Should tipping be banned?

[Arch-MaesterPhilip]

no cab fare? hmmmm. might just have to try that next time.

i'll find a way to work blade runner into the conversation

i always do :cool4:

If it saves you ten quid I'd say it's worth a shot.

[Castel]

YMMV. Personally I feel more like I'm treating a worker like my "bitch" when I tip than when I pay a clearly established fee. Same when at the receiving end. I would rather pay higher fees than tipping. There is something inappropriate I find in it, re: social interactions.

I know right? The only person who should be making the workers their bitches in such a fashion are their bosses.

For me, back around 2000ish, the delivery fee was $1.25 per delivery, or not quite enough to pay for a gallon of gas. Minimum wage + delivery fee + tips worked out to around $14 - $15 an hour...which is what the IRS calculated it at as well. Report significantly less than that, and it would automatically get adjusted upwards. I remember a few idiot drivers who tried to claim they made NOTHING in tips, which brought down BOTH Corporate and the IRS.

Hm, funny, I didn't factor in the fact that you'd have pay for gas or the car. I should have, given the thread and the general idea here, but I didn't. It makes sense to have a floor, it just seems low , but again, that's the point.

[ThinkerX]

certainly there will be substantial similarities among industrial and other modern workers in capitalist and communist economies. the bolshies adopted taylorism, after all. i doubt that peons is the correct term for employees in either setting, though. the fact that someone is a capitalist manager on behalf of a for-profit corporation in an at-will employment environment, however, is distinct from a socialist manager in a state enterprise where there is a right to employment, and where under- and unemployment is not an issue.

i'm not certain what any of that colloquy has to do with moral objections to cappy executive conduct as opposed to identifying underemployment and unemployment as structural to capitalism, whereas they are not structural to socialism. why evade the issue?

First, my concerns start and stop on the shop floor.

My view is that corporate executives and communist party bosses, regardless of the (supposed) differences in the systems in which they function, tend to exhibit similiar traits as far as the people on the shop floor are concerned:

Both have well earned reputations for greed and corruption.

Both, from the perspective of those on the shop floor, appear to get promoted or recieve gains without justification.

When their brilliant plans go astray, they blame their underlings. Bad things are never their fault.

Both appear to spend substantial amount of time attempting to screw over said peons.

Both have a tendency to see their underlings as objects, rather than people.

Employment? Yes, ones job is less secure in the 'capitalist' world. However, drifting from job to job which vary only slightly in terms of pay and condition is the norm. Likewise, in communism, while there may be full employment, there is also no incentive.

From the peons perspective, it appears that both corporate executives and communist party bosses work to keep the peons in their place.

Also, you must not have spent much time working for a major corp in a retail environment. These days, the stress is on *team*. Put in extra (unpaid) hours for the team. Do this for the team. Do that. The team is all. Sounds like at least rudimentary communist ideology to me.

likewise, why insist that ideology is unimportant when you have deployed anticommunist ideology irrelevantly against my positions?

I regard each firmly held ideological position, regardless of source, as reducing ones intelligence and mental flexibility. The mind becomes trapped. Ideology, in the minds of those so deluded, becomes superior to reality. Applies to communism, capitalism, religion, and other dogmatic systems.

What counts is people.

What counts is what works best in a given situation for the greatest number, regardless of source or ideology.

[Greg]

down my way, gold standard for professional drivers includes happy ending.

And THAT'S what I like about the South!

[Sixshells]

I know right? The only person who should be making the workers their bitches in such a fashion are their bosses.

Because it's so much better when service workers are implied to have to beg (or use emotional blackmail and the pressure of social conventions) for tips? Oh, yes, tips are supposed to be an incentive to have workers work better, even though that aspect has overall a marginal influence on how much people tip...

Besides, if each customer, via tipping, works like a pseudo boss, it puts a higher pressure on each server, while at the same time distributing its point of origin, making it more difficult for workers to direct their own pressure to get better wages/working conditions. Unless using toxic relationship tools like shaming of non tippers, and social conventions, to get the difference from the customer. With the complicity of the real boss, who gets to escape his responsibilities as owners of the buisiness, by duming them onto the customer, falsely assimilated as a "boss".

The whole system works on ambiguity and unspoken assumptions and misrepresentations where there is no reason to be.

[Castel]

I'm confused. Your post suggests you agree with me but your tone says otherwise...

[sologdin]

Besides, if each customer, via tipping, works like a pseudo boss, it puts a higher pressure on each server, while at the same time distributing its point of origin, making it more difficult for workers to direct their own pressure to get better wages/working conditions

it works too as a device to direct worker rage and dissatisfaction against consumers, rather than against management/owner. considering that consumers tend to be other workers, it disrupts the formation of general class consciousness.

Employment? Yes, ones job is less secure in the 'capitalist' world. However, drifting from job to job which vary only slightly in terms of pay and condition is the norm. Likewise, in communism, while there may be full employment, there is also no incentive.

incentive for what? are you suggesting that the visible threat of unemployment is necessary to keep the ornery rabble in line?

From the peons perspective, it appears that both corporate executives and communist party bosses work to keep the peons in their place.

proletarianized?

