this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2023
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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.

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[–] Eezyville@sh.itjust.works 148 points 10 months ago (19 children)

Tipping needs to end. It's the employer's responsibility to make sure their employees are paid reasonably. Instead they pass that responsibility to the customer, ensuring tension between customers and staff.

[–] rosymind@leminal.space 21 points 10 months ago (6 children)

I used to be a consistent tipper.

Now I refused to tip at all.

I want workers to demand what they are worth to their employers, and I'm willing to be the asshole to help them accomplish that.

If we all stopped tipping, they'd have no choice but to turn the low wage issue around onto their employers. Then employers will have no choice but the pay their workers more, because otherwise they'd leave their industry for something else.

I don't care if that means we, as consumers, have to pay a bit more for the food and service. I don't care if that means that some businesses won't survive. I want fairness all around

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[–] GenEcon@lemm.ee 15 points 10 months ago

Been in Japan this summer. A culture where tipping is non-existent. It was such a great experience to not worry about tipping. Instead you simply get outstanding service all the time and workers are simply paid a fair wage.

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[–] superduperenigma@lemmy.world 141 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I went to a brewery recently where they swipe your card at the entrance and hand you a little black credit card type thing. You find your own seats, you go grab a glass, and you insert the card into a slot at a beer tap and pour your own beer, priced by the ounce. If you want food, you go to a kiosk, put your card in, and order food. When it's ready, you go to the kitchen and pick it up to bring back to your seat. When you leave, you bring the card back up to the register and they charge you for all the food and drink. But then it asks you how much you wanna tip. Who the fuck am I tipping? I was my own host, my own bartender, my own waiter, my own bus boy. I haven't seen an actual employee here except for some woman who swiped my credit card during a 5 second interaction.

[–] HorseWithNoName@lemm.ee 9 points 10 months ago (7 children)

Wtf is the point of this. Even if they wanted to save on labor costs of wait staff and everything why not just use your own card instead of trading it for a temporary card.

It's like this pizza place I went to recently. They had a little arcade so I went to put some quarters in and realized I had to go buy tokens at a machine first. It wasn't Dave and Busters or anything, just a hole in the wall with a few games in a corner. I didn't buy any tokens. Same with laundromats that now want you to buy tokens ahead of time.

There isn't a single business anymore that isn't trying to just blatantly scam you out of your money. They used to at least be more subtle about it.

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[–] callouscomic@lemm.ee 51 points 10 months ago (7 children)

Tipping was always stupid from day 1. I've spent most of my life being told I'm a moron for being against tipping culture and instead wanting fair wages and clear prices. Suddenly in recent years people realize how stupid tipping is simply cause it went to its logical extreme. People are morons.

[–] Woht24@lemmy.world 15 points 10 months ago (2 children)

People are morons but if you're from the states, which I'm guessing you are, there's a far more densely concentrated amount of morons.

[–] TheSanSabaSongbird@lemdro.id 9 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I used to think that way as well, but extensive international travel has shown me the error of my ways; turns out that morons are pretty evenly distributed throughout the world.

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[–] cosmicrookie@lemmy.world 42 points 10 months ago

Tipping should never be expected

[–] dan1101@lemm.ee 41 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I never tip anywhere I'm just picking up food and paying at the register. It annoys me as a customer and I wish they would quit asking.

[–] ObstreperousCanadian@lemmy.ca 11 points 10 months ago

I stopped going to Domino's because of this. I'm not tipping when I'm the one picking up the pizza.

[–] BURN@lemmy.world 38 points 10 months ago (10 children)

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.

[–] APassenger@lemmy.world 21 points 10 months ago

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
  • Order at table, food delivered to table - normal tipping rules
  • Everything else? Please stop asking and starting paying a living wage or as close as you can.
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[–] qevlarr@lemmy.world 36 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

I wanted to know if it’s ever appropriate to walk away and not leave a tip?

“No,” Sokolosky said.

She said people are trying to make a living.

“I always feel grateful, frankly, that I can tip,” she said.

[–] Chetzemoka@startrek.website 17 points 10 months ago (2 children)

No, I think this goes to show that the whole idea that people will cry if prices are raised to increase wages is a lie. People who buy products and services want the people who are tasked with delivering those products and services to make a good living. They are willing to pay more in the form of tips; they will be willing to pay more in the form of prices. Just give people raises already ffs.

(And that's not to say that prices will actually increase all that much if wages increase because that's also mostly a lie told to protect corporate profit margins.)

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[–] roguetrick@kbin.social 32 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (7 children)

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.

