Another Tipping Thread

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Some_Schmo

I consider the tip part of the expense of going out to eat - if you can’t afford to tip, you can’t afford to eat out. If you think of it as a kind of charity, you’ve missed the point. You’re paying for a service… it only seems voluntary.

I agree, tipping is not actually voluntary. People rely on your tips to pay their rent.

But I agree that it’s a cultural scam where restaurant owners rely on shaming non-tippers into paying their staff. Paying people $2.14 an hour just because you can get away with it? Fuck you. It’s part of why I rarely eat out (the biggest reason is that I trust very few people to handle my food). I have serious antipathy toward the restaurant business.

I order out a ton. I pick up sometimes and I get delivery sometimes. My local Chinese restaurant of choice does not charge for delivery and i tip the delivery guy. The pizza place charges $3 for delivery and I am STILL expected to tip the delivery guy. how much of that delivery charge goes to the delivery guy? ZERO! It’s just another way for them to make money like airlines that charge for check in luggage.

I actually think the pandemic is bringing into line how much people should eat out. I know the service industry is a huge part of America’s economy, and that is frankly shameful.

One of the fortunate side effects of the coronavirus is that these service workers are getting enough market power to stand up for themselves:

Instacart adds new pay and safety incentives as shoppers gear up for...

[Crane]

One I do not understand is PANERA. Yeah, it’s a clean well lighted place, but you stand in line to order and stack your dishes before you leave. Still they solicit tipping with a sign and a screen on the credit card machine. They have products with posted prices. The cashier takes your order and someone eventually brings it to a table. What’s the tip for?

[OldGuy]

@Crane

One I do not understand is PANERA.

At the Panera I go to, they don’t even bring your sandwiches to the table. They give you a little buzzer which tells you to come to the counter to pick them up.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Saint_Cad

*I know the IRS disagrees. I’m using “wages” as money paid by an employer. And if a server is good then what’s the problem with them earning more than minimum wage because of tips?

If tipping were really as voluntary as it is in other countries it may not be considered compensation. But we cannot ignore the fact that the customer is subsidizing the employers obligation to pay a wage.

Ironically the IRS does NOT consider the hedge fund manager’s carried interest income (hedge fund managers frequently get 20% of all gains in the hedge fund) as wages. it’s still income but he does not pay payroll taxes (mostly medicare tax) on it and it is frequently taxed at capital gains rates.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Crane

One I do not understand is PANERA. Yeah, it’s a clean well lighted place, but you stand in line to order and stack your dishes before you leave. Still they solicit tipping with a sign and a screen on the credit card machine. They have products with posted prices. The cashier takes your order and someone eventually brings it to a table. What’s the tip for?

Because why the fuck not? People can be socially pressured into paying it.

There is nothing we can do to fix it.

Now just for the record, I have been tipping delivery very well these days but under normal circumstances i think it’s bullshit to charge me $3 for delivery, add $1-$2 to every menu item and then expect a 20% tip.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Larry_Borgia

You apparently expect people to give you good service for free, since, like it or not, tips are how waitstaff make their living.

Also, “extortion?” seriously? Despite legends food tampering is something that almost never happens. And how would they know in advance that you aren’t going to tip?

The only thing that will happen if you don’t tip is that some waitstaff will think of you as “that non-tipping asshole.” That’s it.

@Kovitlac

In China, they generally see tipping as insulting, although there are a couple of exceptions - namely ones that deal more with Americans (greeeaaaat…). My family had a private tour guide in Beijing for the days we were there, and we were able to ask him if/when tipping might be expected. The only real instance was our rickshaw rides - our guide did ask us to tip the cyclists at the end, and honestly, after hauling our big American asses all over Beijing, we were more than happy to do it. My folks also tipped our guide himself.

There was one instance where we would have wanted to tip, but couldn’t (this was when we didn’t have a guide with us). We ordered almost everything family-style, pointing out things on the menu that looked good and sharing everything. One item we got were green beans that were a little spicy. They weren’t super spicy - we all agreed we liked them. But out of everything we got, we were too full to finish the beans, and couldn’t eat many of them without something else to help with the heat.

Now, try explaining all that to a man when we don’t speak any Chinese.

He tried asking us questions about it, but at the end brought out a receipt and showed us he took the beans off. We tried so hard to tell him, no, everything was delicious and we were happy to pay for them, but he didn’t understand. If that happened here, we would have tipped generously, but the last thing we wanted was to risk insulting the poor guy. We were determined to be a shining example of American tourists, lol.

Tipping by Americans is acceptable pretty much everywhere in the world, except maybe France.

In some parts of the world it’s considered a form of Hazard-Pay for dealing with condescending Americans. in other’s it’s because Americans are so marvelously generous.