191–200 of 618 posts
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The crazier part is that it's spreading to more industries and more countries thanks to Americans thinking they should tip everyone everywhere. Thanks.
Yep. It's wonderful throwing a few extra bucks to some euro waiter and watching them treat you better than everyone else.
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The crazier part is that it's spreading to more industries and more countries thanks to Americans thinking they should tip everyone everywhere. Thanks.
No, it's spreading because corporations are waking up to what an insanely good deal "pay my employees for me" is. In my state an employer is only responsible for raising an employee's effective wage (for the entire pay period) to minimum wage if the tips don't. You can tip someone working as a waiter $100 and unless they've already hit minimum wage for that pay period, all you're doing is handing $100 to the owner be…
Of course, a living wage in California is quite a bit higher then even our above-average minimum wage, so that's a big part of it.
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Tipping is a thing in Eastern (to be more accurate: Central) Europe too, but where I live, tipping is not taxed. Actually, let me be more accurate: people who pay with credit card always tip in cash, as there is no way to tip with a credit card[1]. :P If you buy anything with a credit card, the total amount must always be identical to the sum of the prices of the products, it can never be more, so cannot include tips…
"Cash is untaxed" is a universal rule; there's a food stall that only sells deep fried Vietnamese eggrolls (and has for decades), they prefer cash; in part because cash is untaxed and they may forget to document every sale on occasion, but also because they do relatively low amount transactions ( It's also why "knowing a guy" can be useful, tradesmen coming in on their off hours to do a job for cash.
What confuses me most is when you are given the option to give a tip before any service has been given. On deliveroo, for example, I have the option to tip the driver while I'm at the checkout. Why would I give a reward for good service when I have no idea if the service is even good? There's already a rider fee as part of my bill, so it doesn't make any sense to me to give them more money at that point
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Living in Ireland from 2013-2023 I saw tipping get _much_ more common, sadly.
I don't mind tipping for exceptional service, I do however have a major issue with the obligation of tipping. It really should not be on the customers to pay the employees salaries directly.
That's assuming the employer values that above-and-beyond-ness, of course. If not, they won't give that raise, and employees will eventually settle on a level of service that the employer is paying for. If that's good enough for the customers, that's fine. If not, that's an opportunity for a competitor to pay employees more so they'll serve customers better.
Customers should not be put in the awkward position of feeling like they should be augmenting people's wages, even if it's on top of an already-sufficient living wage. Wages paid is a negotiation between employer and employee. Customers should not be involved, beyond paying the listed or contracted/agreed-upon price.
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Service is quite good in Europe if you ignore the touristy areas. We’re also not into that fake-smiling thing, so maybe that can be seen by an American as “bad service”.
I don't care about smiling. I care that when I want to leave, I can pay quickly. In Europe, it's incredibly slow, pretty much everywhere, including random rural towns in the middle of nowhere, including for random other patrons who are locals. The best service I ever witnessed in Europe was like, maybe mid-tier American fast casual level: aka, mediocre.
Second, what you and me consider to be good service is probably quite different.
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I do, it creates perverse incentives and dehumanizes people. Imagine yourself catering someone and then having them talk about how great that is and wanting to pay you for that. Not in abstract but actually, in practice. It nails down the servant role, frankly. It feels abhorrent to me, even if you get numb to it over time. From my perspective, tipping is a socially acceptable way to establish classes. Which itself i…
It really depends on the amount. In Belgium for instance there would be no tipping, but rounding up or adding one or two spare coins of change you still have on you in case the service was excellent. It is like any job where people get a bonus because they have gone above and beyond.
Say I am a small business owner selling a $90 item which is $100 with state sales taxes. I say if you are willing to tip me at least $90, the item is $1. The buyer saves $9 from state sales taxes, and I save on income taxes because tips are exempt from tax.
It’s crazy that this still happens in the US. Tipping is a thing of the past. Pay for your meal and have the restaurant pay their people for their work. End of story.
Having just come back to the States from a trip to Europe — sheesh, I hope not. The service at restaurants everywhere in Europe was at best mediocre, and typically god-awful. Incentivizing good service is good. Yes, yes, "but the price on the menu says..." Whatever. If you're in the U.S., it's normalized that the price you actually pay is 20% higher, assuming they treat you well. Restaurants don't typically print the…
Tipping sucks and your taxes suck too. When I see that something costs 15€ on the menu then I expect to pay 15€ and nothing more. How can you be happy about surprise taxes? How can you plan your spending when you don't see how much something costs and you still think this is superior?