Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why some US restaurants are banning tips

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 416 posts

Re: Why some US restaurants are banning tips

#141

Post by manarth »

jorvi wrote: post #72
arjie wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. What POS terminals are common there? I am curious about culture spreading through technology defaults and wonder if it's effectively driven by whatever Square chose and whomever else decided to ape the incumbent or whatever.

You them everywhere. Most insane are the bars where you have to walk up from your seating to the bar to order, the bartender plops the drinks on the bar and immediately moves on to another customer, and the terminal still displays default tip amounts and you have to do custom → €0. What the hell am I tipping you for? At this point I'm waiting for supermarket self-checkout to add a default tip amount.

I've seen this (UK), albeit "round up to £x.00 and donate the change to charity", which will use to announce "We've donated £X million to charity".

Re: Why some US restaurants are banning tips

#142

Post by agile-gift0262 »

xyzelement wrote: post #101
ricardobayes wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the biggest cultural differences - for Spain - is that servers are seen as equals, not as a client-provider relationship. This reflects heavily in the language often used - "when you can, bring me X". Just one of the quirks of a low gini coefficient society.

Just yesterday there was a story on HN about Spain's dying villages and a commenter who I assumed was Spanish attributed theow beth rate to income inequality. Which is it - low gini for talking to a waiter, high gini for starting a fam?

I'm saying this based on anecdotal observations from my biased POV, so take this with a grain of salt. There are income differences, but most are inter-city/region differences. I'd say within a specific city or region, it's low gini, but there's a high gini if you compare cross-region. Income and costs in a village in rural Spain are less than half that of a "mid-tier" city, and less than a third or even quarter of that of Barcelona or Madrid

Re: Why some US restaurants are banning tips

#143

Post by frikskit »

xyzelement wrote: post #101
ricardobayes wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the biggest cultural differences - for Spain - is that servers are seen as equals, not as a client-provider relationship. This reflects heavily in the language often used - "when you can, bring me X". Just one of the quirks of a low gini coefficient society.

Just yesterday there was a story on HN about Spain's dying villages and a commenter who I assumed was Spanish attributed theow beth rate to income inequality. Which is it - low gini for talking to a waiter, high gini for starting a fam?

It’s not surprising to anyone that two random Spaniards may disagree on whether a number like this is high or low. That’s because Spaniards don’t all get together to agree on a common position for online posting; and because high/low depends on the context and comparison to other countries.

Spain’s gini coefficient indicates it is much more equal than USA, but not as equal as, say, Denmark.

Re: Why some US restaurants are banning tips

#144

Post by Tajnymag »

anovikov wrote: post #5

These are reasonable prices for a place much cheaper than SFO. This is what people pay in Eastern Europe. 2500 CZK for a set - around $120 - won't be at all surprising or perceived as high in Prague, for instance. It can go up to 8000 or so.

2500 CZK per person is definitely perceived as high in Prague. What are you talking about?

Re: Why some US restaurants are banning tips

#145

Post by xyzelement »

criddell wrote: post #49
FartyMcFarter wrote: post #21

Good. Tipping creates so much mental overhead and unnecessary bad feelings on everyone's part.

I hate that some workers depend on tips and that creates an obligation on me, but I do like to tip because I know how great it feels to get one. At work I sometimes get a bonus and what’s that if not a tip? I benefit too. It’s a way for me to express gratitude.

Exactly! Thank you for expressing this so consciley. The fact that some people can't imagine enjoying giving (and receiving) a nice tip is really gross.

Re: Why some US restaurants are banning tips

#146

Post by UqWBcuFx6NV4r »

xyzelement wrote: post #101
ricardobayes wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the biggest cultural differences - for Spain - is that servers are seen as equals, not as a client-provider relationship. This reflects heavily in the language often used - "when you can, bring me X". Just one of the quirks of a low gini coefficient society.

Just yesterday there was a story on HN about Spain's dying villages and a commenter who I assumed was Spanish attributed theow beth rate to income inequality. Which is it - low gini for talking to a waiter, high gini for starting a fam?

If anyone said this about the country that you’re from (based on this attitude, we all know what my guess is) you’d immediately clock how absurd it sounds.

Re: Why some US restaurants are banning tips

#147

Post by mcny »

xyzelement wrote: post #101
ricardobayes wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the biggest cultural differences - for Spain - is that servers are seen as equals, not as a client-provider relationship. This reflects heavily in the language often used - "when you can, bring me X". Just one of the quirks of a low gini coefficient society.

Just yesterday there was a story on HN about Spain's dying villages and a commenter who I assumed was Spanish attributed theow beth rate to income inequality. Which is it - low gini for talking to a waiter, high gini for starting a fam?

I don't think it is a fair comparison. The cost of raising a child can still be too high even in a fairly low gini country.

In fact I'd say gini has nothing to do with birth rate. Birth rate declines when parents have confidence that there is a good likelihood their children will survive to adulthood.

It is often easy to forget that just five hundred years ago almost one of two infants born didn't survive into adulthood. Low birth rates are good. Don't let anyone say otherwise.

Re: Why some US restaurants are banning tips

#148

Post by bjourne »

ericpauley wrote: post #81
ButlerianJihad wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually not. In my state and others, when a business is designated as accepting tips, the workers can be paid less than minimum wage, while expecting that the tips they collect will make up for it. So it’s really a way to extort good tips from customers, because it’s understood that our gratuities are the only way they can make minimum wage!

In every state I am aware of employers are required to gross up to minimum wage if tips fall short. Yours is likely the same.

How long will a business employ a waiter that is tipped so badly?

Re: Why some US restaurants are banning tips

#149

Post by TrackerFF »

getfacl wrote: post #31

The biggest barrier to ending tipping in the USA is that restaurants are almost always over staffed there. The owner wants the maximum ratio of servers to customers possible. In the typical USA system, being paid primarily in tips means the server is highly incentivized to upsell the customer as much as possible and do everything they can to increase the total bill, and therefor increase their tip. Essentially a comm…

Used to have a lot of American workers here on some projects here, and mind you - these are very travelled and well-versed ones. The contractors that travel around the world for a solid chunk of their careers.

They didn't really mind the the typical service here, where you'll have to wait a bit before a waiter sees you. You get used to it.

On the other hand, you have the first time tourists, that will go "excuuuse meee" after 5 minutes in a restaurant if the waiter hasn't showed up to take a order, and become pissy when they discover that free refills isn't really a thing.

Most Americans traveling abroad are in my experience polite and patient. But there are always the bad apples that will keep tabs on how many times the waiter comes by to offer something, and demand immediate service.

Re: Why some US restaurants are banning tips

#150

Post by yostrovs »

ohyoutravel wrote: post #116
konart wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People over the Atlantic just have a better concept of social gathering as opposed to neediness of being served and staffed with food. People come to a place to have fun and talk for a few hours or their free time. Drinks and food coming and going is just a small nuance. 10 minutes (often way less of course) for drinks to arrive is mostly okay. Nobody is busy waiting for them.

Different concept, not objectively better.

In America, waiting for staff to serve you is considered time lost. In Europe it's called European culture.
Post reply on HN