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To tip or not to tip?

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Re: To tip or not to tip?

#21

Post by amyjess »

efewf wrote: post #13
nemo1618 wrote: post #11

As someone who's both received and given tips, I love them. Why? Because they're a dead-simple way to convert money to happiness. When I received a big tip, it always brightened my shift a bit. And now, every time I go out to eat, I know that I can do the same for someone else.

Do you stand in the street and give people money? You can buy other's temporary happiness there too.

I like tipping high on servers and bartenders who have been exceptionally nice to me.

If someone is just friendly and helpful way beyond the call of duty, I'll probably drop a 25% tip in their lap just because if somebody makes my day, I want to make their day in return.

And then there was when my favorite bartender left his job at my favorite bar... I think I tipped almost 50% on his last night as a parting gift.

Re: To tip or not to tip?

#22

Post by vmarsy »

grecy wrote: post #2

I'm from Australia (no tipping) and have been living in North America for 9 years (always tipping) so this issue is close to my heart. I've come to see tipping as a form of slavery, the only twist being it's paid - albeit very lowly. It's a way for people with money to say "Hey peasant: If you do what I want, and if I'm happy about it, and if I feel like it, I might give you a little of my money. Or not". Sort of lik…

It's a trade-off:

With tips you get some clear advantages over non tipping. The waiters have a huge incentive to give you a pleasant meal experience. This is very annoying to go to a restaurant and it appears to be more complicated for you to get water than it is when you're eating at home. This is what you often experience in no-tipping-countries restaurants. The tip is like an implicit contract with the waiter: Deliver me a good service, I will pay the price.

The cons: What about the kitchen staff, the host/hostess, do they get part of the tip? What happen when the food is terrible but the service awesome, or vice versa. But most important, as acjohnson55 mentions : but it also exposes them to discrimination. Sadly discrimination is real and tipping here doesn't help.

Re: To tip or not to tip?

#23

Post by eridius »

This is a good article, and it goes into detail in the origins of tipping and why different countries tip differently that I hadn't seen before. But it only covers the restaurant industry. What about all the other jobs where tipping is expected? How about jobs where we're unsure whether to tip?

For example, since this is Hacker News, how about all the service industry startups, such as the transportation companies Uber and Lyft, or Postmates, or Instacart, or the many others that have sprung up? Of all of these, Uber is the only one I can think of that explicitly doesn't provide a means to tip. Most of these companies do offer a way to tip (although they generally leave the default at $0). When I use one of these companies, occasionally I ask the driver / delivery person / whoever what the expectation is, and usually the answer is something along the lines of the tip is completely optional and is provided because some people explicitly want to tip. But this answer is very unsatisfying, since I don't know if they're being truthful or if they've been instructed to tell people it's optional. Ultimately, I'm always left with a little bit of anxiety about whether I really should be tipping, and if so, how much is appropriate.

Re: To tip or not to tip?

#24

Post by eridius »

vmarsy wrote: post #22
grecy wrote: post #2

I'm from Australia (no tipping) and have been living in North America for 9 years (always tipping) so this issue is close to my heart. I've come to see tipping as a form of slavery, the only twist being it's paid - albeit very lowly. It's a way for people with money to say "Hey peasant: If you do what I want, and if I'm happy about it, and if I feel like it, I might give you a little of my money. Or not". Sort of lik…

It's a trade-off: With tips you get some clear advantages over non tipping. The waiters have a huge incentive to give you a pleasant meal experience. This is very annoying to go to a restaurant and it appears to be more complicated for you to get water than it is when you're eating at home. This is what you often experience in no-tipping-countries restaurants. The tip is like an implicit contract with the waiter: Del…

I think you're drawing a false correlation here between no-tip countries and poor service. There may be countries that don't have a custom of tipping and also have poor service, but there's very little reason to think that the two are actually related. For the same reason, there's very little to think that level of service in restaurants in the US is related to the expectation of the tip.

More generally, if a country seems to have poor restaurant service overall, that's a cultural thing. Introducing tipping would be unlikely to change it. To think otherwise is to think that waiters are only doing their job on the hope that they get a consideration, and that without that financial lure, they'd become lazy do-nothings. And that's both highly insulting and also illogical, because there's nothing unique about the job of being a waiter that would cause people to be lazy who would otherwise perform their job adequately in every other industry.

Re: To tip or not to tip?

#25

Post by waterlesscloud »

acjohnson55 wrote: post #8
tptacek wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you actually talk to service staff about this? Do they tell you they feel enslaved and demeaned by large tips? I have had this conversation repeatedly, and not one server has ever told me they felt bad about tips.

