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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

#281

Post by behringer »

aniketpant wrote: post #214
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.

Where exactly are these unwritten tipping laws written? I've been living in US for the last one year and I feel that the entire tipping culture is a social custom that you are expected to adhere by. I was told that I should always tip at least a $1 per drink at a bar or cafe and I've been doing that but I notice that people go for "No Tip" on these iPads. So if most people are choosing "No Tip", where did this unwrit…

Not tipping underpaid staff is a dick move, that's why you have to tip. if you want to change it, lobby your government or write to the business owners. Don't penalize $4/hr staff just to make a stupid point.

The unwritten rule is, tip your less than minimum wage staff that is working for you.

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

#282

Post by PurpleBoxDragon »

tptacek wrote: post #209

Hacker News threads about tipping are always rough. US tipping is not complicated. You are being asked to share with a service worker's employer some of the burden of compensating them. The notion that you're rewarding exceptional service is a polite fiction. Depending on where you are, the tip is either expected or it isn't. Unfortunately for the mindset of a typical software developer, there won't be much clarity o…

>A very easy, relatively pleasant way to get through life in the US if you're well-off enough that you routinely buy coffee in expensive coffee shops: just always tip. Anywhere there's a tip line. You never have to figure anything out, and sometimes people really appreciate it.

This echoes the sentiment that 'if you can't afford to pay a X% tip, you can't afford to buy the product'. Problem is that it seems to keep going up. It use to be 10, then 15, now it is closing in on 20 and in some areas 22 seems to be the expected. How far does this logic extend? If you can't afford to tip 50% then you can't afford it?

My preferred reaction has been to begin avoiding places where tipping is an option.

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

#283

Post by taormina »

tptacek wrote: post #231
SilasX wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that's a relevant point to make in the context of this article, because there's widespread disagreement (leaning toward "no") on whether tipping for that muffin is required in the sense that a tip for dining-with-table-service is. A guaranteed 20% for a coffee shop muffin at the counter is definitely not expected. Or were you just intending a pre-emptive general critique of the three people who might use…

You can be the person who doesn't tip the counter-service worker if you like. The iPad didn't create that tipping expectation; before there were iPads, there were glass jars full of cash. People probably won't judge you for not tipping at a coffee shop. Like I said, I find it's easier to go through life just tipping wherever it's asked, and not worrying whether I'm being an asshole to service workers. I'm not saying…

It does at least alter the expectations. A jar encourages you to toss your change in, and every little bit can be appreciated. Seeing 15%, 18% and 20% as the available options on an already overpriced coffee can make you even feel like more of a scrooge if you hold up the line manually entering 23 cents.

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

#284

Post by colanderman »

tptacek wrote: post #258
jasode wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> US tipping is not complicated. [...] just always tip. Anywhere there's a tip line. Well, it's been too complicated for me because the comments in this thread show I've been doing it wrong. For example, I sometimes picked up "to go" orders from Chili's restaurant[1]. In my mind, if I sat down to eat, I tipped the server. On the other hand, if I phoned in an order and picked it up, I didn't tip . Yes, I noticed that…

You want to feel real great? Here's a question: do you always tip your hotel housekeeping? It's gotten harder over the last 10 years since we're carrying so much less cash, and there's no tip line on the hotel bill. But you are hella expected to tip housekeeping: that is a rough job, and a very poorly treated workforce.

I'm terrible at tipping and this is the one thing I do know. But –

It's next to impossible to get enough small bills to cover all the tipping you need to do on a vacation, between hotels and taxis, and other incidentals. ATMs typically spit out the local equivalent of USD$20s if you're lucky; US$100s if you're not. Who's going to make change for that?

At home this is less of a problem because (a) I don't have as many things to tip for, and (b) I have had time to save up small bills for tipping. But when first thrust into a foreign country you need to be PREPARED.

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

#285

Post by rtkwe »

justfor1comment wrote: post #217

Tipping makes it very difficult to stick to a budget. This was a big problem for me when I was a student. I wanted to limit every meal to $10. Since neither tips nor taxes are included in the prices at restaurants it became infeasible to eat out. Ended up cooking most of the food at home.

