351–360 of 508 posts
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That's because the VAT paradigm obscures the taxes; in US and some other places the amount paid is separated into "cost" and "tax."
It's not really obscured. Actual costs and taxes are stated separately on every receipt or invoice. It's just that the advertised price has to include taxes.
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I can guarantee that you've never worked as a waiter/waitress. This is so fundamentally insulting that I can't believe anyone actually would hold this position. When you sit down at a restaurant you are paying the wait staff to serve you. If I ever saw you a second time, I would insist you pick up your own orders, drinks, and bus your own table you skinflint.
If picking up my own plate/drink and wiping the table down after myself was an option, I would take it every time. I frequently drive to pick up the pizza/takeout I order in order to avoid tipping. In fact, many "fast casual" restaurants operate this way: at Panera Bread, you place an order at the front, get your drink cup, and receive a buzzing tile to notify you when the order is ready. Places like this have no rea…
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…
You're right about "rewarding exceptional service" being a lie, but I don't think it's correct to frame tipping as "burden sharing". If the muffin just cost 20% more and the untipped barista got paid a higer wage the burdens would still be split the same. In practice, it seems like tipping serves two main functions, neither of which are great for society at large. First, it allows businesses to advertise lower prices…
That sounds true in principle, but your ignoring the commision aspect of the service. In the tipping model, a very efficient server could, say, serve 100 miffins/hr and be tipped 20% each accordingly. A fast, but rude server could serve 100 muffins, but perhaps get 0-10% tip each sale. A slow, but polite server may only serve 50 muffins, but garner 20% tip each.
If you simply jack the muffin price up and distribute equally among all servers, as you suggest, then there is no incentive to perform above average - no lesson learned for lackluster performance.
Personally, I tip anywhere between 15 - 30%, understanding that this is part of the servers anticipated income. If service is bad enough for me to want to tip 0%, then I either leave before I place an order, or I tip 15% then don't go back then write a negative Yelp review to warn others.
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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 don't understand how "_hella_ expected to tip" translates to "you ought to tip". Further, I don't understand why I should take seriously the ethical claim that "one should tip service workers". Why? Why shouldn't we expect the business owner to properly price goods and services such that what I pay reflects the true cost of the labor performed? From where does my ethical commitment to an individual based solely on…
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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…
It's division of labor. The owner pays for the employee to show up and make the store look open. You pay for the service actually rendered.
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This is a weird just world view though, because tips are a lagging indicator of job performance more than anything. If you accept the notion that you get tipped less because you are a poor job performer, what is the point of laws that force employers to make up your wages to minimum wage?
So, to be clear, I don't actually accept your premise to begin with. I was a waiter for years and never saw this sort of thing. I did see poor waiters get crappy shifts, but... well of course they did. Lacking any actual evidence I don't see where this can go. >If you accept the notion that you get tipped less because you are a poor job performer, what is the point of laws that force employers to make up your wages t…
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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.
That’s not any different than pizza delivery drivers, waiters, or car wash employees.
In any case, yeah, tipping your housekeeper is a common thing. Maybe not as common as I thought.
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And that was a rude way to strawman my point that your "rule" is not about 80 cents, but about conceding to every such demand, and is therefore impractical as actionable advice for everyday life. (Making you look generous, and me unable to afford the tip on one coffee shop muffin, on the other hand...) Edit: I would say it is indeed unreasonable to expect people to increase payment on any good by 20% merely on the ch…
But what if the cost of the muffin itself went up 20%? Would people stop buying it? The shops around here don't even list prices for muffins. It could be $3 or it could be $5. Customers seem to think they can afford it either way.
Goods do fluctuate in price day-to-day, but in an uncorrelated fashion; that kind of fluctuation doesn't have the same effect since some are up and others down.
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The glass jar was clearly optional, from an etiquette perspective; nobody will judge you for walking away without dropping anything in it (except perhaps loose change). iPads are different in two ways. First, they make the experience more closely resemble tipping at a restaurant. Since etiquette fundamentally relies on on implications and expectations, that’s a lot more significant than it would be in other contexts.…
I guess I see the point. But why not just tip? The coffee shop tip is like, a buck. The regulars at the coffee shop were already tipping, like, a buck every time they got coffee. The countervailing force the iPad is addressing is the fact that customers aren't carrying cash anymore. Without the prompt, counter workers aren't going to get tipped at all.
For the reason I already gave: you can't seriously expect everyone to accede to every demand for paying 20% more. That's not an actual, practical decision theory.
"I can afford 80 cents" isn't responsive.