Tipping culture npcs

Americans be like; “If you can’t afford to pay 69% tip then don’t go out eating at all”

If you're going to say "69%" , you need to call it eating out, not out eating.
- It’s only eating out if it’s 69%, otherwise it’s just sparkling oral.
- While getting fucked! What a meal!
Also, complaining that things will cost too much if waiters eek by on more than minimum wage.
- The cost is literally the same... Restaurants would just be upfront about it then.
- Eek! They eke out a living on so little!
I gotta say, complaining about being on the verge of a recession while going out for a $70 meal really puts my poverty into perspective.
If all I had to do was 69 my waiter, I'd be eating out a lot more

Something I don't get, why is it percentage based? I mean, I get it from the waiters perspective. But as a customer? Whether my one plate of food is 20$ or 200$, he did the same thing. Scaling with more items or time spent would seem more appropriate.

- Chasing a windmill would be really easy tho.
Well usually more people means a higher bill, more people is more work. Lots of places even just add gratuity to the bill once a group size is large enough.
But tipping is dumb, and working in the service industry sucks... I have no easy solutions.
- I have no easy solutions.
  There's an easy one that could be legislated tomorrow by any states.
  Raise minimum wages and enforce it throughout ALL workplaces, including wait staff. Nobody should be earning less than a living wage just because they're restaraunt staff.
- I think the $20 vs $200 was a per person price. Like, if I order the steak for $50 and you order a grilled cheese sandwich for $8, we both got the same amount and quality of service, why do we tip differently?
Serving a $200 meal requires a lot of knowledge and physical skill that the server down at Chili's probably doesn't have. The kind of restaurant that sells a $200 meal also has a larger support staff that must be given a percentage of the server's tip
- You're not wrong, that's the logic behind it. It's not like you're defending it so idk why you're getting down voted! What you also didn't mention is that at these restaurants is that it is a much more leisurely meal and experience, so there isn't high table turnover which lessens the tips. I suspect they also have smaller sections.
I see it as a sneaky incentive from management for waiters to upsell you on more sides, drinks and desserts.
Since the more marked up extras a waiter/waitress can fool people into getting, the better tip they can hope to earn at the end because of the %-based expectation.
Because it's a con, and if it were a flat rate, people would see it for the con it is. By making it a percentage of sales, you can delude people in to believing they're going to make more in tips than they would on an hourly rate.
Sometimes that's true, for the vast majority of servers it isn't.
If you're getting the same level of service at a restaurant serving $200/plate meals as you are at TGI Fridays, either you're being ripped off of your local Fridays has amazing servers.
$20 is like, one entree, maybe a beverage at a cheap restaurant. $200 is probably closer to 3 entrees, 2 or 3 cocktails and an app at a moderately priced restaurant. You're crazy if you think the amount of work for those two orders (putting them into the bar/kitchen, making sure they come out correct, running them, all while juggling your other tables) is equal. I also want tipping culture to end, but the price tag scales pretty well with the amount of work being done.
- That's insane. It's literally the job. Imagine applying this logic to any service industry job.
- It mostly bothers me when I just order 1 entree and a water. At one place that might cost $10, and at another place it might cost $30, and all the wait staff did was carry a plate from the kitchen to me in both cases.
  It doesn't seem fair that the wait staff at the more expensive place gets tipped more than the less expensive place just because of an arbitrary custom.
  The extra cost of the expensive meal is mostly due to ingredients, the cooking process, the location, and maaay slightly more complicated table setting.
- Waffle House: feed a family of 4 for $20 Tip: $4 "Fancy" Restaurant: microwaved appetizer $20 Tip: $5
  A percentage scales within an establishment, but not really across them.

Keep this garbage out of europe please. i see it popping up. I will absolutely refuse to tip a single goddamn soul at this point going forward.

Scotland is a goner, last time I was there all the card terminals had it. Asked a waitress if she would get the tip if I have one and she flushed, mumbled something, looked at the boss and sheepishly said it gets shared. I bet none of the staff sees any of it.
- Which is illegal! If you tip a waiter/waitress then the money must go to them: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/all-tips-to-go-to-staff-under-government-plans-to-enhance-rights-of-2-million-workers
  I mean I'm not sure what you can do other than name and shame the restaurant, and/or boycott it
Tipping is pretty normal here in Germany but not required, no one depends on it. Probably because our minimum wage is actually high enough. Germany's minimum wage of 12.50€/h is almost double that of the US, which is $7.25/h or 6.76€/h if you convert it.
Edit: I just found out in this thread that businesses don't even have to pay minimum wage in the US, they just have to pay what's left for the tips to cover the minimum wage. That's so fucking stupid, holy shit.
- That’s so fucking stupid, holy shit.
  Isn't it? Almost like tipping at all is dumb. But don't believe all the hype you're reading. Many states supersede that requirement with higher wages. You can see the full listing of state by state requirements here.
  https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/minimum-wage/tipped
  The most populous states (so think majority of people you'd ever talk to online on the matter) require jobs to match their minimum wage and not just the federal one. So AZ as an example (and only choosing this example since I live here), the "tipped" wage is 11.35 and the minimum wage that must be reached is 14.35 after tips. I do not feel a need to tip much more than a couple bucks if I tip. 14.35 to bring me a lukewarm plate of ever decreasing meal portions... I'd rather just get up and get the food off the line myself than pay someone 10$ to do it for me.
Only way you can ensure a living wage is to not take part in it
In Austria often times they expect it because of "good behaviour". Its not a fix percentage but more pocket chance. Still they are getting a full salary at the end of the month
- That was a big change for me coming there from the Netherlands. Tipping is a bigger thing here, but salaries are also better and waiters seem to get some level of respect as well.
It's worse than you think -- In most US States, you can pay people way under the minimum wage as long as their tips make up for it. So an average waiter might make 2 bucks and hour on paper. If they didn't get enough tips to reach minimum wage, the restaurant would have to pay them out on top of that, but it's just this fucked up cultural thing to give restaurant owners free labor that the customers pay for.

The whole damn system exists to place the burden of a living wage on the customer while the company paying peanuts can claim no wrongdoing. And the really sad part is: it has worked.

