It’s not really Americans who are the odd man out tip-wise. It’s the Aussies. From todays San Francisco Chronicle:
Canada & Mexico= same as US.
Europe- most restaurants include a 15% service charge(+ a little extra if the service was exceptional), some don’t *and thus the usual tipping is expected. *Which is about like the USA except that here some restaurants add the service charge (in fact I ate at one in SF last week that did) but most don’t. I expect to see the USA having more & more restaurants with a 15% service charge added in on top, BTW.
South America- usually an added 10% surcharge + a small cash tip on top of that.
Africa- In Kenya & South Africa, expect a 10% service surcharge. In Egypt, tipping is customary and very expected. The rest of the continent varies widely.
Asia- normal tipping (but just 10%) in Thailand, India, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia & the big Tourist Cities of China- the rest (Korea, Singapore, Yaiwan, Nepal, etc) are mostly non-tipping.
Finally- Australia "tipping is not as common as in the States, but the practice is growing in… the larger cities. So it seems that “In this part of the world, you don’t tip” is not longer all that correct.
You may be right about the social contract stuff but your example sucks. Restaurants don’t offer free refills of coffee out of the goodness of their hearts, they do it because it will bring in more business that what it would cost to provide the coffee, which is essentially nothing, since a)Coffee costs very little and b) Who the hell is going to sit in a restaurant all night and drink coffee? What possible benefit could there be to doing that? That’s why there are free refills on coffee and not on steak, although if there were, I suppose by your standard it would be asshol-ish to then eat a dozen steaks and only pay for one.
I don’t know what the attraction is, but on any given weekend, you can walk into just about any Denny’s in the country and see 10-15 teenagers doing just that.
Let’s just say your tipping habits are way out of line with the expected norm, and if you get a rash of bad customer service that might be a place to look.
As for dignity and respect, the idea is to show that them you respect them and that their labor is dignified, important, and that you appreciate them cleaning your toilets and vacuuming up the popcorn mashed in to your car’s carpet. To show that their work allows you to get your, presumably more skilled and impactful, done. Something tells me this idea is lost on you, as you seem to view being a service worker as some kind of character flaw and take great delight in comparing them to strippers (who also deserve dignity and respect FWIW). That is all I have to say to you on this subject.
They do it because offering free refills to most people means you order a coffee with your meal, and if you run out you can have some more. That gives them a competitive advantage over restaraunts that don’t do this. It’s a perk they offer because, as you say, coffee is actually pretty cheap, and if they tried to charge for a second cup most people wouldn’t buy it anyway.
If you go into a restaraunt, order nothing but a cup of coffee, then sit there for hours demanding free refills, you’re tying up table space and making the serving staff work harder for nothing. You’re abusing the privilege. And though you seem to think it’s rare, I’ve seen places that have had to modify their ‘free refill’ policy repeatedly because of abuse by deadbeats. First it’s ‘bottomless coffee’. So people order a coffee and drink all night. So they change it to, “Free coffee with a meal”. So the deadbeats come in and order a plate of fries and coffee, and drink all night. So then it becomes, “Free refills with any entree”. Etc. Then finally “one free refill”. There’s always someone looking for a loophole.
There was a coffee shop by my place that used to advertise that they would fill your travel mug instead of their own cup, as a convenience. So then some yahoos started bringing in 1 liter monstrosities and expecting them to be filled for the same price everyone else pays for half that much. So then the policy has to go away.
But hey, it wasn’t illegal, so no one should complain about the abusers, right? Hey, they were following the rules, and the policy was stated on the wall, right?
They’re the people who make the world a little less of a nice place to live for everyone else.
Translation for Americans: “The locals don’t have to tip- and aren’t expected to- but we’re not going to say no if American Tourists want to give us free money”.
You don’t tip in Brisbane, you don’t tip on the Gold Coast, nobody expected or even hinted at tips when my fiancee and I were in Melbourne two months ago (dining at cafes etc), and although I haven’t been to Sydney on 2 years, no one there expected tips either. But, as always, if foreign tourists want to tip, we’re not going to say no to them…
No, the point stands regardless. I am telling you how, if you are against tipping, you may end the practice personally.
If you are against tipping but you do not care about ways to end the practice personally, could you explain what relationship there is between your views and the world? Do you envision a United States without tipping? If so, how would we get there?
