"Tipflation" may be causing tipping backlash as more digital prompts ask for tips
"Tipflation" may be causing tipping backlash as more digital prompts ask for tips
Tipped wages are disgusting.
Every business should pay their employees stable wages.
I have no problem with putting some extra cash down for the waiter that looks no older than me and is working at the roadhouse down the village back road for minimum wage.
If a fuckin Pret a Manger opened up in center Philly and defaults to 30% tips, wtf man, wtf.
@Dankenstein @RotaryKeyboard as an European, US tips things is just ridiculous. Seriouly can't understand that shit. Why don't you pay your ppl for the work they do?
With so many things in this country, the origins are racism. While tipping originated in Europe, it became popular in the States post-slavery as a way to not have to actually pay black people. Haven't shaken it yet.
And annoyingly, the ones who often push the hardest to keep tipping culture are the servers themselves as they can take home a lot of money on a busy weekend evening. Hopefully, we're getting closer to getting rid of it though.
Here is a crazy idea, Pay Workers A Livable Wage and price goods accordingly... that is the easiest step forward as I would be tempted to ask for more because profits are unpaid wages.
If you can't afford to pay your employees a decent wage, you should raise your prices or you shouldn't be in business.
There are a few places here in Seattle which have eliminated tipping, raised prices, and raised wages. I greatly prefer this, personally speaking. Add no, I'm not going to start tipping every random cashier just because they start prompting me to.
The problem is - restaurants in most parts of the states cannot reliably do that. They’re going to see a higher price and they’re probably walking out soon after. Or worse - they stay and leave a shit review because they set their expectations at a higher bar of food quality than was provided.
If we could unilaterally remove exemptions for tipped wages, I’d see the possibility of it becoming much more common.
Most restaurants in America as they exist now should not exist. We're essentially all subsidizing low quality, frozen food.
I was ordering a pizza online for pickup. When it prompted for a tip at checkout I canceled the order. This is the worst case scenario in my book.
I just hit 0.
When someone said something to me, I stopped picking up pizza from there….
I’ll tip and quite well (usually 25-30%) for full service stuff. But for buffet style/sandwich lines and takeout. No thanks
Same here... If I'm being served I will tip well. However if I call in my order, go pick up my order, and the "server" who took my order doesn't even collect my money, then what my tips are really going towards is making up for the fact that the restaurant isn't actually paying their staff a livable wage. During the COVID shutdowns, sure I was willing to help keep their doors open. Everyone is back to full business now, so what exactly are you asking me to pay for?
I hate the tip before service prompts so much! If I am gonna tip, it’s coming down to service. If you ask me before to tip you based on the price alone, I’m out.
I made an online order for a restaurant a while ago, and there was a tip option with a message that said "100% of tips go toward supporting the restaurant." First of all that's a super vague statement, and secondly, that's not what tips are for. Tips are for supporting the specific people who serve me, not for supporting the restaurant as a whole. Why would I want to leave a tip when I don't even know where the money is going.
Obviously I can't be sure without knowing exactly which restaurant it is, but it is probably a message in response to how the delivery apps were capturing customer tips and delivery fees for themselves and sharing nothing with the restaurant. There was a period of time where restaurants were getting added to delivery apps without the restaurant's consent. They're probably trying to make you feel like you're supporting them by paying the tips and fees directly to them.
I worked at a place that did this. We only saw the tips in the jar go to our pocket, we never saw the online or digital tips.
That is horrifically illegal and you should have/should still sue
I am so tired of it. Pay your god damn employees.
A solicitation for tip BEFORE any service is rendered is essentially blackmail.
"Hey, not for nothing, but sometimes pancakes can fall on the floor before they get into your to-go bag... I'm just saying... Anyways, here's this tip screen, no pressure [holds eye contact]"
Said absolutely no service worker ever
I hate the tipping culture, and wish it would go away. But I'll still do it for sit down service as that's part of the deal. The ones that really get me are for pickup as well as the fastish food services where you go to the counter to order, prepay, you pick it up from the counter and bus your own tables. What exactly am I tipping for?
And why do taxis need tips? Or hairdressers?
Over covid we would tip fairly frequently for takeout. We still on occasion tip to local places, but most of the time we don't. I'm literally picking up the food, no service is being provided.
I usually tip maybe 5-10% for takeout. Primarily because it's my way of making sure my money goes to local folks who need it and it will help the local economy and it might take time away from serving tipping dine-in patrons. When COVID was hitting businesses hard, we upped our tipping substantially. But I think it's time to go back to normal.
I would not object to a law banning establishments from requesting tips before service has been provided.
