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Casualties of the Cashless Society: Those Who Get Seasonal Tips

nytimes.com

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Re: Casualties of the Cashless Society: Those Who Get Seasonal Tips

#91

Post by astura »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #81
greggarious wrote: post #54

Do people not carry cash? Maybe the types who have an apartment with a doorman in Manhattan don't. But I (a "millenial") often go to bars and restaurants that are cash only. Eventually, I found it was easier keep budget my "entertainment" in cash. Visually being able to see how much I have, how much I'm taking out helps. Being able to see that amount grow if I'm frugal one month feels good too. I have friends who cla…

How did you measure your last claim?

People typically spend around 5-10% more when they pay with plastic.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/27/your-money/credit-cards-e...

Re: Casualties of the Cashless Society: Those Who Get Seasonal Tips

#92

Post by pmezard »

Feniks wrote: post #35
betterunix2 wrote: post #2

Maybe we should not have tips? There is no actual need or advantage to giving people tips, and there are plenty of countries where tipping is not common (including some where cash is still favored over electronic payments). Why not just pay people a fair wage that they can live on?

Sadly the wonderful American invention of "gig economy" has crossed the Atlantic. Those Deliveroo guys deserve a tip. Actually getting your hands on cash money is surprisingly hard in my country though, ATMs are rapidly vanishing.

Crossing the Atlantic does not mean it cannot be fought. In communist France, they organized a couple of strike-like episodes this year [1]. And I really hope this recent "auto-entrepreneur" status which is mostly used to bypass temporary worker laws eventually get repelled entirely.

The solution is not tipping, the solution is applying the law and closing loopholes.

[1] http://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2017/08/26/en-colere-...

Re: Casualties of the Cashless Society: Those Who Get Seasonal Tips

#93

Post by santaclaus »

jhpankow wrote: post #6
Sangermaine wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because that would cost the companies more and they're happy to get away with paying less. It's really not a mystery.

I wish there was a list of Bay Area restaurants that don't require tipping. I discovered one last Friday and look forward to returning for the good food, service, and fair wages.

I recently went to Homestead in Oakland, which includes tips. The service was top notch, despite what the include-the-tip naysayers claim will happen.

Re: Casualties of the Cashless Society: Those Who Get Seasonal Tips

#94

Post by lotsofpulp »

exhilaration wrote: post #36
yardie wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that is fine as long as there is no obligation. But most American restaurants if you don’t tip to the formula they treat you like you’re robbbng them.

Things are different in America - restaurants get a special exemption under labor law [1] that allows them to pay wait staff about 25% of the minimum wage required for all other professions. The social understanding is that patrons are obligated to make up the difference via tips - you have to pay to use their services. The system sucks but that's how it is, if you don't want to tip then you can always eat at McDonal…

The legal understanding is that the employer will make up wages if tips fall short of minimum wage.

The social understanding is that the merchant doesn't need to advertise higher prices, and the merchant and the employee get to evade taxes. The customer gets to feel like they're a big shot, rewarding people for "serving" them. In reality, it's just a big old loophole around paying taxes and having to account for the actual cost of things, while spreading around the real costs onto a collective that doesn't have enough incentive to work together to stop it.

Basic price obfuscation strategy, and it works well.

Re: Casualties of the Cashless Society: Those Who Get Seasonal Tips

#95

Post by Domenic_S »

jessaustin wrote: post #84
omg_ketchup wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we had an old carbon copier that we could use You know, the kind where you slide the thing across and you don't have to plug it in?

That takes an impression from a credit card (although I see more and more that don't have raised lettering) but not from an ID.

The impression isn't strictly necessary -- it's for convenience and, if needed, solid proof the physical card was there. At most you write down the license number on the carbon paper. If you lose the machine you can hand-write the card number just as easily.

Think about how an online transaction works -- punch in the number, no ID needed. Believe it or not that didn't start online ;)

Source: took "offline" payments when a retail store's power went down many many years ago.

Re: Casualties of the Cashless Society: Those Who Get Seasonal Tips

#96

Post by c0wb0yc0d3r »

stinkytaco wrote: post #50
c0wb0yc0d3r wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, employees must still be paid minimum wage. Depending on the state, an employer may count tips toward this amount. If an employee reports $0 in tips, the employer must pay them $7.25/hr. While I would like to believe that what you say is true, I find it hard to be true. I think the bigger issues are at play whether it's is the fact that minimum wages need to be adjusted, a more modern solution is needed to…

1. 7.25 is not enough to live on. And the ability to pay less with the assumption that there will be tips does not make it better. Especially considering that in many states you can require tip-pooling, effectively removing the stated point of tips in the first place (to motivate better service). Nor does this really address the problem of tipping as a cultural phenomenon, it just doesn't really need to exist. 2. The…

I think you misunderstood what I said.

