These are real things that people do. She does what a publicist does, only for corporate people. As a CEOs job is literally to attract funding, I’m sure you can see how this is a relevant job.
It really is a recursive situation of uselessness. She goes onto news media to promote her own ability to make execs feel like she can help them promote their own ability. All we achieve is making corporate leaders feel entitled to their position and more money extracted from people actually creating value.
You can hate the system and still recognize that the system has parts.
You don’t like that her job has value, and that’s fine -but it still has value.
Were you not being literal? Did I just completely misunderstand your post?
We might be thinking of different meanings of the word value. If value means anything that is worth money, then yes she probably is creating value. If value means something that contributes to society and mankind then… Bullshit job.
I think you just have a structural/functional view of the world that is fundamentally incompatible with how I view it.
Valerie can probably help with that, for a shocking fee
Maybe you see the world on How it Should work, not How it Does work. Those two are not incompatible, unless you confuse one for the other.
You’re being a bit pedantic by correcting people on it. We get it’s a “real job”, we’re saying that it’s BULLSHIT that it’s a real job. It’s a bullshit job. She’s the expert of made up rules that she creates by enforcing and enforces by creating. She makes money, cool, it’s a “job” in that sense, but it’s a bullshit job.
If someone paid me to shit on the sidewalk every day, would you correct people who said “That’s a bullshit job”? “Um it’s a real job”
She’s the expert of made up rules that she creates by enforcing and enforces by creating
Our entire society functions via made up rules that don’t make sense and contradict themselves. Ask literally anyone you know on the Spectrum. As long as society exists roles like this will exist.
21 now. I declare myself a Master Brand Strategist.
