Should tipping be banned?

[IheartTesla]

No it shouldnt be banned you cheap bastards. The government (US) makes your food at least 20% cheaper by agricultural subsidies, probably after borrowing money from China.

So tip your waitstaff. Heck, tip the Chinese.

[Mark Antony]

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=twnEWSfDjFY

[Robin Of House Hill]

Has the "standard" American tip always been 15 percent? Because I swear it seems like 15-20 years ago I thought 10 percent was standard and 15 percent was considered a tip for good service.

Am I just remembering that wrong?

You're remembering it correctly.

[Mr. E]

No it shouldnt be banned you cheap bastards. The government (US) makes your food at least 20% cheaper by agricultural subsidies, probably after borrowing money from China.

So tip your waitstaff. Heck, tip the Chinese.

Can I tip you?

[Shryke]

There are ups and downs. This applies specifically to the American incarnation.

On the one hand, tipping allows bars and restaurants to get away without paying their employees a living wage.for people just getting into this industry, working dead morning shifts, that is a killer. Plus the math plus fundamental annoyance of expected amount being more than listed plus the hassle of getting that one cheap motherfucker to pay his fair share. Plus sometimes staff get shorted. Tax revenues would go up some.

On the other hand, you'd face huge objections, not least from the servers themselves, who typically make out far better on tips than they would on wage. Food prices for dining out would rise sharply as the venue would now be on the hook for more wages and would definitely pass those prices on to the consumer. It would be harder (more expensive) to run a restaurant and so there would be fewer of them. Quality of service would take a dive -- not just because the direct-incentive system is gone, but also because bartenders and waitstaff make significant money, so better workers tend to seek out the job. (Very low-end and very high-end restaurants would probably be affected less by that; low-end waitstaff don't get big tips anyway, and high-end restaurants would pay the wages necessary to retain talent.)

It's a bit complicated, before you even get into how hard it is to change behavior on a mass scale.

This doesn't make any sense. Food is already that expensive since you are paying a tip under the current system.

The only question is where they hide it in your transaction.

[Werthead]

One British tourist says she and her friends were followed out of a Manhattan restaurant by an angry waiter unhappy with a 10-15% tip.

"The waiter gave us the tip back and told us it wasn't good enough, that as tourists we didn't understand that we had to give more in New York," says Janine Windust.

And Urban Dictionary has just found a new definition for its entry under 'FUCKTARD'.

has in the past caused much discussion in these parts

No, you fool! What have you done? This is but the beginning of a 50-thread ongoing tipping juggernaut! You might as well have called the post "Should We Tip Abortion Doctors Who Defend The American South's Right To Secede From Feminist Alternate WW2 Historians?"

MAAAAAAAAALT!

[Castel]

This doesn't make any sense. Food is already that expensive since you are paying a tip under the current system.

The only question is where they hide it in your transaction.

How does it not make sense? Isn't hiding it the entire point? Well, that and waiters wanting to make more money and using the tipping system to get it,

[Jon AS]

"Should We Tip Abortion Doctors Who Defend The American South's Right To Secede From Feminist Alternate WW2 Historians?"

:bowdown:

I'm trying to find a way to add guns and maybe the hills of the Ottoman Empire to this, but it's quite hard. Well played.

[Shryke]

How does it not make sense? Isn't hiding it the entire point? Well, that and waiters wanting to make more money and using the tipping system to get it,

He's claiming food prices would rise sharply. That doesn't make sense. Costs wouldn't be going up and income wouldn't be going down. You'd just be transferring the cost of tipping to directly on to the bill itself.

Same price.

[BLU-RAY]

One of the latest Freakonomics podcasts was about this (ie is tipping a good thing). it was pretty interesting, especially re: the inherent discriminatory aspects. And it involved actual studies, huzzah! Should be on iTunes and/or the Freakonomics Blog at the NY Times.

[Castel]

He's claiming food prices would rise sharply. That doesn't make sense. Costs wouldn't be going up and income wouldn't be going down. You'd just be transferring the cost of tipping to directly on to the bill itself.

Same price.

Yes, but we don't associate it with the restaurant we see it as a social obligation. So the food prices on the bill would rise, and we'd blame the restaurant.

As for income, I have no way of knowing for sure but it's probable that people are over-tipping, none of them are tipping small enough amounts for it to average out to the minimum wage that the employer will cover, so waiters would probably come out with less if the employer just paid them minimum wage. ETA: In fact, Inigma pretty came out and admitted it.