If you're already setting a budget that strictly why not just take the 2 minutes to figure out what pre-tax&tip total would keep you under $10? With 7.5% sales tax and a reasonable 15% tip 8 dollars pretax comes to 9.80.

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

#286

Post by Retric »

addicted wrote: post #233
tptacek wrote: post #209

Hacker News threads about tipping are always rough. US tipping is not complicated. You are being asked to share with a service worker's employer some of the burden of compensating them. The notion that you're rewarding exceptional service is a polite fiction. Depending on where you are, the tip is either expected or it isn't. Unfortunately for the mindset of a typical software developer, there won't be much clarity o…

In the US "tip" is a misnomer. Minimum wages for jobs where you can be tipped drop from $8 or so otherwise to something like $2. It's not a "tip". It's an expected (and the expectation is in law, as evidenced by the lower minimum wage) part of the employee's salary. This is a really bad system, (as David MItchell would say, it's a tax on conscience), but it's the system the US has. It's very different from almost all…

It’s not actually a lower minimum wage, employees must make minimum wage including tips or employers are legally required to make up the difference.

In practice this is unlikely, but it’s still the legal requirement.

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

#287

Post by adrr »

markbnj wrote: post #142

As the father of a current bartender/waitress and the husband of a former I'd like to say: please don't use the servers as a lever to change this thing, because if they couldn't rely on tips they couldn't do the job. And then I thought about it a bit. The question I don't have an answer to: if people stopped tipping tomorrow, and the average tip was distributed somehow into the price of the food, would establishments…

If everyone stopped tipping for a month the industry would be forced to change as the labor pool would dry up until wages are increased.

Tipping is part of business strategy to bait and switch people with lower prices. It's becoming common to hide the real price of things as we see with tips, resort fees, service charges, booking/ticket printing fees etc. Just give us the real price upfront.

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

#288

Post by simonbarker87 »

syedkarim wrote: post #121
blacksmith_tb wrote: post #36

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.

I worked my way through college as a waiter and bartender. My first job was as a golf caddie. I've dried cars at car washes and operated a rickshaw. In all of those cases, there is an understanding that a tip is part of the purchase. More importantly, there is some actual work being done or service rendered for the tip (less so for bartenders, which do get paid above minimum wage). Buying a muffin at a coffee shop an…

> More importantly, there is some actual work being done or service rendered for the tip.

No, that isn’t for the tip, that is literally the job they are paid to do by their employer. Choosing to tip should only be if they have gone above and beyond what you would expect. I’m from the UK and find the US tipping culture bizzare and stressful - I had truly terrible service in a restaurant in New York once and they literally chased me to the door when they realised I hadn’t tipped and threatened to call the police if I didn’t tip him at least 10%.

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

#289

Post by PurpleBoxDragon »

addicted wrote: post #233
tptacek wrote: post #209

Hacker News threads about tipping are always rough. US tipping is not complicated. You are being asked to share with a service worker's employer some of the burden of compensating them. The notion that you're rewarding exceptional service is a polite fiction. Depending on where you are, the tip is either expected or it isn't. Unfortunately for the mindset of a typical software developer, there won't be much clarity o…

In the US "tip" is a misnomer. Minimum wages for jobs where you can be tipped drop from $8 or so otherwise to something like $2. It's not a "tip". It's an expected (and the expectation is in law, as evidenced by the lower minimum wage) part of the employee's salary. This is a really bad system, (as David MItchell would say, it's a tax on conscience), but it's the system the US has. It's very different from almost all…

>(and the expectation is in law, as evidenced by the lower minimum wage)

By that logic, tipping is not an expectation since the law says that if the tips do not equal enough to bring the worker's earning up to the minimum wage limit, then the employer has to pay them the actual minimum wage and not the tipping minimum wage.

Many employers will not follow the law, but the solution to that is to punish the employers and empower and incentive the employees to seek out enforcement of the law.

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

#290

Post by rtkwe »

rb808 wrote: post #131

What I would love is to use tech to be able to split the tips. In a restaurant I'd love to tip the guys in the kitchen who went to culinary school, the guy who worked in the fields to grow and collect the vegetables, the people who cleaned the restaurant. As for the person that wrote down your order and asked if "everything is OK", they can go jump.

Those other people are in the more reasonable regime of being fairly compensated for their work directly though.
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