This is really hard for me but I have had to put my foot down in recent times. It still makes me uncomfortable but I just can’t support this anymore. If I’m sitting down at a restaurant with a server I tip 20 - 25% but I’m tired of tipping for takeout and I absolutely refuse to give extra when checking out at a store.
What about at a coffee shop or something similar?
I don’t go to coffee shops but I wouldn’t tip there either. I don’t think I should be responsible for paying employees a living wage. Charge me appropriately for the item and pay your fucking employees.
I agree that’s how it should be, but how things should be doesn’t pay the bills. Don’t take your anger out on the employees. Those are the only people you’re hurting.
And don’t put the blame on the customer. Demand better wages. I’m not taking it out on anyone.
You not tipping is not at all the same thing as demanding better wages and you know it.
First of all, I don’t go to coffee shops which is what we were talking about so the point is moot. Second, the fact that you seem to think it is the customer in the wrong and not the employers shows just how brain washed you are by corporations. People have been unionizing and striking across the country for living wages and that is the answer, not shaming the customer. Wake up.
Jesus fucking christ my dude. Not going to coffee shops is a valid option, but since you apparently haven’t noticed there are not yet living wages in most of the country. Either don’t use the services or tip until there are. Have some goddamn class solidarity and don’t force people to work for your benefit for poverty wages until things get better. Don’t pretend your greed is socialism.
This is very occasionally popping up in restaurants in Australia. Whether you live here or travelling. Do not tip unless they did something incredible. I’m talking the fish brought your grandma back to life and the chef reconnected you with your long lost father. We don’t want to encourage tipping culture. We want to increase minimum wage. It’s like $23 now and we need that to keep growing with the economy.
Tipping culture is capitalists telling workers it’s their fault for not making enough money. It’s true though, because workers don’t organize nearly enough to change the culture. People should stick up for themselves and their fellow employees and demand a better wage and benefits.
It’s getting ridiculous though like even gas stations are starting to ask. Like sorry why should I leave a tip to get a Snickers and bottle of water rung up?
One more reason I would hate to live in America. In Britain we don’t give tips.
There’s a street food hall place in Manchester where you can only order via an app and some food businessess force you to pay a “tip” while ordering your food. Can pay 5, 10 or 15%.
Who the fuck do they think is going to willingly pay more than they have to? It’s blatantly a service charge, you don’t give tips before you’ve even ordered your food.
laughs in American
I don’t tip, but that’s achieved by never doing anything where tipping is expected.
I pre-ordered a pair of shoes online and the website asked for a tip.
In Australia.
Just wait until you get a tip prompt on a self-checkout kiosk.
😬
Yeah, it’s happened to me a couple of times.
That’s when you tip yourself for your diligent work bagging groceries by not scanning a thing or two.
You mean robotip?
Pretty much, but I have no idea who the tip is going to in that case. Last time it happened to me, there was no button to not leave a tip. The options were 20%, 25%, 30%, and Custom, with 25% as the default. I had to hit Custom and type 0.00.
Over here in the UK we don’t tip as a rule, unless we’ve been directly served by someone, and even then it’s mostly just to leave whatever change there may be.
But it’s become very fucking common for chain shops to ask if we want to round up to the nearest £ and donate that money to whichever charity they’re working with.
And my answer is always, always, no.
Just another example on how easy it is to divide us and how the class war was lost long… long… long ago.
- Hot Saucerman ( @dingus@lemmy.ml ) English13•1 year ago
It’s the tipped employees who don’t realize they are getting fucked and maybe their clients shouldn’t be the people expected to fill the shortfalls of their paychecks instead of, you know, their boss. It’s not the people who work regular jobs themselves where they are not tipped.
Source: Working the first tipped job I have ever worked and motherfucker these people are entitled. Delivering pizza to poor people living off of disability and judging them for not tipping. It makes me fucking furious. I live in a state with one of the highest minimum wages in the country, it’s not like these people are being paid $2.13 an hour. Depending on the day they can make $30+ an hour when you include tips. They’re so fucking angry and shitty and petty when people don’t tip. It’s like, I guess fuck anyone who just wanted some comfort food in the middle of their shitty lives and it’s not their fault your boss doesn’t pay you better. I have previously only worked jobs where I was never tipped but still had customers acting entitled. People who demand or expect tips on top of the highest minimum wage in the country are fucking crybabies angry at the wrong fucking people. That’s on them, not the people tired of the bullshit tipping culture.
