- cross-posted to:
- world@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- world@lemmy.world
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I’m glad to have moved from a country where taxes and (high) expected tips are on top of the price, to a country where tax is included in the price and tips are usually not expected. It makes a surprising difference in affordability when you can actually buy a €5 item with €5.
As soon as companies started asking for tips at self check-out, it became obvious that it’s just a way of trying to underpay their staff and shift that responsibility on the customer.
from the netherlands where this nonsense is starting to take root, i refuse to pay more than it said on the bill
i do not order or buy from places that dont include taxes in the price tag and report them whenever i come across them, i refuse to order from places that dont include the deposit on cans and bottles in the price tag, and i refuse to to tip people for just doing their job
ill tip if i messed something up, but i dont see any reason why i should pay someone extra for doing what their job requires them to do, especially since theyre at worst making the same minimum wage i am
Something I’ve noticed in the UK post Covid, is that take aways have a delivery charge and an option to tip the driver. Maybe I would have chucked him a few quid in cash when it was free delivery, but what’s the delivery cost for if not to pay their wages already?
Honestly I think the delivery cost is there because people are willing to pay it. Because they’d be “leaving money on the table” if they didn’t levy fees that people are willing to pay. I dont think the fee exists for any other reason.
Same in NZ. We have a high minimum wage and already pay pretty high prices for everything.
Some Eftpos/Credit card terminals will even ask if you want to tip when you make a payment. Such an awkward moment pressing “No” right in front of the person serving you.
Here is a crazy idea, Pay Workers A Livable Wage and price goods accordingly… that is the easiest step forward as I would be tempted to ask for more because profits are unpaid wages.
Went to a concert the other day and they were asking for tip on their $6 hot dogs. The options were 20% 25% and 30% and no option for custom lol.
I’m not tipping at a concert concession stand when stuff is already outrageously overpriced. GTFOH.
I am so tired of it. Pay your god damn employees.
A solicitation for tip BEFORE any service is rendered is essentially blackmail.
“Hey, not for nothing, but sometimes pancakes can fall on the floor before they get into your to-go bag… I’m just saying… Anyways, here’s this tip screen, no pressure [holds eye contact]”
Said absolutely no service worker ever
I was ordering a pizza online for pickup. When it prompted for a tip at checkout I canceled the order. This is the worst case scenario in my book.
I just hit 0.
When someone said something to me, I stopped picking up pizza from there….
I’ll tip and quite well (usually 25-30%) for full service stuff. But for buffet style/sandwich lines and takeout. No thanks
Same here… If I’m being served I will tip well. However if I call in my order, go pick up my order, and the “server” who took my order doesn’t even collect my money, then what my tips are really going towards is making up for the fact that the restaurant isn’t actually paying their staff a livable wage. During the COVID shutdowns, sure I was willing to help keep their doors open. Everyone is back to full business now, so what exactly are you asking me to pay for?
Yeah same mindset.
Also those other schemes like round up or add $2 to “donate to help first responders” or “save the puppies” I opt out of too. Because when I looked into it I found a company only needed to actually donate like 10% of that total donation to remain in the clear from a tax standpoint and the rest can be used to “administer the program”.
So no, never do those either.
Wow, a whole 10% you say? How can these companies afford to operate on only a 90% commission? /s
Yeah, I actually stop going out for any restaurant or outing ever since the tip inflation went out of control. I just rather spend the money on a cooking class and cook things myself. I really encourage everyone else to do the same, you save a lot of money, and you can add whatever creativity you want to the meal.
Same here. For me it was the realization that what I thought was appropriate tipping – 15% – was actually an insult to servers. Thanks to the internet, I saw how servers retaliate against what they think is a bad tipper. I realized that proper tipping is subjective, and there was no way to be sure I wouldn’t be punished for something I did wrong unknowingly. So rather than risk it, I just decided to learn how to live without eating out.
Yeah, 15% was considered good in the '90s, but it’s been upped to 20% for a couple decades now.
The alternative is 0%, because i just won’t eat out anymore
It’s bonkers how much money you can save making food yourself by just planning meals based on what’s on sale this week. People don’t believe me, but chicken thighs/legs go on sale here every 3/4 weeks for 99 cents a pound. Week’s worth of meat for the equivalent price of a McD’s meal.
I don’t really eat meat. The thing that gets me are the vegetables. If I want anything fresh, it costs so much more than canned or frozen. Frozen/canned veggies are fine for some meals, but for others they can really taste a bit off. We just moved and I’m hoping there are some good farmer’s markets around where I live now with decent prices (the place I moved from were worse than the grocery store).
Related, but has anyone else noticed the “default” tip amounts (on registers and such) are higher now, too? In the past I would see 15-18-20% as kind of the standard options, and now I don’t seem to see anything lower than 20% on those preset options. I saw one the other day that had 35% as a default option.
I forget if there’s a term for it but I think it’s intentional because it raises the expectations for what people think the minimum acceptable tip is.
Is it price anchoring maybe? Seems like I knew the term for it and can’t remember it now, ha ha!
You might be thinking of anchoring. Some restaurants have a couple of outrageously expensive wines on top of the menu for that reason - everything else looks cheaper in comparison, since the first thing you saw is “anchored” in your mind and used as a point of reference.
Yeah, it’s ridiculous, but that’s why other -> 0% is always a valid option. I’ll tip if I’m paying after eating a meal or if someone delivered some food to me, otherwise miss me with that shit.
Tipping is absolutely everywhere and it feels like a lot of these screens default to 20% or more. And the employees usually give you a look if you change it to below that or no tip at all.
A sit-down restaurant I understand for your server, but I still disagree with it and feel that they should just be paid a normal wage, not dependent on the tips. But I’m not going to tip for takeout 9/10 times.