They shouldn't request tips at all. Tips only should be provided if a customer feels like the service was above and beyond normal.
Sure, but that's a societal and cultural change. I'm talking about a legal change.
That's not true in the US. They have a tipped minimum wage; there, if you're not tipping you're stealing someone's labour.
It is a sucky system, as the buried lede in that article shows:
However, data from the very checkout system that prompted tipping revealed disparities in pay. Neitzel noticed that Black employees were earning less tips than their White counterparts.
But, until it is burned to the ground, that is the system and (in the US) you should not use it to exploit people.
Tipping is absolutely everywhere and it feels like a lot of these screens default to 20% or more. And the employees usually give you a look if you change it to below that or no tip at all.
A sit-down restaurant I understand for your server, but I still disagree with it and feel that they should just be paid a normal wage, not dependent on the tips. But I'm not going to tip for takeout 9/10 times.
Also how do we even know, as customers, if the tip is actually going to the employees?
No no, don't feel bad about hitting that 0% button. I feel like this is a PSA but in the USA if you tip a minimum wage (untipped) employee, THEY WILL NOT GET YOUR TIP. Severs get paid on tips and a minimum wage (tipped) of about $2.50. Tipping a normal employee (on screens, not cash) will just mean that the employer has to pay them less wages. Seriously? Yes seriously. You can tip at subway, the only person getting that money is subway.
Strictly speaking, this isn't true throughout the entire US. Wait staff in Washington, for example, get paid the full state minimum wage, and the minimum wage act explicitly requires that tips be paid to employees rather than retained by the restaurant. Of course, actual practice or compliance can differ, but there are a few states with better laws than the norm.
This is only true for positions paid in tips. (Workers making below minimum wage like waiters/servers)
This is not true for people working jobs at or above minimum wage, like baristas at coffee shops. The vast majority of those places give their employees the tips on top of their wages. Most employees don't put up with tips going to the owners and will let you know they don't get it.
I never tip with takeout. The only way to stop the cancer of tipping from spreading is to refuse to buy in to it. Pay your damn employees a living wage and then they don't need tips!
i refuse to pay more than it said on the bill
i do not order or buy from places that dont include taxes in the price tag and report them whenever i come across them, i refuse to order from places that dont include the deposit on cans and bottles in the price tag, and i refuse to to tip people for just doing their job
ill tip if i messed something up, but i dont see any reason why i should pay someone extra for doing what their job requires them to do, especially since theyre at worst making the same minimum wage i am
Same in NZ. We have a high minimum wage and already pay pretty high prices for everything.
Some Eftpos/Credit card terminals will even ask if you want to tip when you make a payment. Such an awkward moment pressing “No” right in front of the person serving you.
Honestly I think the delivery cost is there because people are willing to pay it. Because they’d be “leaving money on the table” if they didn’t levy fees that people are willing to pay. I dont think the fee exists for any other reason.
my favorite thing is places that have a 20% gratuity automatically added to every bill to compensate employees fairly (i am begrudgingly accepting of this even though it should really just be on the menu price) but then have an extra line for tip on top of that. and sometimes that extra tip line calculates a tip for you based off of the already added 20% gratuity. insane.
Yeah, I actually stop going out for any restaurant or outing ever since the tip inflation went out of control. I just rather spend the money on a cooking class and cook things myself. I really encourage everyone else to do the same, you save a lot of money, and you can add whatever creativity you want to the meal.
Same here. For me it was the realization that what I thought was appropriate tipping -- 15% -- was actually an insult to servers. Thanks to the internet, I saw how servers retaliate against what they think is a bad tipper. I realized that proper tipping is subjective, and there was no way to be sure I wouldn't be punished for something I did wrong unknowingly. So rather than risk it, I just decided to learn how to live without eating out.
It's bonkers how much money you can save making food yourself by just planning meals based on what's on sale this week. People don't believe me, but chicken thighs/legs go on sale here every 3/4 weeks for 99 cents a pound. Week's worth of meat for the equivalent price of a McD's meal.
I don't really eat meat. The thing that gets me are the vegetables. If I want anything fresh, it costs so much more than canned or frozen. Frozen/canned veggies are fine for some meals, but for others they can really taste a bit off. We just moved and I'm hoping there are some good farmer's markets around where I live now with decent prices (the place I moved from were worse than the grocery store).
Exactly and I also love spicy black beans and beef, it's delicious and cheap. Cost like $0.75/meal and you can cook them in a large batch that feed you for a week. People are basically addicted to consumerism and it really shows when they don't know how to cook.
