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Tipping at self-checkout has customers crying ‘emotional blackmail’

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Re: Tipping at self-checkout has customers crying ‘emotional blackmail’

#91

Post by cronix »

hnbear wrote: post #33
electrondood wrote: post #13

Tips are for table service. That's it. When you go to Starbucks, ask for a product, then make payment for that product, and the little POS machine basically says "hey, can we have extra money?" it's systematized panhandling.

This is where my own internal rubric for tipping starts to break down. The delineation between "sat at a table and got service", and "payed at a counter to be handed something prepared" has a middle grey area for things that are made on-demand for me, by someone behind the counter, to my specification. - In your Starbucks example if they grab a pre-bottle something is that service? - Pulling a latte from a latte mach…

To touch on your example, you're not allowed to tip that individual starbucks employee who went above and beyond while everyone else is shuffling along. You can tip the whole team, which gets split among everyone working according to how many hours they worked that pay period, or not tip.

To me, a tip goes to an individual, not everybody who happened to be working whether they helped me or not. This is one thing I really object to in places that have a general tip jar. I tip individuals, not companies.

Re: Tipping at self-checkout has customers crying ‘emotional blackmail’

#92

Post by ipnon »

Fernicia wrote: post #76

Tipping in the U.S. is such a travesty. This is painfully apparent in bars. Compared with, say, Ireland where a barman can take multiple orders at once, batch them, then quickly take payment via a single contactless tap. In the U.S. you have to "open a tab", the bartender has to add drinks to your tab, then when you want to pay, the bartender has to print off the tab, have you sign it, do mental maths, and finally wr…

Which apps do the bars in Ireland use for payment?

Re: Tipping at self-checkout has customers crying ‘emotional blackmail’

#93

Post by corey_moncure »

Night_Thastus wrote: post #59
corey_moncure wrote: post #34

I took my wife out to a fancy steakhouse over the weekend and remembered what "service" is supposed to be. Our waiter poured my wine, cut up our steak table side and served us, cracked pepper over our salad, went above and beyond in every way to ensure that we were comfortable and satisfied. I gladly tipped him 20% on $300 and would do so again. On the other hand, I left $10 on top of a $50 takeout order at a local I…

You're looking at it a bit backwards. This is not "employees are greedy, want money for nothing". This is a case of "employees barely paid enough to get food each week, survive off tips". People forget that minimum wage comes out to around $15k a year. Even $15 an hour is only $30k. In almost all of the country, that's not enough for the cheapest rent, upkeep on a cheap car, food, taxes and other bills. Excessive tip…

I don't think so.

I'll put the food in a bag, grab my napkins and parmesan packets, and ring myself up. Then I'll tip myself the 20% or whatever ridiculous margin multiplied by my already overly-inflated bill.

That employee doesn't do anything for me. She does many things for the sake of the restaurant, but not a single thing for me that I need or care about.

As a bystander to the employment relationship, it's not my role to provide the economic solution here. But I'm happy to tip for service. Turn the tables and I'm happy to hold the damn door open with a smile for $10. I'd do that all day long since that's a fantastic payoff for the effort required. I'd hold the door open anyway because it's the thing to do.

Re: Tipping at self-checkout has customers crying ‘emotional blackmail’

#94

Post by alexaholic »

I think tipping incentivises managers to lowball workers. I'm not buying into that "service not included" bullshit. How about you just... include it, and start paying at least the minimum wage if not more? I get tipping when someone goes out of their way or whatever but, frankly, pushing cups and plates around rarely sparks a conversation. And oftentimes it's just that. I'm from an European country where tipping is expected to the point where they give you a surprised stare and they might mutter something. About a year ago I stopped tipping and stopped caring about such expectations. It's none of my business.

Re: Tipping at self-checkout has customers crying ‘emotional blackmail’

#95

Post by SoftTalker »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #26

I want to see an end to tipping in America. I also want to see servers paid at least a living wage, and the excellent ones to earn more (perhaps by having to move upscale where wages ought to be higher reflecting more skill and effort) Is there a viable path forward? Is there some way I can support it happening?

You can seek out and patronize the few places that do operate this way. There are some.

