Well, I guess social norms limit the “as possible” part. I could afford to tip the subway guy $100 for my $6 meal, but I’m not doing that.
Not at all. The person gives you what you have requested and charges the price they have set. Whatever amount of work is required to get that to you is for them to worry about.
The person getting you a book may have had to traipse down the warehouse, climb a ladder. Open boxes, search through shelves. There could be much more individual effort required to deliver that book to your hands and yet no tip expected.
Then you’re just stating that you don’t believe in tipping under any circumstances. Why jump through so many hoops just to offer that simple opinion.
I think that attitude sums up what I find objectionable about tipping. Having money and sharing it around to those that have less can be done in a far more equitable and less patronising manner. Just buy the products and pay a decent wage. Problem solved.
I knew I’d get called on the “as possible” part but I wasn’t sure how else to phrase it.
Not really my point. Someone who goes out of their way to do something exceptional that they didn’t have to, I have no problem showing my appreciation.
Fast food places? You literally have one job to do and it is no different from any other retailer of goods that don’t get tipped.
It doesn’t bother me that some people don’t tip. It does bother me that some people object to others tipping just to make themselves feel better about their own decision not to tip.
The OP’s definition of “fast food” is fairly expansive, and it kind of muddies the discussion. That was the reason I provided the breakdown in my first response to this thread.
Not all counter service is “fast food”. Logical or not.
For that matter, someone made my Big Mac or Gordita or Spicy Chicken Sandwich as well but I don’t feel compelled to tip them for it. But I don’t eat at Subway anyway so issue avoided.
I object to others tipping and expanding the scope of tipping because I think it is a damaging practice for society. It has nothing to do with justifying my own position. I’m perfectly comfortable with that.
The donut shop is a good example.
At our local place near the house, if you go at the right time in the morning, the counterperson will ask you specifically if you want “hot donuts”. Then they’ll walk to the back of the store, wait a short bit until the next batch comes out of the fryer and get glazed, and then bring back a dozen piping-hot donuts.
For this, I’m happy to tip a buck-something on top of the cost of the dozen (something like $10.25, and I’ll leave $12).
At other times, they won’t offer the hot donuts. They’ll just turn around and grab room-temperature donuts out of the case. If I’m paying by card – because of the tip line – I might still leave a buck-or-so tip for this, but when paying by cash, I commonly don’t.
A buck at Subway. They’re almost always there alone in the later evening which seems miserable. Usually a few dollars at a taqueria.
I don’t disagree with this, but I’m not sure what to do about it. I’m not going to stiff the guy at subway to try to hasten the day they get paid a decent wage. I suppose I would if I thought it would work
It is a tricky one. I’m sure the vast majority of people tip with the best of intentions but it may be a short-term solution that just prolongs a longer term problem.
I have a question about this - in pretty much every place in the US fast-food workers must be paid the same minimum wage as any other worker ( since most fast food workers will not regularly receive enough in tips to qualify as a “tipped worker” ) but I never hear people talk about tipping the cashier at 7/11 or Target who earns the same amount as the person at the fast-food restaurant - or even tipping the people in the kitchen of the fast food restaurant who are generally paid as much as the cashiers. I’m not sure what the difference is - I mean I don’t care who other people tip, but I just don’t understand.
Yeah, in theory we should be tipping all minimum wage workers. But, again, social norms. There is no tip bucket at the Target checkout line and I’m not advocating for one. If you’re looking for consistency in tipping protocol, you’re not going to fine it. It’s an irrational system. Some people make a lot more in tips than others. But, I suppose people who have to choose between a job at Subway and a job at Target factor this in.
I generally tip if I’m given the opportunity to tip. There’s no such option at McDonald’s or Wendy’s or the like, by company policy I’m sure, but if there happens to be a tip jar or the EFT machine presents the option, I’ll throw a couple of bucks in.
In many parts of the US, employers are entitled to pay their servers a small fraction of minimum wage (when it was $7.25 an hour, base tipped-wage was $2.33). Any job that could be classified as commonly tipped allowed employers to use the lower pay rate, although they had to make up the difference if business was slow enough to put the employee below minimum wage (I suspect the employer would average this over a pay period).
Counter workers are generally not classified as tipped, so employers are required to pay them minimum wage. Table service can be a rough job, and some customers treat their servers like shit, so the rest of us should try to make up the difference.
I always put some effort into letting a server know I am aware that they are a human with feelings. But my experience with fast food has been that if you order anything slightly complicated, they will get it wrong most of the time, because the workers get paid scraps and get shit from both the boss and the customers – it is a fucked up situation that cannot be solved through market economics.
No. And it’s becoming a bit ridiculous with the percentage inflation as well.
At non-chain places I put $ into the tip jar. A buck, or the small change if significant.
I have been leaving the coins behind even at chain places, since there was a coin shortage.
Can we not turn this into yet another generalized thread about how necessary/wrong tipping is?