[Sixshells]

Ban tipping and raise wages for the employees. Throw in a massive national campaign to educate the public on why restaurant prices have risen and that this is simply a transfer of the money they would have given anyway to the staff.

[Tempra]

Think of all the poor, single, working mom's that are waiters who would see a drastic reduction in pay and an increased tax obligation (relative to pay, anyways).

[ThinkerX]

I built my house out of pocket on the proceeds of Minimum Wage + Delivery Fee + Tips whilst delivering pizza. Worked on the house by day and delivered pizza by night.

When done, I almost took possession of a giant wooden cable reel, with the intent of flipping it on its side in my yard and painting the top half to resemble a pizza. I seem to remember somebody telling me that would have been 'tacky'...and I had a lot of other household projects to see to. (I didn't have interior doors, carpet, or kitchen cabinets for the first year.)

That said, most of the tips were along the lines of a guy giving me a twenty dollar bill for an eighteen dollar pizza and telling me to keep the change. Or twenty five bucks for a twenty two dollar pizza.

[Penguin king]

Growing up (15-20 years ago) my dad's words of advice were 10% is the bare minimum, that's what you give if you get fairly poor service. 15% is for standard service, 20% for very good service and 25-30 for exceptional service. I'm something of a bigger tipper myself, just because I know servers here rely almost entirely on that money. 15% for me is bare minimum, 20% is my average tip. Biggest tip I ever gave was almost 50% but that was because someone I was with (reluctantly) was very rude to our waitress.

This is what I don't get about American tipping culture. Tips are suppsed to encourage good service, and yet even if your waiter is a total arse you're still socially obligated to pay them 15% of the bill to make up for the fact the resturant owner is paying them less than minimum wage.

I wonder if the difference comes down to the way sales tax is handled in the US. In the UK VAT is 99% of the time included in the advertised price, where as it's my understanding that in most US states sales tax is only calculated once you get to the checkout. I wonder if that makes Americans more comfortable with paying hidden charges like tips and such.

[Castel]

I built my house out of pocket on the proceeds of Minimum Wage + Delivery Fee + Tips whilst delivering pizza. Worked on the house by day and delivered pizza by night.

When done, I almost took possession of a giant wooden cable reel, with the intent of flipping it on its side in my yard and painting the top half to resemble a pizza. I seem to remember somebody telling me that would have been 'tacky'...and I had a lot of other household projects to see to. (I didn't have interior doors, carpet, or kitchen cabinets for the first year.)

That said, most of the tips were along the lines of a guy giving me a twenty dollar bill for an eighteen dollar pizza and telling me to keep the change. Or twenty five bucks for a twenty two dollar pizza.

This is something I've wondered about every time I got a pizza delivered. So you got both the delivery fee, which is almost always above 10% AND the tip?

[Lannes]

This is what I don't get about American tipping culture. Tips are suppsed to encourage good service, and yet even if your waiter is a total arse you're still socially obligated to pay them 15% of the bill to make up for the fact the resturant owner is paying them less than minimum wage

No....you're not obligated. If I get downright rotten/rude service- specifically from the wait person- they don't get shit. If they can't be civil, they should find a new line of work.

Why the hard line? Because I worked through college as a waiter...

[SkynJay]

The restaurant I worked at could at best be called a dive, and I got completely stiffed several times a week, and some nights walked out with only a few tables. And I guarantee that I NEVER came close to dropping near minimum wage. I averaged over 15% even after tip share. So while getting stiffed sucked, there is no reason to ever confront a customer or think about it for more than a few minutes, it will come back to you in the end.

What is hard about converting severs to an actual wage is restaurant hours make it very, very hard to get enough hours to be full time. While the common image was of college kids working for beer money, at any given time we had four or five people making a career out of it. Split shifts suck, but these people were still generally working about 30-32 hours a week. Not out of any kinda of laziness, but because that was all they could be given, even at 2.13 an hour there was no need for more than one or two servers in our off hours. I know what the place I worked would have done, which is drop all the servers during the off hours and make the salaried manger take on tables.

[Commodore]

people debating what others should be allowed to do, smh

prohibitionists are loathsome

[Lady Shadow Cat]

No....you're not obligated. If I get downright rotten/rude service- specifically from the wait person- they don't get shit. If they can't be civil, they should find a new line of work.

Why the hard line? Because I worked through college as a waiter...

This. I work in customer service (which restaurants fall under the same umbrella) and because of this, I take customer service I receive very seriously. If I have bad customer service I don't tip either. There is no one that makes you pay 15% tip.