Edit: and there are many, many businesses that wouldn't be in business if they actually had to pay competitive wages on their own. The invisible hand can fix nothing if tipping culture says to throw more and more arbitrary amounts of money at people to subsidize their wages yourself. At some point (I'd argue we're past it already), the band-aid needs to get ripped off. Only then will we see self-correction. The almost immediate loss of many businesses will likely trigger other actions. It's already a no-win scenario.

It's on the customer either way
- Yes, but one way is on the company first and one isn't. Would prices go up if these places were paying living wages? Most likely. Many businesses would be insolvent because their business model was simply never designed to pay a living wage to employees. Others could remain solvent, but probably not if they continue to take so much off the top at higher positions.
  And that's exactly it: the market never self-corrects if we throw arbitrary money in excess of listed prices to solve was is ultimately an issue of business solvency and ethics. There is no economic theory that would support such an idea in any industry, but here we are.
  The sheer number of businesses out of the space might even drive down rents. That's the kind of thing I mean by "other actions". But things cannot continue as they are.
  None of this is even to mention the sheer number of people in the service industry who are also on government assistance programs. They have to be -- none of the blame is on them. But my tax dollars go to that, plus I am expected to pay extra to subsidize their wages with tips. I effectively subsidize them twice while someone reaps the rewards on their yacht. All I'm saying is the yacht people should be taking the risks first. That's part of being a business owner.
- The difference is that on slow nights, staff get paid less, which is fucked up.
  The business needs to wear the cost, because they reap the rewards, which is the narrative capitalism supposedly is about.
  Tipping sucks, I'm glad we don't have it in Australia.
Tipping is good bc you van pay the employee directly. What needs to change is that tips need to be mandatory and when tips fall short of a living wage the business must pay pay to make up.
- What advantage does this hold versus the company paying a living wage in the first place?
- Fucking retarded
- I agree wholeheartedly! Let's make tipping mandatory. In fact, let's add it on to the price of your bill automatically. Better still, let's just add it onto the menu price. Oh hey, we've come full circle.
- What difference is there to you, then, between "employer pays a reasonable living wage to their employees but raises the prices of the food a bit to accommodate" and "employer pays poverty wages, forcing the customers to pay their employees for them and forcing tax payers to pay up when people earning poverty wages inevitably rely on government programs to simply survive?" If tipping is mandatory, the only people that benefit is the employer since they can simply double dip - spend less money on payroll AND force the customer to make up for your lack of willingness to pay competitive wages. Yes, under current law, employers are supposed to make the difference if tips can't cover at least minimum wage, but that's not enforced nearly as much as it should be, which puts the onus on the workers being exploited in the first place, and even then minimum wage in this country is embarrassingly unfit for supporting anybody.
  The more important question to ask is "why am I expected to pay an employee when the money I already give to a business should cover wages in the first place?"
  I'm a tipped employee for my day job. I make a decent base pay, but the tips make up for that in spades during busy seasons. I've bought my current car with tip money. Despite this, I fully support getting rid of tips if it meant my livelihood wouldn't be a gamble depending on factors outside my control, and especially if it meant fewer people had to rely on government assistance and could better provide a livelihood for themselves.
- A business is free to offer mandatory tipping and they do have to make up the difference if its not the minimum wage. The minimum wage could be higher of course.

Or even to use this same example, why not blame the restaurant owner? They can choose to pay their waiters well and tell customers there's no need for tipping.
- The idiot pro-tipping customers will still tip. They'll try to sneak a tip and dumb shit like that. And I'm not about to blame a server for accepting free money.
  But what price is fair? How is the owner supposed to just guess that?
  I'd argue the wage that an employee voluntarily agrees to is about the fairest system possible: Make job posting, state the wage and job requirements, and people who find the wage fair then apply for it. I don't see why this works fine in literally all other industries.
Well because the struggling people are blaming you when you don't tip. They should blame the restaurant owner. But they blame the diner instead.
That's why people take servers/waiters as the "enemy"
- I definitely don't see servers who support tipping as 'the enemy', just idiots.
  I was literally a server for years too.
- Doesn't matter who gets blamed, if things were ~~corrupt~~ (correct) the customer would be paying the same amount as tipping that much. Tipping culture just gives the customer a chance to shirk.
Disagree. Most servers and bartenders are in favor of tipping culture and want it to stay this way with zero wages and societally enforced tips.
Yes, the corporations are the enemy, but these other struggling people are on the side of the actual enemy.
- Of course they're in favor of it you idiot its how they make a reasonable living. The people choosing to go to a restaurant are not victims in this arrangement.
  If you can't afford to dine out then maybe demand your boss pay you more. They're the ones screwing you, not the waitress at Olive Garden.

I just stopped going to places or using services that expect me to tip. I hate the idea of tipping.

Cook at home, we don't want you there anyways.
**Gosh I didn't realize Lemmy was so full of broke assholes hell bent on taking money out of service employees pockets. Very working class of you guys!
- LMFAO. I love people like you... If you demand everyone stay home... You know what will happen? You won't have customers in the restaurant. Which leads to less tables, which leads to less wait staff needed. You will simply lose your job. So not only do you not get tips... but you won't even get your minimum wages.
  Congrats you're ruining it yourself!
- taking money out of service employees pockets
  Doesn't your employer pay your wage?
I look at it as Actual price = menu price + lowest suggested tip + $5 tip awkwardness penalty. So a place near me has a $12 lunch-size sub sandwich that's really good. But they ask for a 15% tip. So rather than just never eat at my favorite sandwich spot, I regard it as a $18.80 lunch and only buy it on rare occasions or when my company is paying.
- You tip a fastfood?
- If I'm getting it to go, no tip. Or just the tip.
- Same. I multiply any restaurant price by 4/3 to account for taxes, fees, and tips when determining if I want to go.
- Thanks for subsidizing my $12 sandwiches I guess lol. That sure helps me out! Don't think it helps the servers much in the long run though.
Going anyway and just not tipping is also a completely acceptable and legally protected option. Sort of like saying 'no thank you' to the grocery store check out person asking for charity donations or if you would like to sign up for the store credit card.
Again, it's optional. So people can also say 'yes' if they want and that's cool too I guess. Although tipping is inherently harmful to the server's baseline wage which is a bit problematic, if people want to tip they can and no one is stopping them. And I won't give them shit about it unless they specifically inquire about it. Since the whole thing is 'optional' after all I let them make their own decisions and if tipping gives them a nice release of serotonin or dopamine or something that makes them feel better, who am I to take that from them.
- Just don’t eat out if you don’t want to tip. Tipping culture is fucked but servers are just as victimized as customers.
- Going anyway and just not tipping is also a completely acceptable and legally protected option.
  It's legal, but not tipping at a restaurant is cheap. It's also legal for them to ban you from the restaurant, which will probably happen if you give them a diatribe against tipping.