Oh, the way I read it, I thought you were, not describing a strategy to abolish tipping, but just offering a way to ethically not tip. Probably because that’s exactly what you said.
Good lord. Did I use big words? Let’s try this again.
I was telling you how you could end the practice personally. “Personally” means for yourself. If you end the practice personally, that would mean that you do not tip. That IS exactly what I said.
Good luck with that. I can see it now:
Write a cranky letter to my Congressman suggesting a federal law against tipping.
???
Profit!
I was actually asking you what step 2 might look like. You’re not the supreme high autocrat of the United States: how do you see getting such an unpopular law passed?
Well, we just disagree on how unpopular this would be. AFAICT, the only proponents of tipping are comprised mostly of restaurant managers. I realize a couple of laymen support the practice in this thread, but I doubt that’s a majority consensus.
Again, that solution only makes sense if you assume you’re talking to a cheapskate. I’m not against paying for the food and the service. Your method of ending tipping for myself would be unfair to the server. The expectation and necessity of my tip is still there, I’m just not following through with it.
Honestly, I don’t think it would be unfair to the server. I think the server would be able to choose to prioritize you appropriately. Your dining experience would suffer, but that’d be a choice freely made by you and the server.
As long as she can’t de-prioritize me to the point of absolute neglect, which she can’t, according to the manager, it would be unfair, as she’d be serving me for free. I’d be even costing her money, since servers don’t have the option of neglecting to tip out to other members of the service staff, like the busboys and bartender (and cooks, sometimes).
Of course, that’s a relatively extrordinary amount of knowledge I have about tipping - one that I don’t think the average customer should be expected to have. But IMHO, the average person would have to know that in order to be convinced to fork over an extra 20% of their bill that no one working in the restaurant has asked them for. And like most adequate to good tippers, I didn’t start consistently tipping until I had the rationale explained to me by an ex-server.
Australia and New Zealand: Tipping is not as common as in the States, but the practice is growing in restaurants and bars in larger cities
http://www.monash.edu.au/international/australia/lpmoney/ Tipping: In Australia tipping is fairly entrenched, although the practice is not as essential as it is in the USA, perhaps because Australian workers are protected by a more generous minimum wage. As in the UK and most of continental Europe it’s customary but not compulsory to tip in restaurants and cafes: tip if you think the service warranted it, and 10% of the bill is usually enough
http://www.newsouthwales.worldweb.com/TravelEssentials/Tipping/8-618.html
*Tipping is just starting to gain popularity in Australia, and at this point tourists are not frowned upon should they choose not to tip. The trend is catching on more in the larger cities than in smaller towns. Generally, it is left to the one’s own discretion, but in cafes and restaurants between 5 and 15% would be considered average. *
http://www.smallguide.com.au/info.html
*No service charge applies in Australia. Tipping is not mandatory but a 10% tip in restaurants and hotel bars is normal for good service. Waiters and waitresses do not rely on tips for their income, but tips are an incentive to performance as bad service usually results in no tip. *
Throughout Australia, tipping used not to be customary but is becoming more widespread. In a restaurant a tip of 10% is now normal although some restaurants have started adding a service charge to the bill*
http://www.iexplore.com/dmap/Australia/Do’s+and+Don’ts Tipping
Not as common as it is in Europe and America nor is a service charge added to the bill in restaurants. 10 per cent for food and drink waiters is usual in top-quality restaurants
It seems that way, but it’s not- at least not for the locals, anyway.
Call it double standards if you will, but the locals aren’t generally expected to tip, but like I said, no-one is likely to say no to free money from foreign visitors…
I think you are overestimating. People’s appetite for change is very small. Tipping is harmless, and I believe that the small number of reactionaries willing to push something like this would find a big “meh”. Forcing change for safety or for human rights is difficult enough. Forcing change so that restaurants readjust pricing and pay scales…pretty unlikely.
Don’t forget the waitstaff, and, most, if not all, busboys. These people would rather work for tips than a 15% increase of their measly base rate of $2.xx/hr. See my example upthread. While that was for a steak house, the example can be extrapolated all the way down to your local greasy spoon.
To be fair, the proposal wouldn’t have a 15% increase of their base pay; rather, the increase would be 15% of the total cost of the food they serve all night long.