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[–] TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee 30 points 10 months ago

The Etiquette Expert... I'm an expert in these rules to this game I just made up!

[–] littlecolt@lemm.ee 24 points 10 months ago (13 children)

Pizza Hut box: The delivery fee is not a tip to the driver.

Me: Then why TF am I paying it?

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[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 21 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Well yeah. Every one with a card reader realized they could enable the prompt. Whether or not tips actually go to the workers.

[–] jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 12 points 10 months ago

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.

[–] UnspecificGravity@discuss.tchncs.de 18 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Like with every single thing that humans try to do to help each other, corporations have figured out how to exploit it for themselves.

We feel like tipping helps people because literally handing money to someone SHOULD help them. Except what actually happens is that corporations, with the full support of the government that they own, simply use that social convention to offset the wages that they have to pay their staff.

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[–] TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee 16 points 10 months ago (1 children)

How can the US actually end tipping culture? I cannot fathom a way forward that doesn't fuck over a lot of people in the short-term. Ideas?

[–] ExLisper@linux.community 43 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Set the minimum wage for waiters same as for other professions?

[–] Kage520@lemmy.world 13 points 10 months ago (7 children)

It's the waiters who are pushing back on this. I know restaurant owners enjoy this situation, but even when they try to change it, waiters would require quite oversized paychecks to make up for this lack of tips. At a very nice restaurant near me, before covid, waiters typically were making $100k. This is not the norm for most restaurants, but even now I talk to waiters making $60-$70k. A lot of those tips are unreported so untaxed. This is unskilled labor (I'm not knocking it... I've been a waiter before and it's tough work!), and if restaurants had to pay these wages I don't know how high the food costs would have to be.

If you set the minimum wage to, say, $20 per hour but no tips allowed, you would likely have a lot of waiters leave the profession.

Though I guess others would take their place and, since that's still a decent wage, things would level out eventually.

[–] ExLisper@linux.community 14 points 10 months ago

I don't think any of this matters. It's the customers that are not happy. Raise the prices of food to include the extra costs. Waiters in nice restaurants would obviously make more than minimum wage. Waiter in not so nice places probably as well. If waiters make more money because they're avoiding taxes then that ends, sorry. I don't think any one will argue that the only way to have restaurants is to let waiters avoid taxes.

[–] blackbirdbiryani@lemmy.world 9 points 10 months ago

Waiters leave > shortage of waiters > wages rise to attract waiters > something something invisible hand > everybody wins

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[–] TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee 9 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

Makes sense. The issue is that many service workers are making well above minimum wage via tipping, and they're supporting their families off it. I guess raise universal minimum wage alongside tipping ban?

[–] ExLisper@linux.community 11 points 10 months ago

No, raise the wage and make tipping optional. Simply move from 'tipping is part of their wage, they need it because they make below minimum wage' to 'tipping is a reward for good service'. You can leave it but they will not starve without it.

[–] creamed_eels@toast.ooo 11 points 10 months ago

This is a problem as well. I read at Casa Bonita they eliminated tipping and started paying the staff $30/h. And some of the staff are mad about it, which I kinda get but it’s a feast or famine type deal. Some days you really make a ton on tipping, and some days you get left a fake $100 from some evangelical asshole. I’d rather count on a guaranteed wage than a maybe. Full disclosure though, I’ve never worked in a tipping profession so I may be missing some things.

[–] GreenMario@lemm.ee 16 points 10 months ago

Only delivery and restaurants that bring your food to you and bartenders get tips. That's it. Fuck you subway I'm not tipping a sandwich artist. Fuck you Chinese buffet restaurant no tip I went and got up and got my own food.

Start being aggressive about it and I'll go 100% Mr. pink and nobody gets tips ever.

[–] CosmicCleric@lemmy.world 13 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] vonbaronhans@midwest.social 9 points 10 months ago (8 children)

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.

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[–] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 10 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

It was understood if you take a bottle of water from the cooler and place it on the counter, the only extra was a thank you to the cashier.

I've run into this and it's bullshit. No.

I wanted to know if it’s ever appropriate to walk away and not leave a tip?

“No,” Sokolosky said.

Also bullshit.

ETA: And this was a stupid article that was poorly written. The interview subject also had little insight. This wouldn't have been upvoted if the topic wasn't viscerally felt by USA citizens because there was nothing said.

[–] Smacks@lemmy.world 9 points 10 months ago

The only time I'd tip is for delivery. I don't even count it as a tip, I consider it a "don't spit in my food" tax.

[–] hubobes@sh.itjust.works 9 points 10 months ago (2 children)

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.

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