I remember when I realized tipping is insane (like 15 years ago at a bar). One of my friends was talking the waitress up and she was complaining about another table and the tip she expected. Some quick math worked out to she expected 40%.

Keep in mind by doing that she probably raised her tip from your friend by at least 10%. I wouldn't assume there wasn't some strategy in that conversation.

I've literally never seen a waiter get angry about not leaving a 25% tip. Can we please avoid manufactured outrage?

You think someone on here would lie or exaggerate for clicks?
What is a meme anyway
- Something that would sound dumb written out as a comment?
We definitely get a little peeved if it's under 15, but frankly those people aren't worth getting mad at. Someone else always comes by and makes up for it anyways
Plus, it's unprofessional, awkward, and generally pointless to actually say something about it.

I don’t really get why the expected percentage went up. 15% was the standard for a LONG time. 20% meant you thought they were great. Now 15 is considered shitty, like an insult, and we’re supposed to do 18 or 25 or 30. Meanwhile prices also went up. Why am I supposed to tip 25% now? Service hasn’t changed.

Tipping in general should be for a good service or out of convenience. It shouldn't be expected
Service has gotten worse at many places.The servers are still great, but quite a few places have adopted the model of having you scan a QR code, you order online, pay with your credit card plus tip, they have you pick it up at a window, you eat, and at the end you bus your own table. Then they have options like 18, 25 and 30% to guilt you into the middle one. It's like, damn I haven't even talked to anyone yet, you're jumping to the end first
15% is standard, great even. It's this one weird trick I do. See: how this works is I'm the one with the money which means I'm also the owner of the yardstick that measures average, good and great.
I'm baffled by comments like this. One ought to be empowered to decide if someone has met or exceeded your standards, and to what degree. Letting social pressure dictate that is nonsensical.
I thought 10% was standard.
- It was, and I still tip 10% unless the service was truly exceptional.
- If you can't afford to live on 2.35 an hour, don't work for 2.35 an hour. Asshole.
- I do too well, thanks, but that’s irrelevant. I don’t get what your point is. None of that is anything new. When I worked at a restaurant in the 90s servers made $2.17 an hour plus tips, and it was okay to do 15%. 10% was for below average service, but 20 was if you loved them. 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s, always 15%. 25% was considered a really generous tip for great service. Now people expect to 25% though nothing has changed about the business or what waitstaff do.
Yup. The effect for me has been that I simply go out much less often.
They went up because customers (on average) agreed to them and approved the higher suggested tip. It's not anymore complex than that.
If every place that raised those default options instead received lower tips as a result, it would stop. It's not rocket surgery.
So ya, why do you tip 25% now? Great question. That seems fucking crazy to me.
Because minimum wage for servers stayed dirt cheap while inflation skyrocketed, and now businesses are fighting to keep servers employed (but still aren't willing to pay a living wage).
It's all fueled by cyclical logic where the business refuses to accept that they're immoral for requiring tipping. Might be legal- it's still a concious failure of responsibility to short your staff and expect someone else to make up that difference.
I've always tipped 20% for good service and 15% for average or below. I usually don't tip less that 15% unless it's just abysmal or I'm picking up a to go order in which case I usually do 8-10%. Several of the restaurants around me have changed from 15% / 20% on the suggested tip to 20% / 25% and a few have even added 30%. And I've also noticed the suggested tips are calculated on the after tax amount, and some restaurants that charge a credit card processing fee calculate the suggested tip on that amount. I tip on pretax and pre-fee totals and cap at 20%. If it get worse, my eating at restaurants will start becoming less and less.
- Why on gods green earth would you tip when you’re picking up a to-go order? Insanity! Stay strong - don’t do it!

Every time we go to Toronto we go to the same restaurant because they don't accept tips, they just pay their staff really well. Fantastic restaurant and I love supporting them.

What's the restaurant called? The tipping in CA drives me nuts, it would be nice to have a simple option in Toronto to go for!
- Richmond Station. It's SO good. The food is amazing.
Welcome to nearly every restaurant in Europe.
- Are you from Europe? This absolutely isn't the UK, nor is it many of the countries I've visited here...

Actually pay restaurant workers a decent wage goddammit!

I can't agree more. Tips should be considered an "occasional" extra. This kind of bullshit try to shift the responsibility of the indecent low salaries to customers who already pay the full price of the service.
- We call it charity elsewhere. It's a good thing but you shouldn't build an economic system in top of it
I mean, the city I live in requires at least minimum wage paid to service staff. It's like $20/hour. They're not going to decrease their tipping expectations because you know, greed is a thing
- Which is why I decrease the expectations for them regardless of their opinion on the matter.

It does annoy me slightly when POS systems have placeholder tip amounts but they're like 18%, 20%, and 25%. Sorry, but I just do the standard 15% in most cases so now I gotta calculate it out in my head.

I'm gonna go with the standard 0% or round up the number if i feel like it.
I just had a POS machine recommend 20%, 25%, or 30% for percentages. It seems like it's increasing
- I had one do that (well, even higher, 25, 30, 35, Other) for a retailer recently. Like, it took them under 10 seconds to ring me up and they should automatically get 25%? I chose zero.
- The standard tip at a POS is 0. Generally the same for carry out.
  If you're not getting personal service by a human, you don't need to tip.
  They do it because they can get away with it and it makes money off of suckers.
- I just keep reading this as Piece of Shit machine, and I don't think I'm too off the mark here.
As a non-native speaker, I assume POS != Peace of shit?
- Point of Sale.
  But you're correct in that most of these Point of Sale systems are also Pieces of Shit.
- POS in normal talk means piece of shit. POS in business talk means point of sale.
- Often it means that but in this case it means "Point Of Sale"
- Point of Sale.
- Point of Service (?) aka the machine that handles the transaction
If my tip is to be decided before I see my order in front of me, 5% tops if at all.

