381–390 of 425 posts
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Servers make $2.14 an hour in Texas, they're fully dependent on tips. They often/always have zero control over the kitchen or management's ability to do staffing. Keep this in mind when you eat in that state.
That is not unique to Texas.
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If you live in America you're an asshole if you do this. Tipping is the well-established cultural way for servers to make income. It is -not- something reserved for situations where good service is to be incentivized. Maybe in other countries ... but not the United States.
> Tipping is the well-established cultural way for servers to make income. One could also argue that its a means for companies to intentionally under-pay their staff while also re-directing any anger at being exploited from the company to the consumer. Perfect divide and conquer tactics that has somehow become culturally engrained to the point that if anyone refuses to be part of this macabre tragedy they are framed…
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Every day it seems more and more like restaurants in general are a completely unsustainable business unless you want to pay $20 for a cheeseburger.
Restaurants should generally be expected to get more and more relatively expensive, especially “sit down” restaurants, because of Baumol’s cost disease. There’s a large labor component that isn’t getting significantly more efficient over time.
Of course, nicer restaurants will retain waiters because it is nice to be waited on by another human being, but you need to pay for that experience!
Note that drip pricing for restaurants (e.g. 10-20% non-tip surcharge) is illegal in many jurisdictions (if not "conspicuously advertised" before eating), but some restaurants try to do it anyways (claiming the policy is "conspicuously advertised" on the last page of the menu, or a tiny sign behind the bar). Sometimes you can just refuse to pay it and they'll back down because they want a repeat customer more. Someti…
Every day it seems more and more like restaurants in general are a completely unsustainable business unless you want to pay $20 for a cheeseburger.
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You should be able to do that with a card as well. They can’t charge your card more than you authorize. (And if they did a call to the CC company will get it all taken care of).
They can decline to charge payment for anything other than the full figure leaving you with the ability to walk out or pay. If you opt not to pay you are dining and dashing and subject to prosecution the fact that you offered to partially pay notwithstanding. Logically pay the bill then leave a negative review and never eat there again.
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They know how much to charge you at the till, therefore they know what price to put on the label. It is that simple. For webstores, require customer to disclose location so the right price can be computed; they have to do that when it comes to the billing page so it isn't novel work. Everything else is bullshit reasoning to get away with false pricing/false advertising.
Okay but what happens if the tax changes, do you really expect retailers to reprint their labels every few months?
Hotels are horrible for this. This is what my itemized stay was for a single night: 2023-01-18 * Residence Inn expenses:travel:marriott 171.00 USD expenses:taxes:salestax:tx 10.26 USD expenses:taxes:salestax:tx:plano 11.97 USD ; city hotel tax expenses:fees:recovery 1.28 USD ; tax recovery fee expenses:fees:recovery 2.13 USD ; parking recovery fee expenses:taxes:salestax:tx .18 USD ; taxes on parking recovery fee. as…
Two reasons, neither of which is acceptable in my mind:
1: to reduce the price shown in aggregator websites (as the original article talks about)
2: to enact a stealth reduction in the value of points, since you cannot stay simply by redeeming them.
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But the rest of the world does include the tax in the advertised price and they do just fine
Do they? The rest of the world has all kinds of Insane tax rates. I think the US Taxation is absurdly high and I pay in total about 25% to the government, many parts of the work 40-60% is common (when you factor all taxation), and that to me is out right theft.
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The Canadian government compels the major telecommunications providers to lease their services to independent ISPs. Getting internet service installed with an independent ISP literally involves a visit from the major telecommunications provider and the service is pretty much equivalent to what the major telecommunications provider offers. The difference is price. Few of the independent ISPs try to attract customers w…
I've heard that the only thing worse for our friends to the north than their cell carriers is their ISPs. Is this the case? Do you mind sharing your speeds and cost?
I'm not sure if this is still the case, but internet service had caps in most parts of Canada a while back. Around here, it is unlimited from all of the ISPs. It is also worth noting that a lot of the complaints come from rural customers. Living in the city, I have very few issues. (For example, the download speeds are over the advertised rate. It is supposed to be uncommon to get the advertised rates in rural and even suburban areas.)
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Note that South San Francisco is actually in a different county.
Exactly why I cherry-picked that example; it's consistent with the parent's Ohio example in that most transients flying to SF via SFO don't even realize that they're technically in a different city/county. Similar situation with Julington Creek Plantation and Fruit Cove; both are technically in the same county (St. Johns County) and literally butt up against each other, and yet the former pays Jacksonville (Duval Cou…