There’s been some discussion here about tipping, so I immediately thought of SD when I saw this: why-dont-we-tip-flight-attendants/
1902 and 1930 are both before my time; the article asserts that:
Ever try to tip in a non-tipping culture? Responses go from insisting you take the money back to acting really offended.
Some cultures eat dogs. Some cultures won’t let women show their faces or leave the house without an escort.
Some cultures are messed up.
“Because … cultures” is never a good argument for why America sucks. Sometimes it sucks, but tipping isn’t one of those times.
Tipping, and especially the fact that waitstaff have to rely on tips in order to make enough money to live on, most certainly is one of the ways, one of the most unequivocal ways, in which America sucks. American tipping customs impose all sorts of needless guilt and anxiety on customers (or, if they are assholes, it provides extensive opportunities to act on their assholery), and servility, hypocrisy, financial uncertainty, and outright poverty on service staff.
You don’t tip flight attendants because they get paid fairly decently for the work they do, probably because they have a fairly decent union. Much of what is wrong with American society today, including its crappy economy, can be traced to the weakness (or non-existence) of its unions in so many sectors.
Having worked alongside tip earners all my life and knowing that most of them over the age of 18 would never prefer a higher wage to the good tips they make by being competent wait staff, bartenders and dealers, you’d have to show me some studies that prove that the majority of tip earners would rather make an arbitrary wage than be rewarded directly by the customer for a job well done, as is customary here in this country.
Two reforms tip earners would probably like to see, though, is non-pooling of tips, and the reversal of the idiotic practice of taxing tips, which are gifts, not salary.
“Tipping … most certainly is one of the ways, one of the most unequivocal ways, in which America sucks,” isn’t convincing me.
Since I’m not a tip earner, my only interest is on the sidelines routing for the workers. Hopefully this country will come to it’s senses and institute Universal Health Care. That’s actually a real subject that describes suckage in our nation, rather than the whining of cheap misanthropes who are too tight to show gratitude for excellent service.
If they’re gifts, then we’d definitely need to get rid of the tip credit. Right now, in most of the US, up to 100% of a tip you give can be effectively seized by the employer as being a wage. The tip credit steals from the people who give tips IMO
Huh, I thought that one of the common reasons given in your country for not stiffing people on tips was that they relied on it as their income. Now I learn that tips are just gifts.
So is it that if one earns one’s income through being paid a fixed amount one should pay tax but if one earns one’s income through tips one shouldn’t? Why is that?
Or are tips just some kind of add on “gift” additional to the way one earns one’s income, which (you say) therefore shouldn’t be taxable? If that’s the case, presumably you accept there is no real reason to feel guilty about not tipping, since tips are just gifts on top of income?
Or is it something else?
I thought the reason to not stiff tip earners is because it’s crass and cheap. Also, boorish.
Well if you say so. It’s a strange tradition though to have people who are paid by their employer to serve you but then also you are expected to give them a gift as well. Huh.
Your tipping culture is one of them. Tips should always be optional and freely given: prices given to customers should be accurate and with a minimum of hidden fees, and wages offered to employees should be enough to make it worth their while without being supplemented by charity from customers. This goes double if you’re going to claim with a straight face that tips are a gift and not payment for services rendered.
It is not a matter of being too tight, it is a matter of putting it on my bill so I don’t have to fret and worry about how much is appropriate every time, and servers don’t have to be worry all the time about whether they will get tipped what they consider fair or not. Even if i just stick rigidly to the rule of 15% or 20% (or whatever the latest custom decrees - it changes every so often just to keep the anxiety levels high) I do not see why I should have to do mental arithmetic every time I eat. Everyone will be happier if proprietors just include the cost of service in the price, and pay their staff fairly. American tipping customs are an unnecessary source of stress for those of us who want to do the right thing,and a provide a major opportunity for those who want to be assholes.
It may not be as important an issue as universal healthcare, but it is absolutely a symptom of the same complex of cultural attitudes that underlie opposition to health care reform.
Most employers in the US cannot seize a tip as a wage, because they don’t pay their employees minimum wage. It is only when you add in the tips that the wage crosses that legal threshold.
And, honestly, I’ve never heard of ANY employer seizing tips, even ones who pay minimum wage (e.g. pizza delivery drivers).
I can help you with that. To figure 20% easily, and without undue anxiety, determine 10%, which is easy. For example, the bill is $56.49 … so 10% is $5.65. Just move the decimal over one space to the left.
Now, double it! $5.65 + $5.65 = $11.30
Your tip for $56.49 is $11.30.
If that gives you anxiety issues, tipping may not be your biggest problem, seriously.
If you’re rich and you want to spread the joy, tip more. If the waitress insulted you in front of your date or forgot your food entirely, reduce the tip … but tell the manager what happened. Grow a backbone, get a calculator, tip the waitstaff, quit whining. I mean that in a nice way!
Effectively seized as a wage, meaning that the tip counts toward the minimum wage that the employer would have to pay in the absence of tips bringing the hourly wage to minimum. It doesn’t make sense to consider the tips non-taxable gifts and at the same time allow the employer to pay less than minimum wage by taking credit for the tips.
Does that include people who would like to be in a service industry, but don’t like the arbitrary tipping structure? (Maybe they are hard workers but aren’t attractive or bubbly enough to get good tips.) Of course people who already get tips would tend to like them more than those that don’t: if they didn’t, they’d be more likely to just get another job.
You seem to just assert stuff rather than supply facts or reason. It isn’t very convincing.
If not for tips, food servers would make minimum wage and no more.
It’s not that much of a skilled position, you write down what people say, then bring them whatever you wrote.
So only the youngest and most inexperienced workers would take the job, and going out to eat would be an ordeal.
Tipping allows servers to get paid a little more. Sometimes a lot more.
Look, I’m happy to tip people earning low wages, and I make a special point of tipping people who cut my hair (in memory of a relative who was a hairdresser who died young). But this part struck me:
…I have to say that I, too, would prefer to get most of my salary tax-free. I mean, I’m not advocating taxing the poor, but when you combine “they make too much money to want to go to a salary system” and “it should be tax free,” that raises my eyebrows.
In California, its illegal for a restaurant to pay less than minimum wage. So the employees are paid fairly. The Cheesecake Factory, for example, pays their servers 10 - 11 dollars an hour. For a student, working a busy saturday makes it a decent job.
Canada sucks too.