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People no longer know how much to tip

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71–80 of 186 posts

Re: People no longer know how much to tip

#71
post #7

Yesterday I had lunch at a Shake Shack. Humans don't take orders there any more; you place your order at a self-serve touchscreen kiosk. As I finished placing my order, I was prompted to leave a tip; 10% was the default and you had to press a button to change it. Who am I tipping, exactly? The kiosk? Myself? No one had even made eye contact with me up to this point. I have ordered fast food from a computer. When I ha…

> Who am I tipping, exactly?

The staff who make pretty crap money to do a pretty thankless job who opened the restaurant, kept it clean + stocked, kept the bathrooms cleaned, make the order, serve the order, help you if something is wrong, help keep condiments/drink machines working, etc.

I agree with this logic we should always tip everybody we interact with $1 and that isn't the standard. It's a weird thing. Tipping in the food service industry is just "accepted" the same way a 6% real estate facilitation commission is.

Re: People no longer know how much to tip

#72
post #12

I've started paying cash more at places that have tipping screens for what I consider to be a service that a tip is not required. For example the local donut shop has a tipping screen for them spending 1-2 minutes of time to get the donuts.

For most of the donut shops around me, I don't mind tipping. Typically, the person working the counter is the spouse/sibling/child of the person making the donuts. For family places like that, I'm much less opposed to tipping. Besides, how much is the tip going to be for donuts?

For the specialty donuts that charge as much for a single donut as others charge for a dozen get tips like "don't play in the street".

Re: People no longer know how much to tip

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but the fear of them spitting in the food will always still be there

It's insane that we live in fear of retaliation for not giving a vendor more money while getting nothing in return.

s/insane/realistic

Re: People no longer know how much to tip

#78
post #24

Everyone on here is complaining about the tips, but I don’t see a way to break tipping culture. Are we going to keep ratcheting up tip percentages forever or is there a solution?

The problem is that if everyone stops tipping, the only ones being affected are the restaurant staff - not the owners. So the message won't be delivered and might actually cause more harm than it should.

If everyone stopped tipping, the restaurant would have to shut down, because the staff would seek alternate employment.

Re: People no longer know how much to tip

#79

It can sound controversial, but can we please stop with tipping altogether? Leaving aside for a second the fact that now tipping is basically asked everywhere (even at automated machines) - as an European I consider it an extremely stupid trend. If you're "forced" to tip, then it's not a tip anymore. The concept of tipping, at least in Switzerland, has always been to show gratitude for an *exceptional* service. I tot…

> It can sound controversial, but can we please stop with tipping altogether? Yes, I'm all for it. But it would easier to do during times in which service workers aren't just barely scrapping by, and had more negotiating power.

Yes, it's easier said than done. I've been recently to the states and I've never tipped less than 15% - even when the service was bad (40 minutes waiting for the waiter to get our order).

The situation is pretty bad, and I feel bad for who's working in that field :(

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