Restaurants when they expect a 40% tip after you drive to the store for pickup

If you can't afford the bill then don't eat there. That sucks to hear I know. However the only way we're going to reign in costs is by sticking to what's affordable. If restaurants can't charge that price then food distributors have to lower prices too. We all benefit by sticking to affordability.

If you're worried about money you absolutely should open up the restaurant's menu on their website or before you order and figure out what you can afford with a 20% surcharge. That said tipping was created by the industry to externalize costs and it needs to go die in a fire.

I don't eat out at resturants ever - and guess what! When that happens, they bitch and moan about my not supporting local businesses, and steal millions in PPP loans!
You'll hate to hear this, but restaurants struggling to fill positions and having to offer more benefits and pay to attract wait staff is the only way to end tipping culture. Tipping will never end itself.
- We can also straight up ban it. But yeah I know businesses aren't just going to willingly stop it.
I think the point isn't about the bill but the expectation of massive tips. It's too out of control to me, I used to tip 20% everywhere. Now I've gone back to 15% for regular service, and 20% if it's really exceptional.
- 20% minimum unless the service is horrible. It's not your fault the servers are paid BELOW minimum wage because the employer expects you to tip. But it nonetheless is the expectation and is the right thing to do. If you can't afford to tip correctly you can't afford to eat out.
  To be clear, i think we should get rid of tipping economy, but while it is the norm, you absolutely have to tip.
- I've never had anyone say anything about a 15-20% tip.

One thing: We're not on the verge of a recession. The right wing media needs to make things up to attack and that was one of them. I couldn't believe all that talk, nothing happened, nothing was about to happen, but they fear mongered for months.

I personally 100% think we were on the brink of a recession and Biden dropping a trillion into the economy avoided it.
- Biden should be talking up the soft landing every time he answers a question, imho. Uncle Joe saved us all a lot of pain with that.
It's been about a year and a half since we've been right on the brink of a recession.
Wait until next year when they win and put us on the gold standard plan 2025

Listen, I hate the tipping culture here just as much as everybody else, but the fact is, if you can't afford to tip, you can't afford to go out. Should employees get a decent wage without it, absolutely yes. But they don't right now, and you not tipping isn't going to change that.

If we continue to tip as a wage subsidy, where is the motivation to make companies actually pay their workers?
- I agree with you, actually. If you don't want to tip, fine, don't tip. But don't go to a restaurant and then not tip, either, because not only are you still giving the company money, you're shortchanging the actual person you want to help.
- you are proposing that if we all stop tipping, companies will be motivated to pay their workers; you are correct, this is what would happen if we all stopped tipping at the same time.
  this process is known as collective action. it is incredibly important to remember that collective action only works when it actually happens. in other words, your individual action of not tipping your waiter is ONLY beneficial to your waiter if you can make sure one else tips either.
  do you have this power? (i think you don’t; if you do i beg of you to exercise it lol.)
  now consider who actually holds the power here. at any point, your restaurant’s owner could institute a no-tip policy, thereby ensuring that no one has to tip, ever. several restaurants already have done this, and it works. now, you might (correctly) note that this may gives an unfair advantage to other competing restaurants who do not implement no-tip policy. this is where local and regional policy can come in to help coordinate transitioning to a more helpful model of compensating employees.
  so there’s kind of this imbalance, where yeah technically it’s possible for us as eaters of food to “fix” the tipping problem, but its way way easier for the people in charge (whether that’s government or owners) to fix it, because they have the power of coordination on their side.
  tldr, tip your waiters and advocate for anti-tipping policies if you want to maximize long term benefits for everyone.
- If we don’t tip, where is the motivation to make companies actually pay their workers?
The issue here isn't tipping in general... It's the audacity to try and increase percentages while prices are also going up for everything, including that same meal compared to a couple years ago.
Tipping in general is bullshit and we need to fix the root cause of employers not being required or willing to pay fair wages, across the entire economy, not just service industries.
It works pretty well in developed countries
- Visiting Japan was incredible, every price was transparent and you paid exactly what the menu said. Wish we could get that going here.
My man, I have no idea why you got down voted. You're 100% correct. Can't afford to tip, can't afford to eat out. Eating out is a luxury, not a necessity. Grocery stores have frozen food if you don't want to cook.
- Eating out is luxury and not necessity and that makes tiping a necessity?
- OP is right, and the users on Lemmy are salty. Waiters make $2.13 / hour they survive off tips. If you don't tip, the system doesn't change, you're just an asshole
It's not about "not tipping", it's 15% vs 25% and unreasonable expectations.
- Ah, that makes sense, thanks.
If you can't afford to live working for tips, you shouldn't work at a job that's dependent on tips.
- “You should just make more money!”
I hear a lot of this rhetoric but it sounds like you're just saying this is how it is and I'm going to accept it which I think is a cowards approach. If you want to make change then you have to do something about it by going to restaurants and not tipping you are sending a message. Does it hurt the server? Maybe, but in the end it's not my responsibility to pay them and if more people stop tipping then maybe things will change. With that being said, I don't go out to any places that expect me to tip because I know there are people like you that think I'm evil because I don't want to give my hard-earned money away to someone else for doing their job.
- Maybe I should've worded my original comment better, because I never said we should just accept it. I explicitly think we shouldn't accept it by refusing to do business at places that push tipping instead of paying their staff proper wages.
  Probably should've led with that.
It's true. The consumer is always who pays.
Tipping culture is basically a way for employers to allow customers to decide to undercut the employees and it's remarkably inappropriate.
I'm a world without tipping, the wait staff will make normal wages, the food prices will go up. If you cannot afford that, you will eat at home.

we're on the verge of a recession I gotta cut back

someone should make and serve my meals for me

the correct analysis of how full of shit OP is, good job

Why not pay hospitality workers a halfway decent wage, and leave tipping for exemplary service? That's how it works in the rest of the developed world.