I don't think the parent poster mentioned anything about large tips. I myself read complaints about poor tips constantly in my Facebook feed, usually from the same disgruntled couple of service industry friends of mine. But then again, I don't think I have that many more friends in the service industry. As far as I can see, tipping is not adds frustrating unpredictability to their income, but it also exposes them to…

If you left their income solely up to their employers, it would be more predictable. But it would also almost certainly be considerably lower.

Re: To tip or not to tip?

#26

Post by vilmosi »

vmarsy wrote: post #22
grecy wrote: post #2

I'm from Australia (no tipping) and have been living in North America for 9 years (always tipping) so this issue is close to my heart. I've come to see tipping as a form of slavery, the only twist being it's paid - albeit very lowly. It's a way for people with money to say "Hey peasant: If you do what I want, and if I'm happy about it, and if I feel like it, I might give you a little of my money. Or not". Sort of lik…

It's a trade-off: With tips you get some clear advantages over non tipping. The waiters have a huge incentive to give you a pleasant meal experience. This is very annoying to go to a restaurant and it appears to be more complicated for you to get water than it is when you're eating at home. This is what you often experience in no-tipping-countries restaurants. The tip is like an implicit contract with the waiter: Del…

"This is very annoying to go to a restaurant and it appears to be more complicated for you to get water than it is when you're eating at home. This is what you often experience in no-tipping-countries restaurants"

I think you are mistaken here.

In tipping countries waiters basically beg you to leave as soon as you've eaten. They are always around you to upsell something (bigger tip) or to passive aggressively bring you your check. Eating out for only an hour is common.

In non-tipping countries however, the waiter simply leaves you alone to eat in peace. They don't ask you "Do you need anything else" every 5 minutes. People on average stay out more because of this.

Which is why you feel ignored. Different cultures.

Re: To tip or not to tip?

#27

Post by Kalium »

joesmo wrote: post #15

"Tipping looks like an anachronistic hangover from a time when restaurant staff were the lowest of the low" This is unfortunately still the case in America. I can't believe the author writes a long, elaborate article mentioning tipping in America without mentioning the minimum wage for food service in the US. Federally, it's currently $2.13/hr though employers are required to compensate employees so they make at leas…

One of the hidden complexities of food service is that tipping often serves as a tax dodge. Servers often wind up taking home a fair amount of cash but reporting poverty-grade incomes.

I knew one lady who got a Section 8 voucher this way. She definitely did not qualify on what she regularly took home.

Re: To tip or not to tip?

#28

Post by scarecrowbob »

yodsanklai wrote: post #18
grecy wrote: post #2

I'm from Australia (no tipping) and have been living in North America for 9 years (always tipping) so this issue is close to my heart. I've come to see tipping as a form of slavery, the only twist being it's paid - albeit very lowly. It's a way for people with money to say "Hey peasant: If you do what I want, and if I'm happy about it, and if I feel like it, I might give you a little of my money. Or not". Sort of lik…

> I personally feel dirty every time I tip I understand what you mean. I used to find it odd. But in the US it's just part of the custom. My understanding is that tipping is expected and nobody really thinks about it. I consistently tip "tax times two" in New York, regardless of the service quality.

In Texas, that would be pretty skimpy. Perosnally, I tip 25-30%, but things are cheap out here.

BTW, I also don't tip based on service quality; I generally won't go back to a place if I don't like the service, but it's kind of expected that you're tipping... to the point where it's an ethical mandate.

Re: To tip or not to tip?

#29

Post by waterlesscloud »

Kalium wrote: post #27
joesmo wrote: post #15

"Tipping looks like an anachronistic hangover from a time when restaurant staff were the lowest of the low" This is unfortunately still the case in America. I can't believe the author writes a long, elaborate article mentioning tipping in America without mentioning the minimum wage for food service in the US. Federally, it's currently $2.13/hr though employers are required to compensate employees so they make at leas…

One of the hidden complexities of food service is that tipping often serves as a tax dodge. Servers often wind up taking home a fair amount of cash but reporting poverty-grade incomes. I knew one lady who got a Section 8 voucher this way. She definitely did not qualify on what she regularly took home.

I've known bartenders who had issues related to this. Not from the IRS. They rarely seem to bother with service employees who report a "reasonable" percentage of their sales as tips.

The issues were with lenders, when the bartenders wanted to buy houses. They had enough income to easily afford the mortgage, but no records that indicated that. In the end, they dealt with a local lender that understood the situation, but it was definitely a hassle.

Re: To tip or not to tip?

#30

Post by ilaksh »

Tipping should go away, since it is a classist holdover tradition, but not until wages in tipping countries increase significantly, and that depends on overall economic health and structures.

I think people consider not tipping mostly because of depressed economic conditions or situations and then they rationalize it.

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