The workers don’t want to see tipping go away. They make bank in tips.
The unfortunate truth is that they do until they don’t - Anyone I’ve spoken to in the service industry has basically said that they love the good busy nights and the rest is stressful. Nobody should have to worry that they might not get generous enough customers during their workday, else basically starve. What a horrible way to live.
It’s as much on the customers as it is on the workers. Why continue supporting companies that don’t pay livable wages?
- Hot Saucerman ( @dingus@lemmy.ml ) English8•1 year ago
Because a lot of people who live on a fixed income like social security or disability simply don’t have the privilege of being able to do so?
They often can’t afford to live anywhere but a Food Desert, and often don’t own a vehicle in a city with few public transit options. Things like this can severely limit their choices on which company to spend money.
The reality is poor people shop at Walmart because in a lot of cases they really can’t afford not to. This is what people fighting against expansion of companies like Walmart twenty years ago said was going to happen. They will dominate with low prices until they’ve pushed out all other viable businesses, and then you’ll be left with no choice but to spend your money with them. This was all on purpose at the corporate level. Not sure why you’re blaming 20-30 years of corporate choices with very little pushback from city governments on the people who don’t have other places to shop anymore.
In that case if we remove tipping, the prices of everything on the menu goes up 40% (because you know damn well the business owner isn’t going to give up that sweet sweet cut of profit) and the poor folks can get nothing and like it.
Please note that I am NOT in support of the tipping culture system. Only pointing out the inevitable backlash of removing it without proper support in place. Prices of all food will increase everywhere to make up the difference and we either reach a point of equilibrium where the price goes back down because nobody can afford a pizza anymore, with the associated lowering of quality to make up for the price lowering; or else a few hundred thousand folks are suddenly out of jobs.
If we just remove the ability to tip and follow it up by telling the business owners “fuck you, figure it out”, they will ‘figure it out’ by firing a bunch of folks and raising base prices. This might even be healthy for the industry, but I doubt it. It’ll just end with most folks never going out to eat again.
- Hot Saucerman ( @dingus@lemmy.ml ) English7•1 year ago
I mean, McDonald’s manages to pay employees in Europe a living wage, and it didn’t make the food completely unaffordable.
On the other hand, in the states, for a small meal just to yourself it’s more than $10, closer to $15 a lot of the time.
So the prices are going up here and they’re still not paying people worth a damn. I wonder what the disconnect here could be?
From what I understand, their sales are down, and so they’ve jacked up prices to fix the gap.
Fair point. That works for Europe because I think greed is less of an all-consuming force over across the pond, maybe. We’ve managed to make it something of a way of life here in the States.
Hopefully I’m wrong, and there is a way out of this hellhole that doesn’t involve mass unemployment. But given our past record with most things, I’m not holding my breath.
That tip won’t go to the person serving you anyway
Oml yes it does. Some always gets taken which is super fucked up but they make up part of the wage. 60% of my income is tips and that’s how most American service workers are. Please tip. It’s a shitty system but it’s the system. You’re not rebelling by hitting no tip.
You should bring this up with your boss, not the customers. Remember it’s your boss who is responsible for paying you.
Just another example of working class people being blamed for a problem created by the owning class.
I’m not giving a tip to a robot.
If I give a tip, I’ll give it in cash to the person that served me. Never through a medium that your boss can control.
I think I’m in the smallest minority, but I haven’t tipped in close to a decade. When people ask me why, I answer with the question "when was the last time you tipped your grocer l, fast food window attendant or the person at the hardware store that brought out your 100lbs of lumber? " answer is always never and I say exactly.
When was the last time you worked and didn’t get paid for it? Why do you feel like you’re justified to come to a person’s place of work and make them be at your beck and call, but you don’t think that these servants deserve their own food or livelihood?
There’s nothing intelligent or admirable about this behavior. Quite the contrary, it’s simply a disgusting lack of respect for other human beings.
So you agree that they should be paid a living wage. I believe the employer should pay them enough, not customer to pay them on top of the already paying for the food.
Yes, I agree with you. They should be able to make a living wage. Unfortunately, when you refuse to tip you don’t hurt the owner. Instead, you hurt the employee.
You do, but if no one would tip owners would compensate the employees because they must make at least minimum wage.
The fact of the matter is that owners get to pay his employees less by having customers pay for it instead. You can call it tips, but what is really is - it’s the money the employer should have gave them.
And then we can stop the entire ritual of shame and guilt where you tip just to not be judged by everyone around you for being “cheap”, even though you paid for the costs of the food you ordered.