Because the US is a failed state hiding under a developed world costume.
That's how it works in the developed world.
Ftfy
Some cities require minimum wage paid toward service employees. This is about $20/hour before tips. They don't lower their tip expectations because, as you might expect, greed is a thing. You will get treated worse if you don't tip

How about increasing wages to promote more consumer spending? Henry Ford-- a literal Nazi-- of all people, knew this!

Look at Mr. Fatcat over here eating out while we're on the verge of a recession.

We've been on the verge of a recession for years. It's just called "life" now.

25%?

Nope: Get fucked lol

I use the same logic to say get fucked to 20% ... and 19%... and 18%.... and so on. To it's logical conclusion.
- I just tip based on the service I get: If you are shitty, you do not get a tip.

Don't hate the player, the owner is the one to blame

Yes and no. It's a vicious circle, why would an employer, the owner, start paying a proper salary if they dont have to, no one else does, and they would probably go out of business by doing so?
At some point the player needs to put the foot down and start making demands. Few rights were handed out for free throughout history, usually someone need to wake up and start fighting for them.
The US has some catch up to do, its not only waiters. White-collar folks could do better too.. I've (Europe/Australia) heard from too many American colleagues and managers that they wished they also had paid sick leave, parental leave, so much PTO, and long service leave (look it up, an Australian thing, a few extra weeks off after a few years of service, hoe many depends on the state you live in).
- At some point the player needs to put the foot down and start making demands.
  And if you're in an at-will employment state, they can fire you for that. Then poison you to all the other places in town where you might get a restaurant job.
  I don't think you understand how difficult it is to do any sort of labor action in the U.S. It's frankly amazing that any of the Starbucks franchises have been able to unionize.
  I would love everyone to be in a union, but it's too easy to stop employers from quashing that idea. They can and will continue to get away with paying waiters less than they should and there are enough people desperate for work to take them up on that offer.
  So I will continue to tip. It is not the fault of someone who just needs a job that they aren't being paid what they deserve. The least I can do is give them a hand.
If I went up to a kid and was like 'hey kid, can I buy your bike for $50' and he was like 'yeah sure that sounds great I agree' ... I'd be pretty fucking pissed off if he was going around telling everyone I ripped him off when I bought his bike and trying to pressure people into giving him an additional donation.
For fucks sake kid, just say no to the $50. Say yes when you actually agree to the pay. It's really not hard, and it's all completely and totally optional.

$70 is a few days worth of food if you do groceries. Plus $0 tips

Are you sure? I'm hearing news about suggested tip values on almost all point of sales machines. Maybe even grocery stores.
- The day the supermarket asks me for a tip is the day I start shoplifting even more than I already do

Last night, my wife and I ordered Chinese for Valentine's Day. Cost $100. Tried to tip the delivery guy a $20, and he turned it down lol. He then gave my cat a temptations treat, out of a freshly opened bag he had in his pocket. Dude was amazing!

Getting real sick of the customer holding the weight of being the financial planner for a business and the owners getting by with no blame for wage stealing and shitty business practices in this circumstance.

On the verge of a recession is gonna be new go to excuse.

“Sorry babe, can’t do a bday gift this year. Nothing has changed for me, but there may or may not be a recession lurking in the shadows”

Tipping is more than just a custom; there really is a culture to it. If you're tipping only because you know the server makes less than minimum wage from the restaurant (or that greedy restaurant owners are completely to blame for this injustice), I think you may be misunderstanding an aspect of this culture.

Working in a restaurant is as hard a retail job as there is, and working as a server is often the hardest job in the restaurant. Being a truly good server requires a rare mix of people skills, math skills, memory, and a thick skin. So why do people choose to take the hardest job there is in the whole restaurant, when it pays less than all the other jobs?

Most servers end up getting paid better than the people doing other jobs in the restaurant. In most restaurants, servers make more than minimum wage. At the end of their shifts, most servers in turn tip-out the front-of-the-house employees, such as hosts and bussers, who often do only make minimum wage.

A truly excellent server may be the highest-paid employee for an entire shift -- that certainly includes the manager and anyone else on salary, and it may even include the owner, when you add in labor and upkeep costs.

In order to make all that money, however, this server has to work at all the times that everyone else is out having fun -- Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday morning. This server must put up with drunks, picky eaters and other narcissists, as well as seating errors and kitchen mistakes, all with a smile, for six or eight or ten hours straight. This server, who earns more than anyone else on the shift, is working harder than anyone else on the shift.

This is the other aspect that I wanted to address. Tipping culture is what gives that excellent server the opportunity to earn a better wage, more appropriate to the effort and expertise they devote to the job.

I'm sure this all sounds very capitalist, because it is. This may not be the most capitalism-friendly forum, I know, but I'm not trying to make any larger argument here.

I'm just saying that to me, it seems like this should be a "don't hate the players" (owners, managers, servers, rich/drunk people who like to leave big tips) "hate the game" (tipping culture). And even if you do hate tipping culture, it couldn't hurt to consider how it works for the people who don't hate it.

