301–310 of 550 posts
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Try doing 20% on an american credit card bill when you're drunk and leaving the house, where it wants you to write down the total AND the difference. It's completely retarded in every conceivable way.
Isn't that an either-or? I've always either written the tip or the total amount on trips to the US.
Went to a revolving sushi bar tonight. Everything was automated. They even had a touchpad where you can put in orders (like miso ramen soup), which get delivered by a belt. The only thing the servers did was sit us and bring us water. We asked them to replace a leaking soy sauce container and they never did. We tipped 0$ -- there was essentially no service. I kinda felt bad, but talking it over with my wife, I couldn…
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The difference between bad service and good service might only be 15% vs 20% and IME most American's do not tip punitively anyway, and tip the same no matter what. The employer is in a much better position to assess staff performance than customers... And it's not the customers job. If a waiter sucks they won't fire themselves just because they're only getting 15% tips.
>The employer is in a much better position to assess staff performance than customers... And it's not the customers job. I disagree, after all it's the waiter who interacts with the customer most, while the employer mostly can only watch from afar or has other (better) things to do. In that regard a 5% difference on the tip won't do much at all. If the waiter expects to get tipped anyway, regardless of how bad the se…
At any rate, I've not heard of tips being collated by the manager, and the employees with the smallest tips fired/disciplined... but perhaps it does happen? Unless that's the case IMO customers aren't assessing performance in a meaningful way.
> But if getting any tip at all depends on the quality of service
In the US it does not, service has to be DIRE to get 0.
Tip to americans: tipping is ultra-confusing to foreign visitors. But you dont depend on tourism so you dont see it. Its an arduous procedure and the amount changes from state to state. It leads to a lot of misunderstanding. The service is good , leaning on overbearing sometimes, but overall i think its more hassle than benefit.
Whenever you eat in a sit-down, full service restaurant, you typically want to leave 15-20% of the full purchase price of the food as a tip. Don't feel obligated to do this at fast food restaurants or anywhere where you get the food at the counter. It's not that hard to remember this, but I agree, it can create some socially awkward circumstances, especially for tourists who "forget" about the custom.
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Very rarely do I cite market forces to address social problems, but to me this feels like an appropriate situation for it. Restaurants are constantly getting applications, and many who do not do well on high-tip nights will appreciate the stable paycheck. I won't put non-sense statistics to it, but while many servers do earn huge paychecks from tips, many others scrape by and fight for hours at minimum wage and have…
But part of the problem is that the tipping-culture already VERY quickly corrects that problem. Restaurants generally over-staff, and tend to get really cutthroat about who stays and who gos when it's needed. A place I worked when I was younger would regularly take the lowest performer off of saturday nights every saturday night. The ones who aren't making a huge amount of money on the busy nights are already removed…
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Very rarely do I cite market forces to address social problems, but to me this feels like an appropriate situation for it. Restaurants are constantly getting applications, and many who do not do well on high-tip nights will appreciate the stable paycheck. I won't put non-sense statistics to it, but while many servers do earn huge paychecks from tips, many others scrape by and fight for hours at minimum wage and have…
But part of the problem is that the tipping-culture already VERY quickly corrects that problem. Restaurants generally over-staff, and tend to get really cutthroat about who stays and who gos when it's needed. A place I worked when I was younger would regularly take the lowest performer off of saturday nights every saturday night. The ones who aren't making a huge amount of money on the busy nights are already removed…
There will be holdouts no doubt but overall the rest of the world has no lack of people willing to wait tables. They just get a steady pay check out of it instead of hoping for hours.
Having worked in the restaurant industry for over 12 years, started as a bus boy at 15 years old, then waiter, then bartender and finally moved to General Manager of the whole place. I can tell you that tipping is absolutely necessary. I can say that the article is dead wrong about this. Tipping is the best thing that's ever happened to the US Restourant business. Especially at great establishments with repeat custom…
Having good service is not coming every 5 minutes ask if I'm all right, if I need something, if this or that. Leave me alone, I want to eat and enjoy, not have to reply a waiter eager for a tip.
Also the whole vibe is very "fake", I never felt really "welcomed" in any of the places I went to, the greetings, the whole attitude looked like a sham, I went to upscale places and just normal diners and it was all the same.
I'm sorry but I don't think this is healthy as a society, I prefer the level of service I had in São Paulo or here in Stockholm, waiters are genuinely nice or just get out of your way and let you enjoy the experience or just your food.
Tipping culture looks like whoring: if you pay enough anyone can be nice to you, I'm sorry but I don't like to know that the niceness is artificial and that I'm paying for it.
As a person who was born and living in a country which has no tipping culture. The tipping sucks. I should have been fully informed how much should I have to pay before I purchase something or some service. Any extra demand from agreed amount should be illegal. I also don't want to waste my precious time on paying the tip for calculating tax. The worker's salary is a employer's responsibility. If the the worker becom…
I don't have strong opinions on tipping either way. Personally, I prefer a culture where tips are an optional extra in culture. You do it when pleasantly surprised. That's nothing more than an "i like it this way" though. That said, who says "the worker's salary is a employer's responsibility?" Monetary culture is ancient and emergent. It's culture. Complicated, organic, varied and local. That doesn't mean that we sh…
Why would it not be? The employer pays the employee for their labor. The exception is with tipping, in which the employer passes most of the paying responsibility to the customer.
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> No, because unlike a bonus, tips make up a significant portion of waitstaff's regular income. Bonus makes up a significant portion of my regular income. I'm sure that's true for many other HN readers. > It's a completely different situation than bonuses on top of a salary that already covers living expense. In many cases, salary does not cover living expenses. In some instances bonuses can be 10x annual salary or m…
What employers are paying 3x and 10x salary in BONUSES? That's ludicrous. Also, if you're still working there and looking for fresh CS grad (Scala and Linux admin experience), my email is in my profile ;)
As a person who was born and living in a country which has no tipping culture. The tipping sucks. I should have been fully informed how much should I have to pay before I purchase something or some service. Any extra demand from agreed amount should be illegal. I also don't want to waste my precious time on paying the tip for calculating tax. The worker's salary is a employer's responsibility. If the the worker becom…
Worse still, tipping is merely a way of keeping class hierarchies, and it's disgusting. When a person walks into a restaurant in the USA they can waive a $20 bill at a waitperson and say if you do what I want, and if I like you, and if I'm feeling generous, I might give you some of this. Of course, they might not too. Labor laws, minimum wage, etc are all there to make this illegal in a work contract, and it should b…
Abolish restaurants. Might be interesting to you to give it a chance.
I was thinking the other day that the 1800 world of servants living upstairs/downstairs has been replaced by privatised slaves who have no job security, no guarantee of lodging and nothing other than temporary masters. The situation we have right now is demeaning, these people have little choice.
No doubt someone will tell me if we kill these businesses people will have no jobs, but I want a more radical reform than this.