Yes, it’s the money that the owner should have given them, but you’re not solving the problem by stiffing your waiter. You’re just going to make things worse for them.
And that’s the issue - the blame is shifted to the customers. Damned if you do (enforce this terrible system), damned if you don’t (make waiters have less money).
The change need to be systematic and from the root. But it will never happen with so many just accepting the system, and so many more defending it so strongly.
It’s really a cultural problem, and there’s no easy solution. I certainly don’t know how to fix it. I think it would require everyone not tipping or every server everywhere demanding a higher wage.
Honestly, I hate tipping as much as the next guy. If I decide to tip someone I should be able to feel good about it, like I’m giving them a bonus, rather than feeling guilt-tripped or obligated to do it.
Unfortunately, the system is just set up in a way that sucks for both customers and employees, and the only way you can eat in a nice restaurant and not be an asshole is by tipping your server.
Boycot the restaurant
Or maybe if everybody stopped tipping and workers went on strike, businesses might actually be forced to pay a living wage instead of telling their employees to beg to get enough money to put food on the table?
Yeah. Punish the people who are living hand to mouth every single day by making them too poor to refuse any work they can get. That oughta teach them not to accept their slave labor. /S
Yes and if everyone agreed to just stop fighting we’d have world peace but we’re talking about actually achievable goals.
I never implied it was “admirable”. I shouldn’t have to supplement a workers shitty pay, so I don’t. What makes a waiter/waitress more entitled to a tip over someone who stocks shelves at a grocery store or works in the fast food industry? Also I’m not American, shocking I know. If an employer isn’t going to pay their staff a proper wage in your country then that’s between the employer and employee
Ok, so stay out of American restaurants. We don’t want you in them.
Typical American, grouping an entire nation into a personal opinion. Well done.
Do you work for free? What if someone came to the place where you work and demanded that you work for them for free? Because that’s exactly what you’re doing to servers in America if you aren’t tipping them, and I can assure you that no one on the planet wants to work without pay. It is not a personal opinion, it’s an objective fact.
Also, I’d like to point out the hilarious irony of you making a blanket statement about all Americans by claiming that’s what Americans do. The projection is palpable.
I said typical, as in average or stereotype. Was more a jab/joke than anything, but you do you. Again, it’s not my responsibility to make up for shit pay. So instead of being mad at how fundamentally broken the system is, you’re mad at people who don’t tip a very specific industry/job. You’re really something. Well done.
You’re the one who’s convinced himself that he’s justified in forcing people to work without pay, because you’ve decided it shouldn’t be the way it really is. In other words, a real (entitled) goddamn asshole. If there’s a hell, I sincerely hope that you end up in it, being forced to work for free every day for eternity. It’s what you’ve done to others, so you’ve fucking earned it.
It depends on where they’re from though. Outside of America we don’t have such a reliance on tipping
That is true. I’m really only talking about America in this context.
- shiveyarbles ( @shiveyarbles@beehaw.org ) 12•1 year ago
And the tip defaults to 20%… and a lot of times there’s no service involved, or it’s before service is provided.
It gets easier the more you do it. Don’t feel bad for not giving away the money you own.
You could try feeling bad for your server who can’t pay their rent or buy groceries because you decided they don’t deserve money for their work. Whether you like it or not, that’s the reality, and it’s as real as anything can ever be when you work all day and don’t make enough money to buy yourself a meal.
It seems fairly presumptuous of you to assume that your server can’t pay their rent or buy groceries, especially when the servers make more off of tips than most people make with their hourly wage. And I’m not sure where you think it’s my decision whether they deserve money for their work, I’m not their employer. It seems to me like you think customers should not only pay for something but should also pay the employees serving it to them. Where does the responsibility come in for the employer? Also, at some point personal responsibility comes into play, you can’t expect everyone to give you handouts all the time.
I worked in fine dining for 10 years. So no, it’s not presumptuous of me because I am speaking from personal experience based on my own life as well as many, many people I have known. I’d say that I’m one of the least presumptuous people in this thread when it comes to this topic.
It would be great if employers would pay servers a living wage, but that simply isn’t the way things actually work in restaurants.
Personal responsibility? Handouts??! Tell you what, how about you go to work for 8 hours every day and then have your business’s clients decide whether or not you deserve any money at all for the work you do. Would you say you’re just asking for a handout, or would you say that you deserve to be paid for the work you did?