First, good servers are far and few between and yet the expectation is always there (even in Canada for some bizarre reason). And people's definition of good is also different. I don't care about service with a smile, or being periodically asked if the food is good. That's actually annoying to me. Just get my order right and get my bill within a reasonable time. Even if you are juggling 3-5 different tables, you have a notepad for a reason. That's not worth much to me, especially since those are requirements of many other min wage jobs (ffs EMT personnel salaries are not paid much more than min wage, you see them asking for tips?).
Second, tipping culture goes easy beyond dining in. They ask for it whenever you pay, even takeout. That's just rude imo.
Third, anecdotally, service quality is not correlated with tipping. The best servers I've experienced have been going to Japan where they don't do tips.
And it may seem that this is punching down, but it is not because conceptually tipping is a mechanism to justify suppressing wages/value of labor by businesses. Instead, "hating The game" should be about raising min wage as a whole so businesses pay more, and if that means goods cost more, at least the consumers are more informed that way.
- "People's definition of good is also different." That's exactly what makes working as a server a difficult job.
  Take you, for example. It sounds like you don't like to be bothered when you're dining out. An excellent server might be likely to recognize that and leave you alone after the first or second visit -- as well as get your order right and bring your bill promptly. Even if not, there's nothing wrong with politely asking to be left alone, but you can't expect your server to read your mind. Some people do like to be bothered. Some people value the experience of being served while dining out to be as important as the food or the ambience. People have different definitions of good.
  In your "first" part, I hear you talking about resentment toward feeling obliged to tip servers when they give poor service. I understand and agree, to an extent. Paying servers minimum wage (or more) would not necessarily improve the service, however, and could possibly allow it to become worse. The amount you leave as a tip -- if anything at all -- is still completely up to you. That's a big part of tipping culture as well.
  As for your "second," and your "third," I'm talking about tipping culture at sit-down restaurants in the United States.
  Because you are able to conceptualize tipping as a "a mechanism to justify suppressing wages" does not mean that's the only way to conceptualize it. Do you really believe that raising server pay to minimum wage (or more) would end tipping culture in the U.S.? I do not believe that at all. Because there really is a culture to it, even it is merely a custom to folks like you.
  We can stop its spread -- we can refuse to tip at places that never expected a tip before. But tipping at fancy sit-down restaurants is ingrained in American culture. It would take generations of social engineering to breed it out. There are people who like to be able to tip for good service, wealthy American people who will seek it out. Even if it became the norm not to tip at restaurants, I bet tipping would been seen as a status symbol at the fancier ones.
  And what about the "excellent server" I talked about earlier, who makes more money in tips than anyone else on the shift? To you, maybe that person is akin to some sort of prostitute, to be asking for extra money in exchange for personal consideration, when already making almost as much as "ffs EMT personnel"? Seriously though, no matter how much you raise that server's wage, they're still not going to be making anywhere near as much as they did working those big-money shifts for big tips. All else being even, they're not going to choose to work those crappy hours anymore either, so the restaurant no longer has its best staff working its most demanding shifts.
  Anyway, it didn't really seem like you were punching down. It did sort of seem like you failed to address some of the points I tried to make about tipping culture in the US, and instead provided information about your personal preferences and bad experiences dining out at full-service restaurants. That, and pushing the single-problem-single-solution minimum-wage idea, again without really addressing any of the possible collateral consequences I tried to suggest in the original post.
I worked at a restaurant as a kid washing dishes and servers did fuck all, made bank, and complained about how it wasn't enough. I lost all respect for waiters at that job (but I saw the same behaviors repeated too later in life. In the bay you'd notice that as soon as you didn't order an overpriced cocktail with dinner, your waiter would peg you as a low spender and basically just never come back unless you flagged them down).
Cooks... Good cooks are nuts to me. They'll be cooking 10 different things simultaneously with timers running in their heads. I had no idea how they managed it.
In order to make all that money, however, this server has to work at all the times that everyone else is out having fun -- Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday morning.
Only tip at weekends. Gotcha.
I worked in this culture. It’s very toxic. Stop trying to romanticize it. The movie ‘waiting’ was super on point on how it actually is.

Lmfao 🤣 Same face my chauffeur makes when he doesn’t get his Christmas bonus cause we’re on the verge of a recession

Went to my normally favorite bar today and they updated their tipping button recommendations to "20%", "69%", and "100%". The 69% was the default option which while I know they're memeing, seemed really uncool as I nearly clicked approve without noticing.

I definitely support this! Gets people to actually think about what they are agreeing to and reminds everyone that tipping is optional.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_pattern
  No. Putting shit like that is literally deceptive as shit. It's a bar... you're expecting your patrons to be inebriated. I personally think that asking for tips as part of any checkout process should be illegal when you know you're primary demographic cannot make reasonably informed decisions.

Tipping service workers is one of the very few times in our life when we can say "The people directly serving me deserve to get paid more, and while I can't raise their wage, I can at least make sure they're getting paid well while they serve me" and the fact that people are upset about that and actively refuse to tip is just crazy to me.

Like, there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, but tipping generously is one of the times when we can come pretty close! Maybe instead of having a $70 meal on the brink of a recession, have a $50 meal and tip up to the $70 that's in your budget?

- Yes, that would be ideal. Since that's not currently the case at all establishments, we can take other steps.
- Yep! The people directly serving us deserve to get paid more, and while we can't raise their wage, we can at least make sure they're getting paid well while they serve us.
It's sad how much flak you're getting for this reasonable take. I'm lucky enough to be able to afford eating out a couple times a week, and I'm not scared of sharing a bit of my wealth with the neighborhood.
- It's the last bit. His first paragraph is a good outlook. Encouraging everyone to tip 25-50% is insane and stupid.
  People tend to vote based on the worst part of a comment.
- Right!? If you're lucky enough to be financially secure right now, tipping can even be seen as a form of mutual aid!
It just incentivizes being an asshole. Assholes give zero tips and get to keep more of their money, while normal people have to pay the empathy tax.

25% is INSANE, even not during recession.

It's literally 1/4 of the meal.

INSANE.

I always found percentage to be a bit stupid as a measure. If I'm eating by myself max I will tip is 10%. All they did was walk out a plate of food and refill the water a handful of times
2 people then 15%
If there's like 8 people then maybe 15% + 1% per person.
For decent service you would expect from competent staff that is, if it's excellent than a bit more and terrible a bit less.
- Genuine question: how does that work though?
  If I consume $30 worth, and tip 10%, waiter gets $3.
  If there's two of us, and we consume $60, the waiter probably does 60% extra work for 100% extra tip at 10% of the total bill ($6)
  I would have thought (but perhaps I'm wrong) that the waiter does less work per person as the number of people at a table increases, so why would the percentage tip go up?
  And as far as the bill goes, if there's only me, I'll likely stick to soft drinks. Whereas when there are more people in my group, I'd be much more likely to grab a bottle of wine to share, pushing the total bill per person up, and thus the tip.

if your job does not pay a livable wage without begging then maybe get another job

They (and many others) are getting paid below a living wage because that was the best job they could get. The wage problem isn't our fellow workers failing to hustle harder, it's systematic oppression of organized labor.

