Assuming it's true that they receive a similar proportion of cash tips from cash purchases as digital tips from digital transactions, I wonder if the variability is substantially greater for cash tips. It seems reasonable to assume pre-selected tip amounts on Square would decrease variability, while cash purchases probably opt for (no tip, resulting coins from change, or bigger bills). The five or ten bill tips mentioned in the article seem awfully high for a coffee purchase... perhaps older, wealthier customers tend to pay cash and tip in bigger bills.
Why Is Tipping Everywhere You Checkout?
81–90 of 250 posts
Re: Why Is Tipping Everywhere You Checkout?
#82My worry is that this "asking for tips" trick is allowing employers to reclassify non-tipped positions as tipped positions that they can then substantially underpay, and not a lot of people know the laws that would force the company to match back to minimum wage if tips don't cover it. From a #teamchaos point of view I'm a little hopeful this new push is a bridge too far, and it gets us to rethink tipping culture.
I get the feeling that is the goal for some establishments.
Re: Why Is Tipping Everywhere You Checkout?
#83Wait staff are not paid enough. At least in my state, the minimum wage for tip-accepting employees is horrific. I was a waiter twice and understand all of that so I always tip and try to be generous. Also, I'm pretty bad at math in my head so I usually guesstimate tips too high. A downside of tipping on the checkout systems I see is the baked in 15 / 20 / 25% options. OR tap custom and probably stand there like a mor…
In California, minimum wage for tipped workers is the same as minimum wage for any other employee. Tips are in addition to the state minimum wage.
I have noticed that several checkout systems compute tips after tax instead of pretax, so I always end up computing tip myself anyway.
Re: Why Is Tipping Everywhere You Checkout?
#84Some (many?) countries have demonstrated that no-tipping can work just fine. > makes them less competitive to any nearby coffeeshops that haven't raised prices Maybe I'm an outlier but for me I'm sick of the mental game of "Am I good member of society for the % I selected, and how much will my date judge me if I choose what used to be the norm -- 10%-15%... and am I the sucker if I choose a high amount while other pe…
It seems different in the US, where everyone is expected to tip as part of the overall price, like the article describes, and there is tipping Europe where the tip is not needed to boost the wage to an acceptable level but is simply to reward people who have gone above and beyond. In many restaurants in the UK, a "tip" is automatically included for large parties to reward the extra work required but can be removed on…
A default service charge is pretty common in the UK for sit-down food service at this point in my experience.
In the US, it's a very path dependent thing. High-end restaurants have tried experiments to eliminate it but front-of-house staff in particular didn't like it because in many cases they made less money.
Re: Why Is Tipping Everywhere You Checkout?
#85As a bartender, I know that I will make more money from tips than any business owner would ever pay me, even if prices were raised 20+% and tipping was removed. I’d rather risk a slow shift with less tips than work a job with a slightly higher hourly rate and no tips. I know there is a lot of bitching online about tips, and I agree that since COVID I’ve seen some absurd situations with asking for tips when the custom…
How do you know this? In other countries the front of the house staff do just fine without tipping. And how much of your tip goes to the food preparation staff? You're supposed to be sharing your tips with them: how much do you tip them?
Tipping needs to be burned with fire.
Tipping and its history is dripping in classism, racisim, corruption, and the perpetuation of poverty. It grotesquely unevenly distributes wealth among the front-and and back-end staff in a restaurant. It turns many common experiences: dining, cab-riding, having your house cleaned, even renting a hotel room, into exercises in guilt-tripping, price manipulation and misleading advertising, and mental calculation.
It's also a slippery slope. The rate used to be 10%. Then it rose to 15%. Now it's 20%. Why? Because employers are taking advantage of tipping to justify refusing to pay their employees a living wage.
If there's one simple thing that would improve the situation for many service workers, it'd be making tipping illegal.
Re: Why Is Tipping Everywhere You Checkout?
#86This is exactly how I think about tipping. I, and many friends and family, worked retail and food service jobs when we were young. Now I’m professionally successful and will not miss a couple extra bucks on a cup of coffee. So I’m happy to help boost the person serving it to me. I know it means way more to them than it does to me. This also explains why people (including me) get SO MAD if they find out that tips don’…
I'm a firm believer in better salaries rather than pushing the burden of sustaining an employee directly onto the customer by keeping an air of shame if you don't follow the "accepted tipping guidelines".
Whenever I've been to the USA I feel I'm being scammed every time I'm required to tip. I know it's your culture but it feels like an emotional extortion, if I don't tip I have to bear the weight of an underpaid employee not making ends meet because I don't think it was fair to see a price and then have to mentally add "20%" just because someone served me.
Worse, for me this culture makes me very uncomfortable by the level of service, I can tell when a waiter is miserable and just fake smiling to get me to tip more. When a waitress is over-the-top charming and nice while being berated by the kitchen staff for a misplaced order, etc.
It just makes every service I get feel fake and forced, to the point where I've avoided going to eat somewhere on days I'm exhausted because I don't want to deal with that weight on top.
I'd much rather just pay 20% over the price and know that the staff is well paid.
Tipping culture just opens a can of worm of abuses...
Re: Why Is Tipping Everywhere You Checkout?
#87I think the expansion of tipping, to the point where every point-of-sale machine is asking for it, is a dark pattern. I highly doubt that those tips go directly to employees, like restaurant tips would, but almost certainly directly to the shop.
I'm cynical but I see these new places where tipping has showed up as a way shopowners backhandedly raise prices and depress employee wages. And given that there is basically no human interaction, not even eye contact involved in the transaction, I'm not doing it.
Re: Why Is Tipping Everywhere You Checkout?
#88The Reservoir Dogs on Tipping: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fbwwlHPtRM
Back then 12% was a standard tip and $1 was reasonable for a single person's meal. Simpler times...
Re: Why Is Tipping Everywhere You Checkout?
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it's a US thing. I came from Bolivia and never once tipped anywhere outside of restaurants. No, I won't tip you for packaging 4 cookies in a box at Crumbl Cookies lol.
The intent is not to reward a task. It's a nod of appreciation that there is even an employee that's willing to show up to work and service you. You give them a dollar. At least that's how I look at it. I'm not a fan either just articulating my attitude towards it.
I showed up and wrote some software. Should my customers tip me too?
If tipping actually resulted in better service, maybe there'd be a reason to keep it. But, certainly anecdotally, it doesn't. Service in the US hasn't been any better for me than service in nations that don't tip, or tip much less.
Re: Why Is Tipping Everywhere You Checkout?
#90As a bartender, I know that I will make more money from tips than any business owner would ever pay me, even if prices were raised 20+% and tipping was removed. I’d rather risk a slow shift with less tips than work a job with a slightly higher hourly rate and no tips. I know there is a lot of bitching online about tips, and I agree that since COVID I’ve seen some absurd situations with asking for tips when the custom…
>but most people tip fine. We tip out of guilt. I literally freaking hate it, and I'm starting to tip less and less and prices go up. Why should I tip you to pour me a drink? You are literally just doing your job. I don't call up my customers for a tip when I release an update to their program. I don't send them invoices with a TIP line and show how much 15, 18, 20% of the invoice is so they can add on to it. Tipping…
You literally don’t have to think about it. Just tip 20% every time you’re at a bar or restaurant. That’s it. It’s a way for us to make better money. If that 20% was included and hidden I know you wouldn’t care as much, but it makes it tougher for us to get legally paid as much. Did you even read the article?