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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

#441

Post by dragonwriter »

noncoml wrote: post #440
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…

> US tipping is not complicated Ehmm, yeah it is. Other than the very well established rules for dinning in a restaurant, where one is expected to leave a tip of around 20%, all other situations are fuzzy. Look at the replies in this thread. Everybody has their own rules about when, where and how much to tip. I get your point, and agree, that it not really about rewarding exceptional service, but this doesn't make it…

> Other than the very well established rules for dinning in a restaurant, where one is expected to leave a tip of around 20%,

And not many years ago that was 15%, and very recently it had settled around 18%, but, yeah, people are starting to throw around 20% as the baseline now. So, to call the rules even there “well-established” is...less than accurate.

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

#442

Post by [deleted] »

dragonwriter wrote: post #441
noncoml wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> US tipping is not complicated Ehmm, yeah it is. Other than the very well established rules for dinning in a restaurant, where one is expected to leave a tip of around 20%, all other situations are fuzzy. Look at the replies in this thread. Everybody has their own rules about when, where and how much to tip. I get your point, and agree, that it not really about rewarding exceptional service, but this doesn't make it…

> Other than the very well established rules for dinning in a restaurant, where one is expected to leave a tip of around 20%, And not many years ago that was 15%, and very recently it had settled around 18%, but, yeah, people are starting to throw around 20% as the baseline now. So, to call the rules even there “well-established” is...less than accurate.

[deleted]

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

#443

Post by manigandham »

mojomark wrote: post #353
vec wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> If the muffin just cost 20% more and the untipped barista got paid a higer wage the burdens would still be split the same. 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,…

Every single industry has already figured out how to motivate and reward employee performance. Tips are completely inconsequential in this aspect.

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

#444

Post by behringer »

ghaff wrote: post #205
mikeash wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really just a matter of whether it's customary, which is only loosely related to whether it actually makes any sense. Your taxi driver gets most if not all of your fare, but it's still expected to tip them. A grocery store cashier gets none of your payment directly, but you don't tip them. Don't try to make sense of it, just do what others do.

Then there are a fair number of cases where reasonable people disagree. Maid at hotel, others at hotels/parking attendants/etc., Uber/Lyft, the subject of this article, limo driver, bartender (in a bar or at an event), and so forth. You can tip in all those situations but I'd argue it's not the strong expectation that tipping at a sit-down restaurant is.

If you don't tip your bartender you won't get drinks very long!

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

#445

Post by acdha »

JamesBarney wrote: post #366
Dylan16807 wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not 'this year', but 'this decade'. > Restaurant owners NEVER say "Oh look, expectation for tipping in the general public is up 5% this year, let's cut down our menu prices to balance this out." What they do is take advantage of their ability to cut server pay instead of increasing menu prices, when that is possible. And higher tips make more of that possible. Are you saying that restaurant owners are charging the sa…

Waiters take home ~$20/hr. If tipping culture changed such that waiters made $25/hr the restaurant can't reduce prices to compensate because the are already being paid the minimum wage of 2.15. They can't legally cut server pay. Likewise if tipping culture changes such that waiters made 15/hr they wouldn't get a $5/hr raise, because servers are already overpaid relative to equivalent untipped jobs.

> Waiters take home ~$20/hr.

The BLS stats have it at $10/hour or $20k per year:

https://www.bls.gov/ooh/food-preparation-and-serving/mobile/....

There are some people who are well paid but they’re generally in expensive areas and there aren’t very many of them. It’s like looking at Waymo engineers and making a general statement about software developer income country-wide.

The other problem is that where you say “can’t” is often “shouldn’t but do anyway”. It’s not hard to find people complaining about owners illegally taking some portion tip income, shifting expenses to workers, or otherwise lowering the effective income for what is already not an easy job.

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

#446

Post by paulie_a »

function_seven wrote: post #357
paulie_a wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

While I don't mind tipping a waiter for great service I don't see delivery drivers and car wash employees are included. A tip is just that, "great job, here is a little something extra for yourself" it should not be expected. I give a gratuity to my door man at Christmas because he goes the extra mile and is awesome. I don't necessarily give the same to the others. Tips/gratuities are for going above and beyond, not just providing the service they are paid to do.

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

#447

Post by chilldream »

mrep wrote: post #401
onetimemanytime wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> However it frustrates me to no end, that customers are expected to do compensation sharing with the employer A debate, perhaps worth having. Meanwhile your server makes less than minimum wage because tips are expected to fill in the gap. A while back it was $2.13 an hour. Not giving him a tip is only going to ruin his day, not start a revolution. As of right now, the chicken dish cost $16 plus an unofficial but ex…

FYI, While their base is below minimum wage, if their hourly pay with tip does not meet minimum wage, then the employer has to fill in the gap by law. This is also why a lot of restaurants in Seattle force a 20% gratuity now that minimum wage is $15 an hour to reduce the chance that customers skimp on the tip and thus the employer would have to pay out the remaining $15 an hour.

Washington is one of the few states that doesn’t allow employers to pay below minimum wage even to tipped employees. Maybe Seattle is different since its city minimum wage is above the state minimum, but those Seattle waiters aren’t making $3 or whatever pre-tip.

https://www.lni.wa.gov/WorkplaceRights/Wages/Minimum/

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

#448

Post by X6S1x6Okd1st »

wetpaws wrote: post #439
X6S1x6Okd1st wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how all the players view it. Like it or not just because you feel justified in something doesn't mean that others will.

When you buy products on Amazon, do you look for more expensive or less expensive listings?

That's a false equivalency.

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

#449

Post by beatgammit »

dpiers wrote: post #133
acheron wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because it would make it harder for them to continue committing tax fraud.

Part of it is the waitstaff avoiding tax on tips, the other part is that it allows the business to avoid payroll tax on the majority of waitstaff's earnings. In order to get a waiter to an effective $10/hr after-tax income you'd have to pay $15-16/hr versus $2+$8 in tips.

That doesn't make any sense. Who's paying 37% taxes as a waiter/waitress? Even before Trump's tax cut, wait staff would still likely be in the 10-15% bracket, and you'd add on 12.5% FICA taxes. And this is after deductions, so effective tax rate will be much lower. Unless your state has 20+% income tax, there's no way a waitress is paying 35%.

Corporate taxes don't factor in either because they are only on profit over and above all expenses. Increasing wages of an employee and shifting payment from tips to w2 income merely ensures the employee pays the taxes they should've be paying in the first place and will not increase corporate taxes.

If wait staff shifted to higher wages, the employer would increase prices and could note on the menu that tipping is not necessary, but appreciated. If that was the case, I would still tip, but only for above average service.

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

#450

Post by onetimemanytime »

CharlesW wrote: post #276
onetimemanytime wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> However it frustrates me to no end, that customers are expected to do compensation sharing with the employer A debate, perhaps worth having. Meanwhile your server makes less than minimum wage because tips are expected to fill in the gap. A while back it was $2.13 an hour. Not giving him a tip is only going to ruin his day, not start a revolution. As of right now, the chicken dish cost $16 plus an unofficial but ex…

> I don't tip 20% when I grab a coffee at Dunkin. Why not? Not a critique, just curious about your rationale when you note that "tips are expected to fill in the gap".

they make probably $10+ an hour and are not considered "tipped" employees, that's way more than a waiter's minimum (used to be $2.13 or so)
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