I honestly don't know why people go to restaurants in the US. I don't want a guilt trip from the waiter with my expensive meal. Talk about a buzz kill.

Here in Brazil, tipping is not normal. Instead, restaurants and bars will add a 10% service cost to the bill. This 10% is then weekly divided between cooks, waiters, bartenders, etc, the proportion being decided by the restaurant.

That is of course not a law, but it is so common that restaurant workers already consider that when thinking how much they make. My sister worked as a bartender at a restaurant recently, and she would add R$300 (roughly $60, yes it's not much, but remember we're a middle income country) to her monthly paycheck from this.

Wait, you pay higher prices since you dine and wine in restaurant (service included) and then you're charged with service fee. Isn't the higher price you pay already the service fee?
- As far as I'm aware the UK has a service charge too. And they're the 6th largest economy in the world.

The worst is when NPCs call people NPCs.

Dehumanizing people is the first step down the road to genocide.
Stop doing it.
Sooooo you just called yourself a NPC ?

25% ??! Damn I remember when it was 10%, or maybe just the tax if you were cheap. The American public is way better at giving underpaid workers wages that keep up with inflation than the government!

But a fixed percentage already includes inflation
There are places where sales tax is around 15% too.

If I should tip 25% for a $70 meal, the meal shouldn't be $70. It should be $88. If the waiters are shit that's fixed by me (and other people) never going to that place again, not by waving a bunch of money at their faces and telling them to dance.

I will probably get hate but I also tip based on the before tax portion.

This is what you are supposed to do
20% of $25 is $5.
20% of 109% of $25 is $5.45.
I doubt anyone notices.
What do you mean by "also?" Do you tip twice?

Guy earning $2.35/hr: "It would be nice to earn enough to continue to pay for my living expenses."

Me, a guy who just had him wait on me hand-and-foot for an hour while I sipped a coffee: "Hell no I'm not giving you $.25 more than a dollar."

why is he waiting on you hand-and-foot if all you're doing is sipping a coffee?
- Presumably because you're guzzling it as fast as he can brew more and refill.
Why is your problem here that people don't want to have to pay additional above the expected posted fee for their food?
the same argument can easily be asked, why the fuck are you supporting and allowing for restaurateurs to pay 2.35/hr?
Stop encouraging greedy bosses by subsidizing their workers for them.
- Why is your problem here that people don’t want to have to pay additional above the expected posted fee for their food?
  Its clearly more your problem than mine. I'm not the one getting nasty stares and bad service because I've stiffed the help.

I used to tip most of the times when I got to Spain but I was told so many time it's simply not something people do here that I mostly stopped. There no way tip when you're paying with a card and I carry less and less cash so without any pressure to tip I simply lost the habit.

If you live in a tipping culture and can't afford to tip, then you can't afford to eat somewhere with a waitress.

this is the reverse of "if you can't afford a job that pays you find another job". I'm all for tipping for service rendered and I'm the first to suggest tipping at tables, but some of the "recommended tip rates" requested at establishments are extortionary. I'm 100% ok with tipping 15-20%, even moreso/higher if it's a super small order or the waiter went above and beyond but, my 45 minute meal that you visited twice maybe 3 times tops for does not warrent a 25+% tip rate.
- this is the reverse of "if you can't afford a job that pays you find another job".
  Not even close.
- Don't you agree with them if your argument is basically that 15% is expected but 25% is extortionate?

Or just tell them: I am sorry I didn't come to visit this country to experience this awful part of the decadent American culture.

Woah there, pardner! Them's fightin' woids.

If you can't afford the tip, why are you paying $70 for a meal?

So let's say you go buy a car, do you leave a coupple thousands more for good measure?
- Car sales people are paid on commission. If servers were paid on commission then your argument would make sense. If car sales peole were paid less than minimum wage, your argument might make sense. Neither of these is the case, so it doesn't.
Because that's just how much it costs to go out to eat now. No one can afford it. Where have you been?
- Again, if it's too expensive to afford, why are you doing it? It's not medical care. No one is forcing you to eat at a restaurant.

If you can't afford to tip after getting a big steak, you should probably get a smaller steak.

If you can’t afford to tip after getting a new car, you should probably get an older car.
fun fact: most people DO tip for new cars. Only the tip is factored in into the initial price, which already includes 50-100% markup, which gives the dealer room to abate.
If you cant afford to pay your staff you cant run a business.

No tiping means meals get more expensive. Easy as that. It is a bit strange to me that people going out to eat and drink, stick it to us waiters and barkeepers and cooks.

I worked at many small places where the owners where struggling to keep everything afloat.

I do also wish there was no need for tips, but truth is that would scare many guests away and would take time to adapt. Time in wich id be broke af.

