What about if they made a coffee drink (not just black)? Just curious. I'm on the fence about tipping at coffee shops already tbh

don't work that job

Unionizing across the industry and striking would go a longer way towards that goal.

And it shouldn't result in workers being paid an unlivable wage but here we are...

So don’t work that job. Shit pay should result in nobody working there.

Oh yeah everyone can just go to the job store and get a new job at-will and there are absolutely no external factors that could impact that. Clearly they work for minimum wage + tips at a thankless job serving people like you out of their passion for the work.

It shouldn't, no. But there's a $2.13 an hour minimum wage for tipped employees. Employers have to fill the gap to $7.25 if tips don't cover it, but the simple matter is the law facilitates the expectation customers pay tips.

The burden I meant wasn't the money spent itself but the responsibility to cover it directly.

In the context of wages not rising with the costs of living, employers increasingly are passing the responsibility to pay their tipped employees onto consumers, intentionally or not.

If the employer pays their employees a living wage and increases their costs, then they are taking direct responsibility. In that environment you don't even need to eliminate tipping. Tips would be the bonuses they're (culturally) intended to be.

The employer is the problem here, not the customer.

That's the first place I would apply the blame to, but, also a little bit on the employee, for either not being able to negotiate their salary better, or for not being part of a union that can do the negotiation for them.

The employer should share the wealth better though, that's for sure.

Mandatory tipping isn't a thing anywhere at all.

Not true, I've been to several restaurants that have small print on their menu along the lines of "a gratuity of X% will be automatically added to your bill", sometimes for parties over Y, sometimes after Z o'clock, sometimes just in general

I agree, both of them should be directing their frustration on the corporations that have forced them to subsidize wages.

So the solution is for you to stop tipping people yet still continue giving your money to the business that expects tipping?

Call it whatever you want, it's what corporations have done in the U.S.

I'm just saying, have a little compassion for people who are very likely in the same boat you find yourself in.

You should learn how to read a room.

You'd probably make more in big cities and less in smaller suburban/rural areas. Tipping is a way of perpetuating the urban/rural wealth gap.

My hourly pay as a waiter was nearly doubled that of my first corporate job in the same city. Granted, it was fine dining.

Still worth the switch. The job was soul crushing and the 2nd shift, underachiever drug culture wears thin. Everyone should wait tables for a year. Nobody should wait tables for 10 years.

Sounds like you were a bad waiter or at the very least worked at a slow restaurant. I worked evenings and bar tended once a week at a national chain that rhymes with Boutack working in the evenings in a college town about 25 hours a week. I said nothing else about minimum wage, etc. so I won't respond to the rest of your comment but I'll tell you that no one wants to keep tipping culture more than servers

Yep. California pays their servers the state minimum wage of $15 an hour. They still get tips, and basically no restaurants went out of business when they "suddenly had to pay minimum wage."

Downvoted for being correct I see.

For the downvoters: Any argument against this? He's clearly right, if you patronize the restaraunt they still get paid and they still don't have to pay the server shit. "Not tipping" that person didn't change the culture, it didn't even hurt the business, the business responsible for this shit to begin with, who got their money. Our only recourse is then to A) Stop eating out all together until the industry collapses and rebuilds tipless, or B) Only go to "no tip" restaraunts if there are any in your area. Any of this half-assed "well the industry needs to just change but I'm not going to do my part to help, I'm just gonna piss off servers and do nothing" bullshit won't accomplish anything.

It is meaningful, I agree, but the objections should be on that basis, not that tipping represents some kind of gross economic injustice. I think, fundamentally, being asked for money feels bad, and people are trying to re-interpret that as some kind of injustice imposed on them, rather than acknowledging that it's just a slightly different and mildly annoying way to distribute essentially the same cost. When you actually poll tipped workers, they tend to be against removing tips because it allows them to make substantially more than a fixed rate would.

I don't want to blame the individual too much, but it's really not that hard to factor in a potential tip into your decision making process, or to simply hit $0 on the iPad if you don't think the interaction merited a tip (no, I'm not going to tip you for ringing up a bag of coffee that I picked up off a shelf at a cafe, for instance). My loose understanding is that customers have started to reduce or decline tips for a lot of these more trivial interactions, so I'd expect some kind of market equilibrium to emerge at some point. It does somewhat represent those more easily guilted or manipulated effectively subsidzing those who aren't, which is perhaps a little iffy, but I'm not really gonna shed any tears over it.

An incredibly common complaint when people discuss tips is the perceived injustice of having to pay employees' wages when the onus of that should be on the employer. It's literally been brought up in this thread multiple times, including the comment I replied to.

