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

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

#101

Post by behringer » Wed, Oct 17, 2018, 6:28 PM UTC

fx32s wrote: post #85

behringer wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tip is expected only when you're at a real restaurant. No tip is required for fast food places. No tip is required up front before you're served. You should tip hair stylists and restaurant staff that brings you food or drink. I generally only tip 15 percent and I never tip at a buffet.

Why should you tip the hair stylists though. Isn't the service exactly what you pay for in the first place (same as taxi/uber)? For food I can kind of understand of since they decouple serving and preparation + ingredients. Note that I am not American and am new to tipping. Just curious

Oh no I don't think we should be tipping anybody, but these are the industries that abuse their employees.

Hair stylists, taxis, sit-down restaurants, they all usually need tips. You don't tip the stylist though if it's the owner as of course they would just set their price.

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

#102

Post by rayiner » Wed, Oct 17, 2018, 6:28 PM UTC

monktastic1 wrote: post #58

rayiner wrote: 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…

When a coffee costs $3, the marginal buyer will be willing to pay $3. But many other buyers would have been willing to pay more, i.e. they would've bought the coffee at $3.50 or $4. In economics, this is called "consumer surplus." Tipping as it exists in the U.S. is a way to share some of this consumer surplus with the wait staff. If you really would not have bought the coffee at $3.50, then don't tip. But the majority of people probably would've bought the coffee at $3.50 or even $4.50. Unless you are really one of those marginal customers, you should just tip.

(Note that people tipping is also good for the marginal customer. Like other forms of price discrimination, it allows the provider to price the product lower and allows customers to purchase the product who otherwise could not have done so.)

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

#103

Post by late2part » Wed, Oct 17, 2018, 6:28 PM UTC

spdionis wrote: post #56

Balgair wrote: 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.

That's because the VAT paradigm obscures the taxes; in US and some other places the amount paid is separated into "cost" and "tax."

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

#104

Post by lightbyte » Wed, Oct 17, 2018, 6:29 PM UTC

LukeShu wrote: post #31

jjuhl wrote: 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.

The people you hurt by not tipping aren't the people who set the prices.

Those people should feel hurt by the managers not paying them enough not customers who chose not to pity pay them

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

#105

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Oct 17, 2018, 6:29 PM UTC

dijit wrote: post #28

skrebbel wrote: post #14

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.

That’s a very U.S. thing though. In most of the EU you tip for good service. IE; only if your food came in a timely fashion, was not mis-prepared or incorrect and if the wait-staff are generally being polite, kind, courteous. The idea is that you’re rewarding good service, not that your bound by social convention to give a percentage extra on top of what was agreed upon when you read the menu. While we’re on the subj…

[deleted]

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

#106

Post by anigbrowl » Wed, Oct 17, 2018, 6:29 PM UTC

monktastic1 wrote: post #71

anigbrowl wrote: post #41

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.

The question is: why not build the cost of those activities into the price of the food itself, instead of leaving it to customers to figure out?

Because the employer wants to display a low price to attract you into the store, labor protections in the US tend to be weak, and employers tend not to like transparency about their labor costs - it's an uninteresting distraction to most consumers and a free gift to the competition. There's a first mover disadvantage and if the relationship between employer and staff is adversarial then employees generally lack leverage in corporate-decision-making.

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

#107

Post by pbiggar » Wed, Oct 17, 2018, 6:29 PM UTC

z0r wrote: post #90

rayiner wrote: 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.)

At the places I go, sometimes your $2-$3 coffee purchase will show suggested tip amounts of $1, $2, $3 on the display. Generally I'll tip a buck when I get coffee from a fancy coffee shop. Despite that I don't think it's unreasonable for people to want the price listed at the counter to incorporate the full cost of goods and services.

It is reasonable, but it's also reasonable to factor in the actual situation, which is that tipping is the norm in the US. You can either make the coffee $3.60 - and seem more expensive than the place next door - or you can make it $3 and assume everyone tips.

Also, if you make it $3.60, everyone will still try to tip.

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

#108

Post by late2part » Wed, Oct 17, 2018, 6:29 PM UTC

rayvy wrote: post #89

I tip not because of guilt, or because I feel like I need to pay for the service . I tip because I frequent local restaurants, bars, coffee bars, etc - and the 20% is a little good will towards the establishment. How can I walk around complaining about Amazon and big corp dominance when I won't even cough up 20% for a small local place? *note how I'm only mentioning local establishments. To hell with everyone else

If Amazon and other big corps cost 20% less would you be okay with them?

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

#109

Post by ip26 » Wed, Oct 17, 2018, 6:29 PM UTC

sharemywin wrote: post #65

dwaltrip wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A lot of states are paid less if it's a job with tips: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipped_wage

But is a barista etc one of those jobs?

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

#110

Post by dragonwriter » Wed, Oct 17, 2018, 6:29 PM UTC

sillyquiet wrote: post #22

skrebbel wrote: post #14

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.

There's a bit of survivorship bias; those who don't do well on tips don't last in tipped industries, both because tips are a big part of income and because tips are used as performance metrics.