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Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes

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Re: Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes

#661

Post by mschuster91 »

euroderf wrote: post #628
yafbum wrote: post #449

There has been a deplorable profusion of dark patterns in restaurant checkout UIs, such as offering preselected tip amounts set along a 18-20-25% scale (standard used to be 15%), making it quite difficult to leave a custom tip, etc. Add to this various "surcharges" and other mandatory fees added for this or that (my favorite: mandatory "resort fees" for hotels - seriously why is that not just rolled into the price of…

That's one nice thing about living in the EU, that it mandates full price disclosure for some industries. (Anyone got a list?) In particular, when it says your airline ticket is NNN€, you will pay than NNN€. No screwball fees up the wazoo.

It's been that way for all kind of online services since 2011 [1].

[1] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/fr/MEMO_1...

Re: Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes

#662

Post by midasuni »

delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #104
godelski wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tipping at best is a form of bribery and at worst a feudal practice of wealth transfer. I tip because it is the social norm (and bribery: don't want my food messed with), but I think we can also acknowledge that this practice is weird and has a shaky history.

> don't want my food messed with If someone has the mentality that they are free to spoil your food because they won't get a (good) tip, then they don't deserve to be paid at all , let alone be tipped well. There's a lot of things the US has that are extremely strange, and the tipping culture is amongst them.

It’s frustrating as a Brit as it is actually illegal for me to pay the bribe (pay the money to ensure my food isn’t spat in).

Re: Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes

#663

Post by midasuni »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #630
q845712 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think tipping at its very best is an opportunity to give a stranger a small gift. I recognize your points -- sometimes it feels like an obligated payment and probably in nearly all cases the capital owning class could and/or should contribute more, but i think you're excluding some optional perspectives. Sometimes I just want to help someone have a nice day by giving them something they didn't expect, like a genero…

Having been living in the Netherlands, it now feels so patronizing to tip. Like, “I am rich person. I will give you some money, service person. Now smile and appreciate my lordship.”—how it feels to tip.

I was in a taxi many years ago in Beijing. Meter said something like 16, I gave 20 and left.

Driver chased me into the lobby to give me the change.

Re: Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes

#664

Post by mdrzn »

midasuni wrote: post #649
euroderf wrote: post #628

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's one nice thing about living in the EU, that it mandates full price disclosure for some industries. (Anyone got a list?) In particular, when it says your airline ticket is NNN€, you will pay than NNN€. No screwball fees up the wazoo.

Still plenty of restaurants with “service charge” at the bottom of the menu

That's at worst a couple euros per person, very far from a 10%-20% upcharge.

Re: Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes

#665

Post by divan »

jacktribe wrote: post #99

I've just opened a coffee shop in Los Angeles last month, and we don't take tips. We only use self-ordering iPads (I've custom coded an iOS app w/ Stripe Terminal for it), and we don't accept cash either. We've had a few customers baffled by the no-tipping policy, and still insisting that they leave a tip. Some even left cash on the counter or on the table. We had to chase a few of them down to return their money. Al…

Thank you for sharing your story.

Continuing the geek vibe, I believe the best starting point to make sense of inner workings of incentive systems and rewards is SDT - Self-Determination Theory. It's 70+ yr old theory of motivation in psychology that originated in studies of how external rewards (i.e. tips or bonuses) crowd out intrinsic motivation.

In other words, if we want employees to act friendly to customers - should we design a system of external motivation (rewards and punishements) or design a system that boost intrinsic motivation for this behaviour. For example, SDT has many studies on how different rewards giving patterns affect motivation. As far as I remember, the least detrimental is task-noncontingent rewards (giving "reward" for just "showing up", basically). The most detrimental to motivation is competitive-contingent (give reward to those who outperform others).

Re: Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes

#666

Post by vkou »

delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #134
plantwallshoe wrote: post #8

I’ve implemented a personal policy to make it easier for myself and reduce bias: Full waiter experience (seated, handed menu, food brought to table, plate cleared) gets 20%. If the level of service is less than that, the percentage starts to go down proportionally. Counter service is flat-rate $1 per person served. This is the same every time regardless of quality of service (unless something truly malicious happens,…

> Full waiter experience (seated, handed menu, food brought to table, plate cleared) gets 20%. I don't understand this. Why do you Americans tip for this? Isn't being seated, handed a menu, food brought to the table , and plates being cleared part of a waiter's job? Why does the customer have to 'reward' waiters for doing 'a good job'? Why do restaurants not just drop a flat 10% service/cover charge (it's 10% where I…

> I don't understand this. Why do you Americans tip for this? Isn't being seated, handed a menu, food brought to the table, and plates being cleared part of a waiter's job?

1. Because nobody you'd want waiting a table wants to be a waiter for minimum wage.

2. And because restaurants don't want to pay waiters more than minimum wage on slow nights.

Your options if you don't like this situation are:

1. A ~20% price hike in the cost of your food.

2. Significantly worse service.

3. Significantly limited hours.

Pick two.

Re: Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes

#667

Post by adenozine »

lynx23 wrote: post #655
jacktribe wrote: post #99

I've just opened a coffee shop in Los Angeles last month, and we don't take tips. We only use self-ordering iPads (I've custom coded an iOS app w/ Stripe Terminal for it), and we don't accept cash either. We've had a few customers baffled by the no-tipping policy, and still insisting that they leave a tip. Some even left cash on the counter or on the table. We had to chase a few of them down to return their money. Al…

I am blind. Would I be able to use your iPad setup to order something in your shop, or is the "lets make everything fancy" setup maybe exclusionary?

[flagged]

Re: Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes

#669

Post by midasuni »

mikhael28 wrote: post #536
q845712 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think tipping at its very best is an opportunity to give a stranger a small gift. I recognize your points -- sometimes it feels like an obligated payment and probably in nearly all cases the capital owning class could and/or should contribute more, but i think you're excluding some optional perspectives. Sometimes I just want to help someone have a nice day by giving them something they didn't expect, like a genero…

Cash is a terrible gift. It shows you don't care. The best Christmas gifts were actual things - not an envelope with $60 in it.

I give my wife €1 million every Christmas.

She gives me the exact same gift.

We’re thinking we need to increase it because of inflation.

Re: Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes

#670

Post by ssss11 »

hedora wrote: post #267
ntr-- wrote: post #83

> Tipping is about making sure the people who are performing that service for you are getting paid what they’re owed Here in AU we call that "wages". Having to do quick maths while under social pressure and the threat of having your service quality degraded to make up for an employer or state being unwilling to pay workers enough to live might be called "coercion", but certainly it is externalising costs onto the cus…

The US faced a dilemma: Post civil war, many people didn't want to pay freed slaves for their labor. A combination of tipping and converting jobs that were typically held by blacks to unpaid positions provided a solution. It became popular despite attempts to ban the practice. Today, tipped workers in the US are paid, but have a lower minimum wage than normal workers. Source: https://time.com/5404475/history-tipping-…

Thanks for the explanation! I didn’t know the history
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