So no, I'm not actually that convinced that people really understand it. While there is a social and psychological difference in tips vs raised prices that is meaningful, the economics are essentially the same, so appealing to some sense of economic justice really doesn't make sense. People continuously talk about how employers simply need to abolish tipping and pay their workers more, seemingly unaware that that would be directly financed by higher prices roughly equal to the tips they're already paying.

I would definitely support unionization too. But unions fundamentally depend on the threat of people striking/quitting.

The only way to get employers to change what they do is to get the employees and/or customers to make them change.

You just stiffing a random employee is not going to change anything. I know you don't believe it will. That's preposterous.

Grow some balls and start a union,

Who's shifting the burden on who now? Are you doing anything to help end tipping culture? And what's with the needless emasculation?

And you'll continue to get shitty service. You'll be the last one served a beer/drink even if you were there before someone else, that side of ranch you wanted will come out when you have only one or two bites left (or better yet if you waited for the ranch to eat, when it's cold), and my employer won't fire me because I always show up on time and people who tip even halfway decently rant and rave about me. So you'll stop coming in and then I don't have to deal with your tip-less ass. If you like shitty service, keep doing you (or frequent places that don't ask for tips).

It’s actually pretty funny the mental gymnastics in play here.

Agreed except it’s not funny, you’re just a bad person.

The business owner didn't even play a direct part in any of this. They just put up a job posting for a server for $x/hour and the server accepted the position knowing that was the wage.

The business owner took advantage of social expectations, sure...and yeah it isn't ethical at all... but they have the least involvement in this whole thing compared to the server and customer.

And the business owner should ensure secure employment for their staff and provide annual and sick leave, and super.

Exactly. That should always be up to the business if I remember correctly back in the day they used to give less wages to waiters because the owners knew they would get tips

Yup. Your math is exactly how I determine my tip.

I'm baffled that this isn't already a common thing in that industry. I mean that. I really do.

Everyone who has a job like that is screwing themselves over if they don't have a union, imo. Unions help you get the good shit, like proper wages, paid sick days, paid vacation days, medical coverage, and more.

You're only really hurting yourself if you forego unions for the sake of convenience. Maybe it's a small fee per month, and maaaybe you might have to spend a couple hours over a few weekends to vote/negotiate/ratify, but it will be worth it if you find a good union.

They fight in your corner, and will usually even help you with lawyers, if they don't already fully provide them for you. This can be very valuable if you don't earn a ton of money and your employer happens to be an unreasonable arse.

I don't get it, I really don't.

I'm actually working on pushing my coworker out lol I keep asking if he has put applications out elsewhere and I frequently tell him not to stay.

He's one of my best coworkers and I rely on him for a lot so it's infuriating to see how little value the management has for him...

Demanding a tip and call me an asshole for not doing it is entitled as fuck

Lol and what would be wrong with food costing the same it would with a tip. That's exactly what the person you disagree with wants. Why wouldn't you want that?

that's not really how it works either, depending on what state you're in people can be paid different wages for different types of work if tips are included or not included it's a bit more complex

Cooks don’t care if FOH gets tipped. They typically get paid decently, and I’ve never worked a place that included BOH on tip pools or even tip outs, with the exception of bussers and runners at a couple places.

They aren’t risking their jobs and possible legal problems for something that doesn’t matter to them.

This actually seems a more appropriate time to tip? I'm a guy, I have a simple haircut. There are probably a dozen people on my block that that could do a suitable job giving me a haircut and for an actual barber I'm usually not more than 10-15 minutes in the chair. I go in, I say the same thing just about every time like you're ordering a cheeseburger at McDonald's, and my cut is about that level of difficulty.

My wife getting a $200-$300 cut and color is a half day long activity, at the least. She goes to someone who actually went to school for this shit, and then serves as a de facto entertainer for hours. Unlike my barber, who can turn over his chair every 10-15 minutes, the stylist doing my wife's hair is spending 3-5 hours with her, and they approach the thing almost more like a collaborative project.

Rounding out your cost to the nearest $5-10 can make sense. Especially when it's an exact amount like $23 I'll give them $25 because it's just easier, but when you say tip the common amount of a tip is 15-25% would have you tip $3.50-5.75 on that $23 haircut. That's more than I've ever tipped them because I'm already paying over $20 for something they completed in ~20 minutes without using anything that would cost them money (other than time).

Paying for the experience is not what I'm paying for, I'm paying for the service. Going to the movies I don't tip the concession stand for providing me with the "movie experience" when they give me popcorn. And anytime they do extra stuff like shaving my face it costs extra. The haircut costs X amount and anything extra adds Y amount, it's a service the same as all other services.