what's the difference then? At the end of the day the guests scared away are the ones who wouldn't have left a tip in the first place.
These are reasons why the economy, politicians, and your employer are failing you. Be upset with the people who create and maintain the system, not other people like you who are just trying to escape their own shitty work situations with a beer and a cheeseburger. It shouldn't be their job to pay you directly. People in other industries don't accept a pay structure like that and you shouldn't either.
Are you trolling?
Do I have a perfect idea for you, for a restaurant - you can order anything you like and the bill is always going to be $1.00. But at the end the restaurant chooses the tip amount.
WOW that's crazy, just 1 buck 😲. And the customers will always be happy because the meals are not expensive.
No tiping means meals get more expensive.
Which is fine as long as it works out to be what it would have been with a standard tip. That's how it should be.
If tipping went away the food shouldn't be more expensive to the consumer, the restaurant owner should take a pay cut and pay their employees better. Why does everyone always assume that if minimum wage went up or if tipping went away that the customer would absorb the cost?
- Why does everyone always assume that if minimum wage went up or if tipping went away that the customer would absorb the cost?
  There’s no technical reason for why, just based on current evidence where 100% of the time producers shove any increase in cost to consumers.
  You’re correct that there’s nothing technically preventing producers from eating the increase, it’s just that they’ve never done so, at least in the US.
  Only real example where that has happen was with Nintendo and the WiiU. I’m sure there’s more but the fact I’m drawing blank past that but could name you over a thousand times when the cost was shoved off to consumers kind of is my point in a nutshell.
  So that said, that’s why a lot of people just assume increase in cost of production equals increase in cost to consumers.
- Currently servers are currently paid minimum $2.13/hour. If they don't make enough after tips to equal minimum wage over a pay period ($7.25/hour), then the restaurant is required to pay them up to that minimum wage.
  Labor costs for servers, bartenders, and others caught in this legal loophole would have to increase by 7-fold to get up to $15/hour. Many restaurants and bars wouldn't be able to afford that large of an increase without raising prices, given that many have a profit margin between 3-6% per several sources.
  There have been some restaurants that have raised wages closer to $15/hour with varying success, but that hasn't caught on widely yet.
No tiping means meals get more expensive.
Do they really get more expensive, or do you just pay the "more expensive" meal price with what would be an expected tip anyway? And no matter what, prices are gonna go up anyway, so we might not even notice those increases.
This is the truth. If you want the industry to change, don't go to restaurants who do the tipping model. If you go to these places and don't tip in some misguided attempt to change things, guess what. The owner just felt zero difference. They got paid 100% what they were expecting. It's the waitstaff who just felt it. So why would the restaurant owner, the guy with the power to change things and not notable for giving a shit about their staff, care about your protest at all? Assuming they notice which they aren't going to.
The only way to actually mount financial pressure on these places is to not go to them.
Of course, I assume most people who claim to be not tipping as some form of protest against the system just want to take advantage of the lower prices allowable by the lowered wage that waitstaff receive while claiming to be doing it for some higher purpose.
[edit] And the controversial nature of this blatant reality proves my point. People understand the nature of the system and want to abuse a service worker to their benefit while claiming to be doing so from some sort of moral high ground. You're lying. To yourself, to the rest of us, you are full of shit. If you actually believed in changing the system you would do as I say and not participate in businesses that use it.
The prices would be the same. They just wouldnt be hidden anymore

Look at this guy, paying $70 at a restaurant. How many are you buying for? 5?

Yea, buying a $70 meal then complaining about money being scarce is kinda... questionable.
My bills for two people regularly come out to $50, at normal unfancy restaurants (sometimes even just fast casual). So $70 would be 3 people for me.
That's a pretty normal 2 person meal nowadays, cheap if for 3. I'm not even in a high cost of living area.

We're not on the verge of a recession though.

Edit: lol why am i being downvoted? I'm just stating reality.

You're right, we are far beyond that

I mean, they are paid significantly less than minimum wage. While it's not your responsibility to pay them fair wages, it's their bosses, they do rely on tips to survive if you can tip, you should, but you should also advocate for paying service industry workers fair wages.

Look at this comment to votes ratio. About 400 votes total and 170 comments! That is an awesome, active community!

The fuck? What kinda bot are you?
Tipping is a very controversial subject apparently.

Rude - Atleast they could have played them a nice piece on the world's tiniest violin!

Yhea f off with that tiping culture .

When times are tough dont eat out if you cant tip (at least while your jurisdiction allows exploitation of tipped workers)

I generally always tip what I feel is generous if I'm able to, because thankfully I just have the luxury of spare change to blow from being a little more frugile these days, watching my spending and all that jazz. But honestly, if I was smart, and truly frugile, I'd be saving that money by not tipping, but also by making a meal at home instead whenever it's an option. But I'm willing participating in the machinations of the local service economy whenever I order delivery, or go to a restaurant, or do many things that would involve tipping. That said, retail tipping feels kind of weird except for some specialty shops where it's totally unnecessary but something to consider when you get excellent service.

But fuck all the profiteers behind all the schemes in the service industry that exploit workers by forcing them to rely on tipping, it's actually fucking bullshit. Wait staff and delivery drivers can get paid as low as $4/hour once they've received some balance in tips, when they should probably be getting around $20/hour and up in most cases. It's actually third world level.

But nah fam what kind $70 meal we talking? If you paying $70 for a steak, a couple drinks and whatever else at an especially nice place, you bet your fucking ass you'll tip $17.50 if the food and service is worth it, because you're spending 1-2 hours at that nice restaurant and your service occupies an amount of man-hours that might otherwise not be well compensated. Actually, maybe 25%/$17.50 is a bit much, it really just depends on the meal and the place. I feel like I would do 15% if service was ok, 20% if good, 25% if great but again it's all about setting.

If I'm not longer working for a tip, and my wage is built in. Guess who no longer cares about you dining experience.

"My boss pays me fairly so I'm going to suck ekstra at my job" what a great take
Millions of people do good work on a flat wage. If you need to be bribed to care at all about people, get out of the service industry.
- Imagine this guy at a strip club
  "You expect a bribe simply to view your buttocks madam? You are in the wrong line of work if you require money to perform your duties. No, I don't use Reddit it's called Lemmy actually why do you ask?"
Good thing you don't know you're not getting the tip until after I got my meal and service
- The hypothetical here is that tipping isn't a thing.
Here in the UK we don't tip, people generally get fired if they don't do their job well.
Guess who's also going to be out of a job
It's kind of true. If you've ever been to Europe, the service is good but not anywhere as attentive like in the states. The problem is not greedy waiters taking tips, it's the CEOs who don't pay their employees enough to dine out more than once a year.
- In some countries in Europe (Spain, Portugal, ...) tips are just a bonus, not their wage. It's a thank you but with money. So if you tip them you reinforce their good behavior.
  If the tip is mandatory it stops being a thank you and becomes charity.
- Idk what experiences you've had but i've had nothing but downright pleasant service in Europe.
  In my experience, if an american says they're consistently getting bad service in europe it's because they're being inconsiderate or rude

You can tell the wagies getting upset that you aren't tipping 50% and getting on your knees to fellaciate them for typing a few things in a screen.

This is not really fair. This isn't about extra money for barely any work, this is about being paid at all. Your 50% is their paycheck.
—Yes, I know businesses are required to make up the difference.
That said, I don't want 70% tip rates, I want a higher minimum wage.
The fact that tips give any random fuck the power to revoke someone's paycheck is ridiculous.
The fact that tips are basically hidden fees is incredible.