Related, but has anyone else noticed the “default” tip amounts (on registers and such) are higher now, too? In the past I would see 15-18-20% as kind of the standard options, and now I don’t seem to see anything lower than 20% on those preset options. I saw one the other day that had 35% as a default option.
Yeah, it's ridiculous, but that's why other -> 0% is always a valid option. I'll tip if I'm paying after eating a meal or if someone delivered some food to me, otherwise miss me with that shit.
I forget if there's a term for it but I think it's intentional because it raises the expectations for what people think the minimum acceptable tip is.
You might be thinking of anchoring. Some restaurants have a couple of outrageously expensive wines on top of the menu for that reason - everything else looks cheaper in comparison, since the first thing you saw is "anchored" in your mind and used as a point of reference.
Is it price anchoring maybe? Seems like I knew the term for it and can’t remember it now, ha ha!
I didn't expect one of the things to carry over from reddit is the rabid anti tipping culture and abunch of people making up shit to justify their preferences.
I now have a job that gets tips, if someone doesn't tip IDC, the overall tips are good and I don't know the story of the person not tipping. When I give a funny look is when someone hits the no tip button and looks up at me like they're waiting for some kind of response.
I don't have time to care about your financial state, you all are just making up shit in your heads to justify shit to yourselves
Tipping isn't prevalent here so your comment seems strange to me. I'd never tip unless service was above and beyond. The reason why is that I feel companies use tips to depress wages, and tipping culture puts pressure on customers and not the company.
I don't see why you're angry at people who choose not to give you money in a system that allows them to choose, when the system is clearly the issue.
I'm sorry, I misunderstood who I was responding to. I don't get how to see the parent comments on this service.
I don't care if someone tips or not. If you provide top tier service regardless of the tip amount, then the tips you get at the end of the pay period are quite good.
I'm upset and tired of the near conspiratorial tone and constant complaining about tipping. Would it be better if wages were better? Yes, but they are not, tip or don't, that's fine. Some people may get upset if someone doesn't tip but I find it really unlikely that servers will even remember who you are by the end of the night much less hold or grudge or try and mess with anyone's order over you not giving a couple bucks or so.
This seems like a weird take. Put another way, you're withholding what you know to be fair compensation for services rendered as a form of protest against the company, but at the workers' expense? Just trying to make sense of your perspective.
It's not just people being cheap. I encourage you to read this piece and think about the ideas in it:
I never said it was "just people being cheap" also that's an article written by the business owner, who's business went under a month before. He also tried that again in Oakland and that closed as well
do people really not tip then expect a reaction? that's just fucking weird.
Yeah I have no idea who the tip even goes to sometimes.
And really in those cases, I assume straight to the business/owner. And then it's like why am I volunteering to buy this at an additional markup?
Tips go to employees and it's even illegal for managers to get tips. You know exactly who it's going to, you're just playing games rather than accepting you don't like to tip
No? 1) I'm perfectly happy to say I don't like tipping in general, too. I do it because that's how we've apparently agreed service workers make any money at all. 2) I didn't explicitly say I'm in the US, altho I did imagine our tipping culture to be a bit unique, so to be clear - I also don't have much faith in labor laws getting consistently enforced here. 3) Who is getting tipped from self-service machine screens?
You can also take the smug armchair psych somewhere else, guy.
I was browsing a retail website and when they automatically added a +10% top on the advertised price I noped out immediately.
I ordered some stuff to get delivered from Walmart, and they wanted me to tip the delivery driver! Fuck that! I'm not going to tip for that. Pay the drivers a living wage! If they don't get tips and don't get paid enough, then these companies just wont have drivers anymore.
Yes because capitalists are known for running out of service-sector workers due to low wages. Also learning from labor shortages.
I just don't get how not tipping workers is supposed to teach corporations a lesson. They'll just churn through willing bodies all the same.
well, there are only so many willing bodies out there. If enough people don't tip, then word spreads quickly and people don't want the job...
I love that vast majority of Europeans don't tip. At least the ones thinking rationally.
Lately I've been at some finer diners in my country, and the payment terminals now have an option if you want to tip.
I've made it a rule never to tip. Even if the service was magnificent.
Out of all the things I don't want my country adopting from the US, the tipping must be somewhere in the top.
I've been in the UK for the past week (first time). No tips, not even an option to tip.
Tip if your enjoyed the service. That's about it. Not to subsidise shitty employment laws.
can only speak to Germany, but it definitely is pretty common to tip here. Just less across-the-board and less money than in the US, usually 1 or a couple of Euros.
Here in the Netherlands, we only tip for fancy restaurants, if the service was good.