The thing is, it’s your BUSINESS’s clients, not yours. You said so yourself just now. You work for the business, which sells services to the clients. At no point the clients should pay you directly.
Using my profession as a software developer (and putting aside the salary of a developer because I know it’s not comparable in terms of salaries, but bear with me for the sake of the example) - sometimes clients pay money for new features that they want our service to have. I do all the work of researching it, understanding the requirements, I design the feature, write code for it, do automation tests for it, deploy it, and enable it - all for my client. It took me 3 months.
But hey, I did all that and the client never paid me. They paid the place I work for. How come? I would love to get 15% of the money the customer paid. But it’s just not happening. I do not get a tip.
But that’s fine. Because this is how it works in almost all industries. A client pays the business. The business hires workers and pays them. The workers keep the place running by doing their jobs which ends up in sales.
We (as a society) don’t pay tips to a doctor doing a physical exam on us. We don’t pay tips to a city worker approving our registrations. We don’t pay tips to a university professor teaching us a course. Those all examples of professions that include some kind of a frontal service to clients, yet they never expect it either, because they get properly paid by the workplace.
Now, it is not the same for waiters and bartenders. They expect tips. You are a jerk and rude if you don’t tip, and we don’t want you here. Don’t you dare give our business money if you aren’t going to give some of it to us as well.
So why is this so different from the other professions? I would wager the main issue stems from the terrible minimum wages, forcing waiters so look for alternatives. The alternatives ended up being very good for the employers, so they reinforced it and made it the standard. The more they can convince everyone to tip, the more they shift the “pay the worker” part of the business to the client. Suddenly the client is paying for both the service they bought AND the worker. The business is very happy that they get to keep more money to themselves and the responsibility is now the client’s.
It has now became so normalized in USA that people will fight to keep this new normal. Instead people should strive to make those businesses work just like any other business by giving them fair wages.
I basically agree with your point of view, but the fact of the matter is that the way servers are paid is an exception to the rule. It’s unlike other businesses, and even on a federal level the wage laws are different specifically for servers.
It’s an issue that’s a lot more complex to solve than just stiffing your server and saying, “I’ve done my part to fix things!”
Oh, for sure. It’s not something you, I, or just any group of people can change. It needs to change from upside down.
The issue is that changes like that don’t happen unless they are almost forced to by really big groups demanding it.
I would be questioning why I expect my clients to pay me when that’s what my employer does.
Why am I not surprised with your total lack of empathy?
If you don’t like tipping and actually believe that people should be paid for the work they do, then don’t eat at restaurants. Show those restaurant owners why they should pay people, and be the change you want to see in the world. Otherwise, you’re just an asshole.
I certainly have empathy, it’s just located in a different spot than yours. We both want the same thing, servers to get what they deserve. You though think that I customer should pay the wages of an employee which makes absolutely no sense to me. To me the employer, the one that actually making money, should be the one to pay their employee. I’m just trying to figure out why you think the way you do.
I was never trying to justify the arrangement where the employer doesn’t pay the employee. However, the reality of the situation is that it doesn’t happen that way. In the U.S., at least, servers make their living almost exclusively by being tipped. Yeah, it’s shitty of employers not to offer a better wage, but it’s equally shitty for people to go to restaurants–fully aware that servers need tips to make ends meet–without tipping servers.
My local vape shop has started asking for tips when you pay now. I’m definitely not tipping for a D8 cart that’s already 20% more expensive than buying it online from the makers.
Why is there never a button for just the tip?
Jesus, there’s a lot of hate for workers in this thread… 😬
Edit: I understand why employers do this, but the fact is they DO do it, and denying tips isn’t going to make employers pay their workers more money. They only understand money, not sympathy, and all you’re doing is taking away the employees’ money, not theirs. If it’s not hurting them, they’re not going to raise wages because they simply don’t care.
So while one stands there refusing to tip out of a (not entirely incorrect) philosophical viewpoint, those workers reliant on tips will be starving because without said tips they can’t afford rent let alone food.
In other words, I agree with the general logic behind the conclusion but not the specific logic.
TL;DR:
Making the employers pay the employees more money? Great!
Attempting to do it by hurting the employees but not the employer? Not so great!
I worked in food service and retail for a long time, not tipped. The idea that I have to leave a tip for putting my stuff in a bag and handing it to me is ludicrous to me. Employers can pay less because they can tell new hires they get tips.
Business owners need to pay their damn employees and stop using the registers to beg customers for more money.