Also how do we even know, as customers, if the tip is actually going to the employees?
I never tip with takeout. The only way to stop the cancer of tipping from spreading is to refuse to buy in to it. Pay your damn employees a living wage and then they don’t need tips!
No no, don’t feel bad about hitting that 0% button. I feel like this is a PSA but in the USA if you tip a minimum wage (untipped) employee, THEY WILL NOT GET YOUR TIP. Severs get paid on tips and a minimum wage (tipped) of about $2.50. Tipping a normal employee (on screens, not cash) will just mean that the employer has to pay them less wages. Seriously? Yes seriously. You can tip at subway, the only person getting that money is subway.
Strictly speaking, this isn’t true throughout the entire US. Wait staff in Washington, for example, get paid the full state minimum wage, and the minimum wage act explicitly requires that tips be paid to employees rather than retained by the restaurant. Of course, actual practice or compliance can differ, but there are a few states with better laws than the norm.
I appreciate the added details. As far as I’m aware, they aren’t keeping the tips. But it is legal to pay a tipped employee down to about $2/hr in every state. So most places like Sonic will reduce your pay when you get tips and you claim the tips (which you’re required to do wink wink). So rather than Sonic just paying their employees $10/hr at minimum wage, they’ll pay them $5/hr assuming $5 in tips. Saves the company money and the servers don’t make much more than normal minimum wage while the customer fronts their wages.
Isn’t that lovely?
I feel like how you’re describing it makes it sound more complicated than it is.
All employees are required to make minimum wage.
If your tips don’t take you over minimum wage, your employer has to pay the difference.So tips given before you get to minimum wage just reduce how much your boss needs to spend to make up the difference. Once you get there, your boss has to pay you at least some very small quantity and the tips increase your take-home
It’s a stupid system and exploitative, but it’s not as “wink wink nudge nudge” as you made it sound.
Thats fair but I don’t think this description is entirely accurate either. And I do think it’s a big scummy because minimum wage is already very low. So putting employees tips into their wages is just employers taking advantage. It’s legal, yes, but it’s bad for everyone except the employer.
not in every state. in Washington, my home state, there’s no such thing as a tipped wage and employers must pay all tips to employees. does this always happen? no, but it is illegal unlike what you’re claiming
This is only true for positions paid in tips. (Workers making below minimum wage like waiters/servers)
This is not true for people working jobs at or above minimum wage, like baristas at coffee shops. The vast majority of those places give their employees the tips on top of their wages. Most employees don’t put up with tips going to the owners and will let you know they don’t get it.
That’s the worrying part of this trend. The local coffee shop might still give their employees the tips. But the local chain fast food place? No. I’ve had subway workers tell me that directly. They said “don’t tip me, I don’t get any of it” and sonic employees will sometimes tell you the same.
I made an online order for a restaurant a while ago, and there was a tip option with a message that said “100% of tips go toward supporting the restaurant.” First of all that’s a super vague statement, and secondly, that’s not what tips are for. Tips are for supporting the specific people who serve me, not for supporting the restaurant as a whole. Why would I want to leave a tip when I don’t even know where the money is going.
A large portion of you in the replies don’t feel like they should be obligated to tip because they feel it’s up to the employer to properly compensate their workers, and yet they feel comfortable enjoying the product of these exploited workers’ labor. My question to all of you is, if you care about worker exploitation, why don’t you, the consumer, speak out against this practice directly? Call employers out, speak to the workers, see what you can do to help them organize. If you can’t be bothered to do any of that, consider not dog-piling on the worker for the faults of their employer by deciding not to tip and making it harder for workers to organize. It seems to me that by not tipping, you’re just helping employers and not workers.
It’s called voting. Most people do that.
Tip culture is an obvious moral blackmail. While being against it I tend to go with it in countries that struggle moving past slavery.
To a certain extent if everybody stopped tipping things would change probably faster than by any political mean anyway.
If absolutely everybody stopped tipping in America this instant maybe something would change. But that’s not going to happen, just as voting tipping away won’t happen. It’s incredibly easy to sway people who have no opinion on the matter (more than you’d think) to believe that tips are good and necessary and actually beneficial to the worker. And the people/entities most motivated to argue this (employers) happen to have the money to throw into shifting public thought on the matter. No, the only real solution is worker organization, and the only way workers can organize is if they have the resources (time, energy, money) to do so, also external support can help.
- Pay employees a decent wage.
- Long past time to get rid of the lower tip minimum wage
- I will choose to go to no-tip places
How do Americans budget when you don’t actually know how much things are going to cost you? I’d be lost without my spreadsheets
I’d be willing to bet that the vast majority of Americans don’t budget at all. I don’t. I should, but I’d probably walk into traffic if I had to look at the numbers.
I appreciate the sentiment from most folks here that this culture is ridiculous and that we should not take part. I’ve been told the more effective way to eliminate tipping culture is to vote in elections and it was so astoundingly tone deaf. Another reason why I like it here!
If you can’t afford to pay your employees a decent wage, you should raise your prices or you shouldn’t be in business.
There are a few places here in Seattle which have eliminated tipping, raised prices, and raised wages. I greatly prefer this, personally speaking. Add no, I’m not going to start tipping every random cashier just because they start prompting me to.
The problem is - restaurants in most parts of the states cannot reliably do that. They’re going to see a higher price and they’re probably walking out soon after. Or worse - they stay and leave a shit review because they set their expectations at a higher bar of food quality than was provided.
If we could unilaterally remove exemptions for tipped wages, I’d see the possibility of it becoming much more common.
So these people are willing to tip for naff food but not pay more to begin with?
Most restaurants in America as they exist now should not exist. We’re essentially all subsidizing low quality, frozen food.
