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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

#171

Post by dragonwriter »

mikeash wrote: post #117
undersuit wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It does deprive the server of a living wage. Then maybe the server should tell the customer how much they need to be tipped? "Welcome to AppleBees. My name is Trevor and I need an additional $24.89 in tips today so that my employer isn't obligated to pay me the minimum wage for this state." Also, should I be under-tipping waitstaff that I think are rich enough?

Employers have to make up the difference if tipped employees don't make enough tips to meet the minimum wage. However, minimum wage is often not a living wage.

Employers use tips as a performance metric, and particularly use needing to top-up an employee's tips as a firing cue, so in practice in places where cash tips are possible employees will often, at a minimum, report sufficient cash tips to avoid top-up even if they don't recieve them.

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

#173

Post by Udik »

pbiggar wrote: post #80
jjuhl wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's simply not my problem. Why should I care? If they are unhappy with their wages they should complain to their employer. It's not my job to fix their wages.

> "That's simply not my problem" That's an unfortunate attitude. I thought a lot like you, but when I realized the wage disparity here - I could afford to go eat at these fancy places, which my servers definitely could not - I chose to make it my problem. Other people's problems are not yours, but if you can choose to help (for example, if you can afford to help), you should.

> Other people's problems are not yours, but if you can choose to help (for example, if you can afford to help), you should.

The problem with this is that by tipping you simply move the problem of underpaid waiters to the next customer and to the next day. If everyone just stopped tipping, the tips would be included in the prices, everybody would be paying taxes, and the tipping issue would just cease to exist. The prices would stay more or less the same, as those are the prices that people are willing to pay, whether the tip is already included or not.

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

#174

Post by Goronmon »

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.

Who do you tip at the grocery store? Those products don't just materialize on store shelves.

Who do you tip at the self-service gas station? The gas doesn't just get to the pump by itself.

Who you tip when you buy something from Amazon? The product doesn't get to and from the warehouse by itself.

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

#175

Post by cryptozeus »

I noticed a great tipping system in the oberoi grand of Kolkata city in India. When I was about to tip the bell boy for bringing my luggage to the room, he graciously declined. He continued to explain that there is no personal tipping in the entire hotel. If I enjoy the stay and like the service, At the check out time you can leave the tip in an envelope near the front desk. This was great because for the next 3 days I enjoyed the great service without thinking about whom to tip how much during every interaction.

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

#176

Post by happytoexplain »

lightbyte wrote: post #104
LukeShu wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I'm not sure it's constructive to accuse such a large category of people of not "feeling" the right way. It's not as if they're ignorant of the situation.

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

#177

Post by jiveturkey »

bootlooped wrote: post #7

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.

I love it. No awkwardness of a zero tip after being served. Anyway there are very few places I've seen with that where there isn't also a tip jar. If you indeed felt the service was tip-worthy you can drop a tip in the jar on the way out.

I don't understand why people (buyers) are so thin-skinned about this. Leave a tip or don't. Whatever.

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

#179

Post by adrianmonk »

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.

No, those two things are orthogonal.

The convention in the US is to compute the tip on the pre-tax amount. If the pre-tax price is $10, a 20% tip is $2 and 8% tax is $0.80, for a total of $12.80.

Now, some of this software has come along and tried to sneak in a change to the formula where the tip is computed on the post-tax amount. They take $10, add 8% tax to get $10.80, and then compute 20% of that for the tip, for a total of $12.96.

They have deceptively changed the tip rate from 20% to 21.6%.

Whether prices are listed tax inclusive or tax exclusive isn't the issue. Even with tax-inclusive pricing like Europe has, it still would have been possible to sneak in a change to the formula for computing the tip.

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

#180

Post by jessaustin »

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.

One is reminded of the opening scene of Reservoir Dogs...
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