I work inside at a popular pizza chain. While tips for pickup aren't required, they are appreciated. But it's wild to think that $16/hr isn't cutting it and rather than pay us more than the minimum, they give us an option to shake a tin cup to our customers. Fucked up.
Bad idea. If you get enough tips they can start paying you as if you're a tipped wage employee, shooting your pay down to like 2.13 an hour + tips federally in the US. States have different allowances that can be higher than that, but most don't. You only need to be making 30 dollars a month in tips for your employer to legally start paying you as a tipped wage employee.
src: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/minimum-wage/tipped
That's protected from happening in my state of Washington, thankfully.
I've never heard of this happening to insiders in other states, though, because other places already pay minimum wage for kitchen staff. If one place decided to pull tipped wage trickery they'd have a massive exodus to a competitor. Delivery drivers on the other hand rely mostly on tips and management figures that they can take the abuse and tipped wage if they're making more than most inside staff anyway.
How do Americans budget when you don’t actually know how much things are going to cost you? I’d be lost without my spreadsheets
We generally estimate for the same percentage tip every time, and we keep careful track and then we have an accident and go bankrupt from the medical bills anyway.
I’d be willing to bet that the vast majority of Americans don’t budget at all. I don’t. I should, but I’d probably walk into traffic if I had to look at the numbers.
(Canada). Sit down table service, delivery and taxi I tip standard % pretax, everywhere else, will be only after if I really enjoyed the experience and not more than $5. Also I tip less if their sign has a price less than what I actually get billed (it's happened several occasions). I try to pay tips only in cash so that they actually go to the waitstaff and not to the creditcard company or the manager.
There's something about tipping cash that's more visible, physical and I can tip less by cash and still be somewhat acceptable. Credit though is quick - either a press of a button on a tablet or a quick tally, which racks up the bill.
credit is always post-tax too, because a number has been punched into the credit-terminal so it has no idea how much tax there was.
I'm glad to have moved from a country where taxes and (high) expected tips are on top of the price, to a country where tax is included in the price and tips are usually not expected. It makes a surprising difference in affordability when you can actually buy a €5 item with €5.
As soon as companies started asking for tips at self check-out, it became obvious that it's just a way of trying to underpay their staff and shift that responsibility on the customer.
I appreciate the sentiment from most folks here that this culture is ridiculous and that we should not take part. I’ve been told the more effective way to eliminate tipping culture is to vote in elections and it was so astoundingly tone deaf. Another reason why I like it here!
And here I am, avoiding bars and restaurants just because I prefer to eat at home.
A large portion of you in the replies don't feel like they should be obligated to tip because they feel it's up to the employer to properly compensate their workers, and yet they feel comfortable enjoying the product of these exploited workers' labor. My question to all of you is, if you care about worker exploitation, why don't you, the consumer, speak out against this practice directly? Call employers out, speak to the workers, see what you can do to help them organize. If you can't be bothered to do any of that, consider not dog-piling on the worker for the faults of their employer by deciding not to tip and making it harder for workers to organize. It seems to me that by not tipping, you're just helping employers and not workers.
It's called voting. Most people do that.
Tip culture is an obvious moral blackmail. While being against it I tend to go with it in countries that struggle moving past slavery.
To a certain extent if everybody stopped tipping things would change probably faster than by any political mean anyway.
If absolutely everybody stopped tipping in America this instant maybe something would change. But that's not going to happen, just as voting tipping away won't happen. It's incredibly easy to sway people who have no opinion on the matter (more than you'd think) to believe that tips are good and necessary and actually beneficial to the worker. And the people most motivated to argue this happen to have the money to throw into shifting public thought on the matter. No, the only real solution is worker organization, and the only way workers can organize is if they have the resources (time, energy, money) to do so, also external support can help.
Went to a concert the other day and they were asking for tip on their $6 hot dogs. The options were 20% 25% and 30% and no option for custom lol.
I'm not tipping at a concert concession stand when stuff is already outrageously overpriced. GTFOH.
I ordered food from a place with zero human interaction. I ordered from a tablet and picked up my food from the counter after receiving a text. I was still asked to tip. At that point, I didn't even know what I was supposed to be tipping for.
I used to not tip for takeout (since I had thought there was not really "service"), but I've since learned that the packaging for take away can be rather involved. So, I do tip now for the labor of readying the meals to go
That makes sense, I just wish they included those costs in the price rather than making me guess how much I should pay, especially when it's less clear who the receiver of the tips will be.
How do you know if your tip went to the person who did that labor though?
The problem I have with that is you have to tip before you even eat the food. They could have screwed up your order, burnt your food, etc., but you won't know until after you've already tipped them.