Also, you must not have spent much time working for a major corp in a retail environment. These days, the stress is on *team*. Put in extra (unpaid) hours for the team. Do this for the team. Do that. The team is all. Sounds like at least rudimentary communist ideology to me.

ha. true enough--never worked for that. disagreed that it's particularly commie, though. commie will insist on payment of wages, seeking to recapture surplus alue, &c. it may be that corporation as adopted propaganda that generalizes the labor effort even as profit remains ungeneralized and "team" members go without health insurance or retirement. (if employer seeks unpaid hours, employee remedy is to file complaint with wage & hour division at DOL.)

[Alester Florent]

i don't want to wrongfoot this; i do appreciate your commentary otherwise, and don't want to be assholish--but it is not a sign of good faith to simply assume that i intend to obscure. if the post reads as meaningless, i can't see how the defect is mine.

Unless simple ignorance is in play, the fault for poor communication generally rests with the writer, not the reader.

From a personal perspective, while I understood your posts, the lack of capitalisation made them unnecessarily hard to read. I don't know whether that's a political statement or not, but it seems wrongfooted.

[sologdin]

Unless simple ignorance is in play, the fault for poor communication generally rests with the writer, not the reader.

it's an old nietzsche bit, FFS. that said, how hard is it to get a dictionary? i'm not interested in making an effort in lowering the standard of discourse just because some kindly interlocutors might need to improve their minds otherwise.

From a personal perspective, while I understood your posts, the lack of capitalisation made them unnecessarily hard to read. I don't know whether that's a political statement or not, but it seems wrongfooted.

that's not what prevents comprehension here, as i doubt that i was actually not understood.

[MercenaryChef]

Ideally, yes. Average server earnings tend to be in the mid-20k to 30k range. So the expectation is that the wages would go up about to where some of the kitchen staff are. The catch, and it's already been brought up, is actual hours. You'd have to adjust further for that.

as one who has been in the restaurant industry for over 15 years i will tell you that the on paper wages of a server may seem low, but the actual (via gratuity) is far higher.

servers make more money than cooks. many cooks are working their way up the experience ladder to become sous chefs, chef du cuisines, and finally executive chefs. these individuals went to culinary school a lot of the times. these schools cost from $30k to $80k. when these people get out they can often expect a job paying between $12 and $20 per hour.

a server (even one in the states that pay only around $3 per hour for tipped positions) will eclipse the earning potential of those cooks.

i say to all who are upset by the amount of money a server makes the same i have said to cooks for all of these years 'if it bothers you, go and become a server.'

in many iterations of this thread in the past i have tried to make people understand the actuality of the hospitality business and why i am accepting of gratuity and have failed.

'should tipping be banned? no. but, threads on it, likely should.'-my wife

[Happy Ent]

Maybe somebody could write a browser plugin using Greasemonkey that capitalises Solo’s posts for us.

[sologdin]

you'd compel me to interdict your capitalizer plugin with a capitalizer plugin buster, which no doubt would set off an arms race when y'all fire back with a capitalizer plugin buster buster. the escalation shall be incessant until the board be destroyed, and i can't imagine you'd want to bear that burden on your conscience.

[Tempra]

Fear not, commies always blink first.

[Happy Ent]

you'd compel me to interdict your capitalizer plugin with a capitalizer plugin buster, which no doubt would set off an arms race when y'all fire back with a capitalizer plugin buster buster. the escalation shall be incessant until the board be destroyed, and i can't imagine you'd want to bear that burden on your conscience.

What kind of defeatist talk is that?

The dialectical conflict between my capitalizer plugin and your anticapitalizer will, as long as you and I, members both of the intelligentsia, maintain ownership of the means of production, produce a tension from which a completely new convention for capitalisation will emerge.

Who knows, the entire board may be set in all capitals?

TELL ME…

[Greywolf2375]

Who knows, the entire board may be set in all capitals?

Go to the show subforum, I fear that has all ready started to happen...

[sologdin]

Who knows, the entire board may be set in all capitals?

IS

NOT

CASE

INSOLENT?

[Usotsuki]

yOUR CLAIMED ANTI-CAPITALIST CREDENTIALS HAVE BEEN QUESTIONED BY THOSE WHO NOTE THAT YOU HAVE ADOPTED A CAPITALISED TITLE.

i DO NOT STATE WITHOUT RESERVATION THAT YOU ARE A bUKHARINITE ADVENTURIST WITH PRONOUNCED COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARY TENDENCIES BUT i DO NOT DISMISS THE POSSIBILITY ENTIRELY.

[Happy Ent]

I’m sure Trotsky didn’t tip, either.

[Alester Florent]

it's an old nietzsche bit, FFS.

Just because someone famous said it doesn't mean it's valid or true.

that's not what prevents comprehension here, as i doubt that i was actually not understood.

No; it's just annoying and means I'm more likely to ignore your posts altogether regardless of the quality of their content, because life's too short.

[Kolantero]

Tips should really be at the discretion of the customer. That's what "tip" means as far as I'm concerned. No banning, no obligation.