Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 508 posts

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

#331

Post by Dylan16807 »

tptacek wrote: post #246
miketery wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been struggling with this for a while and you put it really well. However it frustrates me to no end, that customers are expected to do compensation sharing with the employer. The nefarious thing about this is that the employer has put the negotiating for fair wages between the customer and employees instead of between the employees and the employer. End of the day its manageable as you say, just price in the ti…

Another way to look at it is that tipping lubricates the market pricing interface between customers and vendors. If they didn't allow tipping, restaurants would charge more to make up the difference (margins in service work are almost always very low). In a tipping system, when things are going well, everyone tips; if things aren't going so well, not so much. There's some wiggle room between the list price and the ac…

> If they didn't allow tipping, restaurants would charge more to make up the difference (margins in service work are almost always very low).

Neither good nor bad.

> In a tipping system, when things are going well, everyone tips; if things aren't going so well, not so much. There's some wiggle room between the list price and the actual price, which might offset price stickiness.

That's terrible! Instead of the burden being spread around, the restaurant still makes money and the employee doesn't!

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

#332

Post by zak2727 »

influx wrote: post #305
scroot wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> McDonalds doesn't need my subsidy. No, but the person to makes and hands over your coffee does. > I'm old enough to remember a time that giving extra money to someone for handing you a cup of coffee would be thought absurd. Then you're probably also old enough to remember when wage increases tracked with productivity increases, or when minimum wage kept up with inflation and the cost of living.

I'm not disagreeing with you, but what is the line of which workers to tip? Gas station employees do a similar job, and I have never seen anyone tip them. I have very rarely seen anyone tip a Subway sandwich worker even though they typically do more customization and work than a Starbucks employee.

If they are a tipped employee: https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/wages/wagestips

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

#333

Post by threatofrain »

zaroth wrote: post #325
tptacek wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

80 cents on a muffin? Which works out to - what - $40/hour at a busy coffee shop checkout line? 1 ring per minute is probably an extremely low estimate in any case, although some of those orders have baristas working on them too. But we’re talking about tipping on prepackaged food here, right? My sister in law works at Starbucks. She’s a manager so she gets zero share of the tips, but for a busy Starbucks in an afflu…

But Starbucks doesn't really solicit tip.

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

#334

Post by EpicEng »

justin66 wrote: post #241
gamblor956 wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you've described is a state crime, a federal crime, and a violation of several different state and federal labor laws. Easily a dime worth of prison time, plus criminal fines, plus civil penalties, plus having to pay out the stolen tips to your employees with treble damages for the intentional tort you've comitted. Not really worth it. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but the calculus is so bad that it's extrem…

It happens all the time. Connie Schultz won a Pulitzer for writing about this, among other things: https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/connie-schultz I can understand why you might think it never happens if you are completely ignorant of the facts on the ground but nevertheless familiar with the criminal and civil sanctions involved. It's about lack of enforcement.

I see a short article about a few dinner parties this author attended wherein the owners were keeping the tip. Am I missing the real data here? Is the real story somewhere else? That's a far cry from "this happens _all_ the time."

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

#335

Post by b1r6 »

I just strongly avoid using any business that deals with tipping. This way I don't worry about tipping calculus.

In the case that I do engage with such a business, I only tip when there is objectively individual work being done: Eating out at a table? Tip the waiter 15%. Waiter was extremely rude? Tip the waiter 0%. Picking up food at a counter after ordering online? Tip 0%. Bringing bags into a hotel? Refuse help so I don't have to tip.

I really wish tipped workers would just get paid an honest wage to begin with, meaning the true cost of labor would be baked into product prices!

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

#336

Post by Balgair »

mikestew wrote: post #128
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…

I feel that the tips should be calculated based on the exchange I had with the establishment/person You're free to calculate the tip however you like. Just because some junior programmer took the easy way out to make the math easier doesn't mean you have to along with it. I don't recall a digitized tip screen that didn't let me enter a custom amount.

True, but it is dishonest at best and negligent at worst. The 'error' is in their favor, not the customers. It sends a bad signal that they are willing to 'cheat' you over less than a dollar. What else could they be 'cheating' the customer on?

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

#337

Post by zaroth »

threatofrain wrote: post #333
zaroth wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

80 cents on a muffin? Which works out to - what - $40/hour at a busy coffee shop checkout line? 1 ring per minute is probably an extremely low estimate in any case, although some of those orders have baristas working on them too. But we’re talking about tipping on prepackaged food here, right? My sister in law works at Starbucks. She’s a manager so she gets zero share of the tips, but for a busy Starbucks in an afflu…

But Starbucks doesn't really solicit tip.

Exactly! So it seems like the perfect counterpoint to Square’s tip begging UI.

Starbucks did add tipping to app orders, but it’s a bit more subtle. It’s not right there on the checkout screen before you even receive your items, for example.

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

#338

Post by SilasX »

goostavos wrote: post #279
acchow wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It used to be this way. But American tourism has spread tipping to many countries.

Our worst export, surely.

I remember someone on reddit said there was a coffee shop in Iceland that tried to be American-themed, and it had a fake tip jar with fake bills and coins in it, just to look like it would in America.

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

#339

Post by Udik »

pbiggar wrote: post #232
Udik wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 p…

> 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. That is not my understanding of how the world works.

I agree that if the convention for the tip is a fixed percentage of the value of the purchase, then a waiter is basically guaranteed a share of the owner's revenue (revenue, not even profits!)

At the same time, the vast majority of the jobs don't warrant tips- including all waitressing jobs outside the US- and this doesn't prevent workers from making a living wage out of them.

So yes, I think that if people stopped tipping, owners would be forced to pay waiters more, and raise their prices accordingly, as everybody already does elsewhere. On the other end, it's true that waiters might end up making less money, as the revenue-sharing model might be unreasonably generous in some cases.

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

#340

Post by paulie_a »

function_seven wrote: post #273
tptacek wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 recently stayed in a hotel where I realized I didn't have any cash on me. I just hung the DND sign on the door and handled my own housekeeping. Still felt bad when I checked out and still didn't have anything to leave.

Since when is tipping the housekeeping staff expected. I have never heard of that before. They are employees of the hotel (or third party contractor) to do work in a hotel. They are paid money for that.
Post reply on HN