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You Want 20% for Handing Me a Muffin? The Awkward Etiquette of iPad Tipping

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Re: You Want 20% for Handing Me a Muffin? The Awkward Etiquette of iPad Tipping

#51
post #17

No guilt. No tip. Never. If they want more than the listed price they should raise the listed price. Social customs/expectations/guilt/whatever be damned. I never tip. Never have, never will.

I hope people ignore the social custom and spit in your food.

Re: You Want 20% for Handing Me a Muffin? The Awkward Etiquette of iPad Tipping

#52
post #39

The 'politics' of tipping aside, one thing that really grinds my gears is that they calculate the tip after taxes are applied. I feel that the tips should be calculated based on the exchange I had with the establishment/person and that the taxes should considered separate from our interaction. Like, here's the 20% tip on the 100$ I spent. Not, here's the 20% tip on the $100 + 5% tax, $105 total. I know why they do th…

It was never like that. They just exploit the digitization of tipping to con you out of a bit more money.

Tipping is being fundamentally exploited as a way to make everything look cheaper.

Re: You Want 20% for Handing Me a Muffin? The Awkward Etiquette of iPad Tipping

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is tipping at a sit down restaurant not a relic of slavery? The idea that restaurant personnel earn so little that they need to live on tips is barbarous.

Yet strangely, the loudest voices AGAINST doing away with tipping in favor of a wage are often wait staff themselves.

Have you ever worked at a restaurant or in a tipped position?

It constitutes a HUGE part of your take home pay for two reasons:

- If you are a waiter, tips will be multiples of your hourly pay.

- Tips will be under the table, saving you another ~25% easily.

So if you make a tipped hourly wage in Ohio:

- $4.15/hr * 7 hour shift (5pm open to 12pm close): 29.05

- Wait 6 tables, each with 3 seated parties, that tip you each $10: $60 * 3 = $120

Tips represent 4x of your salary. If your job gave you an untaxed 400% bonus at the end of every day, would you vote against it?

Re: You Want 20% for Handing Me a Muffin? The Awkward Etiquette of iPad Tipping

#54

After all, those muffins just materialized in the display case, everything here functions so seamlessly that I don't really know why these self-styled 'employees' are cluttering up the place.

Is that what you tip for at a coffee shop? For someone to arrange muffins for you to look at?

Re: You Want 20% for Handing Me a Muffin? The Awkward Etiquette of iPad Tipping

#55

If anyone here has been to Japan, tipping is handled much more elegantly and with a lot more business integrity. Instead of guilt-tripping customers into tipping, businesses in Japan up their prices if they need more money. I remember once when I was in Osaka I was at a really good sushi place that I had visited several times prior. There was no tip option on the receipt (didn't see it anywhere in Japan) and there wa…

a lot of states have a lower minimum wage for tipped employees.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipped_wage

Re: You Want 20% for Handing Me a Muffin? The Awkward Etiquette of iPad Tipping

#56
post #39

The 'politics' of tipping aside, one thing that really grinds my gears is that they calculate the tip after taxes are applied. I feel that the tips should be calculated based on the exchange I had with the establishment/person and that the taxes should considered separate from our interaction. Like, here's the 20% tip on the 100$ I spent. Not, here's the 20% tip on the $100 + 5% tax, $105 total. I know why they do th…

Isn't the problem the other way around? In Europe taxes are included in the price from the start.

Re: You Want 20% for Handing Me a Muffin? The Awkward Etiquette of iPad Tipping

#57
post #23

Own your privilege and tip the goddamn 15-20%. If you can afford to spend $3 on a coffee, you can afford to spend $3.60 on a coffee. You almost certainly make a lot more than the guy or girl behind the counter. (I love the iPad payment thingy because I always feel guilty never having cash to put in a tip jar.)

Your response misses the point. It isn't that someone who pays $3 for coffee can't afford the extra 60c but rather that the coffee should just cost 3.60.

Further, is there a difference between someone serving a full meal and someone that is just punching buttons?

Re: You Want 20% for Handing Me a Muffin? The Awkward Etiquette of iPad Tipping

#58
post #23

Own your privilege and tip the goddamn 15-20%. If you can afford to spend $3 on a coffee, you can afford to spend $3.60 on a coffee. You almost certainly make a lot more than the guy or girl behind the counter. (I love the iPad payment thingy because I always feel guilty never having cash to put in a tip jar.)

I can sympathize with the feeling of wanting to share with those less fortunate, and that tipping provides me with a non-awkward way of doing so (instead of "here, want a dollar?"). But this:

> If you can afford to spend $3 on a coffee, you can afford to spend $3.60 on a coffee.

sounds like a logical fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorites_paradox#Paradox_of_the...

It might be that $3 is right at the limit of what I am willing to spend on a cup of coffee, and that doesn't deserve a "check your (expletive) privilege."

Re: You Want 20% for Handing Me a Muffin? The Awkward Etiquette of iPad Tipping

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ouch, having worked in cafes and restaurants as an undergrad I pretty much always tip 20%. Is it absurd? Of course, but given how badly most waitstaff are paid, the idea that you will somehow eliminate the practice by stiffing a few barristas seems both sadistic and highly unlikely to change the world. Until robots hand me muffins, I accept it as a tax on eating out.

It's only "stiffing" if we start with the assumption they are supposed to be tipped. I'm not well-versed in the history of coffee shops, but it seems to me that it is not a well-established norm -- as compared to bars and restaurants, for example. But I'm happy to be corrected if I'm mistaken about this.

On the contrary, it was very much the norm, though starbucks killed it.

Re: You Want 20% for Handing Me a Muffin? The Awkward Etiquette of iPad Tipping

#60

I dislike the tip-at-purchase-time paradigm. I haven't even seen my order yet, how am I supposed to evaluate how much of a tip it warranted? But that gets to the heart of it really: tipping is more about subsidizing payroll than rewarding good service.

This is the heart of it for me. If I tip cash, even if the tip jar is next to the register I always make a point of going back to tip at the end of my drink / food if the experience was good. A digital version should be some kind of contactless payment point at the door where you can easily set a tip amount and tap your phone / card.

Or just adjust your payment after the fact, like Uber and Lyft. It would be pretty easy for Square to implement this.
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