You are correct in that typically hair salons and barber shops will rent out the chairs to barbers, but this is done in 1 of 2 ways typically, the barber pays per month and they keep all of the money they make, or they pay a portion of every customer. Why does this matter to you as the consumer? If the barber isn't making enough, the prices can increase. My local barbershop increased prices 2 times in the last 4 years. If they're supposed to make their money on tips why is this? Their costs to run the business haven't gone up because they don't use anything to perform the service, so it must be to pay the barbers a better amount. Something that wouldn't happen if it's "meant to be a tipped position".

Yes, and my question is why is it standard, why should it be done? Just because something is standard doesn't mean it makes sense, could you explain why it should be done?

I tip barbers, but I often wonder why tipping is a thing for barbers? Are they paid less than minimum wage? Since they have to have a license, I'm assuming they are not paid beneath minimum wage.

LMAO

From the way they vehemently oppose any attempt at changing the tipping culture, I'd say they collectively are partly responsible for not being paid a minimum wage.

The vast majority of jobs are not tipped positions, including food service jobs.

So of you aren't gonna do your job well enough that people tip decently, maybe look elsewhere. Given performance is not a one to one, some people are shitty tippers no matter the service, but if you half ass a tip based job your gonna have a bad time, and yes blame falls on the worker too at that point.

You can "adjust" your tip after your order arrives. With doordash anyway, the tip is charged separately from your order. It sends you a few notifications after your food arrives asking you to rate and tip.

I doordash a LOT and I've only ever lowered the tip once for bad service. The directions I have on the app say "Please do not ring door bell or knock, sleeping children." So this guy rings the doorbell, I'm like, dang it now the kids awake and will know I have secret food.. I won't be able to go bring it until he goes back to sleep. Oh well. Then he starts knocking and ringing repeatedly and pounding and shouting to come outside because my order is here. I went to the door and scolded him and then he told me that his dad works for the CIA and I'm going to be sorry. That guy did not get his tip.

In the above instances I did in fact tip in advance. I have since stopped doing that because it makes no difference

Given that many actual 3rd world countries have health crises that are far more severe than anything in the United States, I really don't find the comparison very tasteful. The financial element is absurd and no one will argue that the American healthcare system is optimal by any means, but you really need to travel more if you think that it's categorically the worst in the world.

I agree that privilege plays a big role in shaping one's perspective on this, and to that end, again, you should travel more if you can.

What world is Russia in? We're in that one. We just have a higher GDP and level of tech. Russia speed-ran kleptocracy better and beat us to the end game.

To my knowledge there are only a couple of states left that allow that law. Everywhere I've lived they get at least minimum wage plus tips. Many of the fancier restaurants get above minimum wage plus tips. Waiters make pretty good money for the short hours they work, or at least the good ones do.

It depends on the state. I looked it up just now and there are some pretty shitty states. In the states I've lived in servers get at least minimum wage plus tips. So it's not a national issue, it's a state issue.

(again anecdotally) nearly every restaurant in New York that's tried it reverts after a few months. High-end dining servers can clear 6 figures easily after tips, and they're loath to give that up.

You agreed to a wage when you took the position and make the choice to maintain that with your employer, but its everyone else's responsibility to fix it?

Yes, I do think so 100% to both questions.

No, tipping encourages a system where servers don't have consistent/reliable pay. They have no way of knowing what their income will be at the end of the month. And that makes things like paying rent tricky.

The barista is earning about 10x per hour as the factory worker before tips. Answer the question instead of avoiding it.

You aren't separated from the employees at a McDonalds. They make the same or less than Starbucks baristas. They even make cappuccinos and lattes. Do you tip them? Why not?

What about when you go to a restaurant and order a cappuccino after dinner? Do you tip the barista at the restaurant or just the server who brought it to you?

Ok stop working at any establishment that encourages tipping. You're supporting abusive practices.

No u

"no,I don't think I will"

What are you gonna do?

Yes. The owner of the business is responsible on giving their employees a livable wage, if they exploit the worker and the customer for their own benefit then the fault lies on them. What tipping does is to continue this tradition of employees giving their worker the bare minimum of unlivable wage, and you guys is feeding this tradition for your own ego.

The only reason why employers can hire waiters at that wage is because clients pay tip. No tip + no increase in wage = no waiters because they moved to another sector entirely.

Just like any other jobs, the responsibility of unionization is on the employees and they would gain from doing it may they work for tip or not, so that argument is moot.

I worked a tipped job for 12 years, you won't give me lessons about it. It's a shit system to move the responsibility of providing employees with an appropriate wage to the clients and it opens the door to punishing employees by moving them to shifts that pay less for the same amount of time worked thus putting them in a precarious situation.

I tip more than most because I know what it's like because I've lived it. It's still a shit system that needs to disappear.