Re: Tipping at self-checkout has customers crying ‘emotional blackmail’

#96

Post by mindslight »

ricardobayes wrote: post #78
didacticBuffalo wrote: post #57

Even worse is "pre-tipping" like in UberEats. As you place an order you're asked if you'd like to tip your driver before you get your delivery. I typically add 10% cuz if i don't my Uber rating goes down and i get less rides when i need them so it's more than blackmail. It's extortion. As well as a reason not to have one-app-to-rule-them-all It infuriates me when i add a tip and the driver f ups. I've had the wrong f…

I haven't used this service, but the food delivery guy can rate you and that also affects your other Uber rating? What the heck? How does that make sense?

The new economy is like the scene in The Dark Knight where The Joker breaks a pool cue in half and throws the pieces to two henchmen to fight it out. Uber has just figured out how to get the customer in on the action. Remember when one of the selling points of early Uber was the complete lack of tipping?

The dynamic OP describes seems like a great reason to steer clear of UberEats, not that we need another one.

Re: Tipping at self-checkout has customers crying ‘emotional blackmail’

#97

Post by SoftTalker »

lastofthemojito wrote: post #75
maerF0x0 wrote: post #26

I want to see an end to tipping in America. I also want to see servers paid at least a living wage, and the excellent ones to earn more (perhaps by having to move upscale where wages ought to be higher reflecting more skill and effort) Is there a viable path forward? Is there some way I can support it happening?

> Is there a viable path forward? That's the tough part. The places that I'm familiar with that experimented with no-tipping ended up reverting back to the standard model. With tipping, good waiters at good restaurants can make solid money - probably more than they'd be paid in a no-tipping model. So they quit and get a different job with tips, and the back of the house makes a bit more money, but then overall busine…

The day a robot brings my food to the table is the day I stop eating at restaurants.

Re: Tipping at self-checkout has customers crying ‘emotional blackmail’

#99

Post by doublepg23 »

Night_Thastus wrote: post #59
corey_moncure wrote: post #34

I took my wife out to a fancy steakhouse over the weekend and remembered what "service" is supposed to be. Our waiter poured my wine, cut up our steak table side and served us, cracked pepper over our salad, went above and beyond in every way to ensure that we were comfortable and satisfied. I gladly tipped him 20% on $300 and would do so again. On the other hand, I left $10 on top of a $50 takeout order at a local I…

You're looking at it a bit backwards. This is not "employees are greedy, want money for nothing". This is a case of "employees barely paid enough to get food each week, survive off tips". People forget that minimum wage comes out to around $15k a year. Even $15 an hour is only $30k. In almost all of the country, that's not enough for the cheapest rent, upkeep on a cheap car, food, taxes and other bills. Excessive tip…

> Excessive tips are the only way a lot of people working in the service industry survive at all.

When the topic comes up on Reddit the people overwhelmingly against getting rid of tipping are waiters. Heck, bartenders are even more vehemently against the idea.

Re: Tipping at self-checkout has customers crying ‘emotional blackmail’

#100

Post by bityard »

ghostpepper wrote: post #39
lastofthemojito wrote: post #28

Tipping has officially gotten out of control. Just saw the other day that some Apple Store employees want to start asking for tips: https://daringfireball.net/linked/2023/05/04/apple-store-mar...

So on a $3500 laptop purchase a 10% tip would be $350 for the genius who radio'd to the back to have someone else bring the product out, and then punched it in correctly on the pin pad? If we generously assume 5 minutes of work, that works out to an hourly rate of $4200/hour.

Did you click the link?

> The workers’ negotiators also want Apple to adopt a tipping system, letting patrons offer gratuities in increments of 3%, 5% or a custom amount for in-store credit-card transactions.

Not 10%, unless you have money to burn/launder. But also:

> “All monies collected through this manner would be dispersed to members of the bargaining unit biweekly based on any hours worked.”

So as in most places these days, by tipping you're not rewarding the employee who provided good service, your tip gets spread out among all employees whether they are working hard or hardly working. Which as far as I am concerned, entirely defeats the purpose of the tipping system.

I have no reason to buy anything from an Apple store but if I did, and someone provided exceptional service beyond what they were expected to, I would not tip them. I would instead saunter down to the Starbucks pagoda, buy a gift card, and then hand it directly to the person.

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