I made no claim that $7.25/hr is a livable wage. That is the current federal minimum. Employers are required to pay the minimum, if they aren't, they're breaking the law.

Money management is certainly no silver bullet, however, it plays a role. If you net $13k/year then you have to manage that money so you don't spend more than $13k/year. Most would agree that it is extremely tough to live on $13k/year. No matter the difficulty the money still has to be managed.

In my student loan example, if you have a loan schedule of 30 years @ 6% you will pay $46k in interest on a $40k loan when only paying the minimum of $240. That same loan if paid off @ $440/mo, nets you $33k over that time period. Here you would manage your money so that you can pay as much as possible on that loan as often as possible.

Making more money doesn't solve money issues, it just covers them up. Saying that there nothing to be done because the amount spent is greater than the amount earned seems rather foolish. I'm not saying that in any given situation there exists an outcome where you can manage spending less than you earn, but managing money wisely will always improve the situation.

Re: Casualties of the Cashless Society: Those Who Get Seasonal Tips

#97

Post by bsder »

btilly wrote: post #57
betterunix2 wrote: post #2

Maybe we should not have tips? There is no actual need or advantage to giving people tips, and there are plenty of countries where tipping is not common (including some where cash is still favored over electronic payments). Why not just pay people a fair wage that they can live on?

My ability to choose whether to tip less for bad service is a way to encourage servers to give good service. My experience traveling is that places like France with legally mandated tip amounts have very inconsistent service quality. It can be good, but it can also be very bad. And when a server decides to make your service bad, there is nothing that you can really do about it and nobody will care.

> My experience traveling is that places like France with legally mandated tip amounts have very inconsistent service quality. It can be good, but it can also be very bad.

My experience in France, is, in fact, quite different from yours. I found the same bell curve of service that I see in the US.

If anything, the waiters in France were LESS irritating than in the US in that they tended to not interrupt you unnecessarily.

Re: Casualties of the Cashless Society: Those Who Get Seasonal Tips

#98

Post by travisp »

Sangermaine wrote: post #4
betterunix2 wrote: post #2

Maybe we should not have tips? There is no actual need or advantage to giving people tips, and there are plenty of countries where tipping is not common (including some where cash is still favored over electronic payments). Why not just pay people a fair wage that they can live on?

Because that would cost the companies more and they're happy to get away with paying less. It's really not a mystery.

It's not so easy to be one of the first companies to go against standard practice. And sometimes you even get sued https://www.eater.com/2017/10/11/16458026/no-tipping-conspir...

Re: Casualties of the Cashless Society: Those Who Get Seasonal Tips

#99

Post by betterunix2 »

libertyEQ wrote: post #71
betterunix2 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience in Japan was that the service quality was even better than in America, and if I left a tip they assumed I did not know how to do arithmetic or that I forgot my change. Culture is probably the more important factor in the quality of service, not the ability of customers to leave or refuse a tip.

Cultures differ even among "industrialized countries," so it makes little sense to compare them. Given your comments in this discussion, it is clear you have never worked in the service industry and you have little empathy for their issues.

In fact, my first job was a typical summer job in the service industry: I scooped ice cream at an ice cream store. There was a tip jar and our tips were pooled and divided by the hours we worked -- it was not much but it was something.

I would not have complained if there were no tips and our salaries were increased a bit to compensate.

No, I do not have a lot of empathy for people who are unwilling to accept change or who think that a company that introduced some new technology should be held responsible for how that technology personally affected them. I have no interest in freezing society in time and only allowing new ideas that have no negative impact on anyone to be put into practice.

Re: Casualties of the Cashless Society: Those Who Get Seasonal Tips

#100

Post by criddell »

isleyaardvark wrote: post #73
btilly wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My ability to choose whether to tip less for bad service is a way to encourage servers to give good service. My experience traveling is that places like France with legally mandated tip amounts have very inconsistent service quality. It can be good, but it can also be very bad. And when a server decides to make your service bad, there is nothing that you can really do about it and nobody will care.

That's the theory but studies haven't found that tips improve service. (pdfs): http://scholarship.sha.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?artic... http://scholarship.sha.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?artic... There are also issues where tipping can be biased due to racial or gender discrimination. Racial discrimination (I don't have a gender study handy): https://psmag.com/economics/racism-black-restaurant-waiters-...

What about the reverse? Do those that deliver better service make more money than their under-performing peers?
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