Should tipping be banned?

[lupis42]

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.

Not exactly - more like 15% is the default, and quality of service brings it up or down - and sometimes by a considerable amount. Personally, for example, I tend to tip 20% to 30% for average to good service, more if the check was really small. On the other hand, for really terrible service, I have no problem leaving one penny - to make it clear that I didn't just forget. While I've gotten flack about tipping, it's always been for tipping too high, not too low.

[KiDisaster]

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.

No. Notice I said "fairly poor", not "if the waiter is a total arse". If I had a waiter be actively rude to me for no reason then no, I wouldn't tip them a damn thing (To be honest I'd probably leave as I'd be afraid my food would end up with some unwanted extras in it at that point), but I've never had that happen to me in any restaurant I've ever eaten in. I've seen people be rude to their servers all the time, but never the other way around. I know it must happen, but I've never experienced it. I'm always extremely polite to servers, I guess I've never given them a reason to not be polite to me.

[Madfunkymonkey]

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?

I delivered pizzas for a locally owned pizza joint and they charged $1.00 for a delivery fee which I got plus a $4.00 per hour wage plus whatever tip I got. I usually made about $85 to $100.00 per 8 hour shift counting all 3 ways of getting paid but this was before gas which I paid for myself.

So knock off around $15 to $20 for gas so I made around $70 to $90 bucks a day. Which translates to about 9 to 10 bucks per hour. Or $20,000.00 per year which isn't much at all.

[Phaing]

Yes!

We must ban another incentive to do good work!

How dare those waiters withhold food from cheapskates, anyway? Do they want us to starve?!?

[Aussie Rob]

The BBC has put up an article on this subject, and since this (especially the American version) has in the past caused much discussion in these parts, I thought I'd share it with you all. Do you think that meals would be more enjoyable if you didn't have to do the maths at the end? Would it be fairer to the staff for a service charge to be put on all the bills and then get shared out among everyone?

In Australia, workers are paid in the belief that they won't get tipped, but people still tend to tip at halfway decent restaurants and up.

Tipping of cab drivers and other folk rarely happens here at all.

[Gillio]

I run a cafe in a foodcourt (Australia)

I get a fair few people saying "keep the change" - its usually less than $1!

we put it in a charity jar we keep on the counter

[The Monkey]

Tipping by default is just silly as well. How do bother even have the energy to make the calculations after every single meal? The standard should be to give no tip, as it is in Sweden.

[sologdin]

the institution of the gratuity allows the master to externalize partially the expense of labor and associated transaction costs. those burdens are imposed on the servant, but the authority for their satisfaction is vested in the purchaser of the master's product, and therefore fits within the normal critique of donation--that the practice of private donation removes the moneys donated from democratic control and leaves them within the arbitrary power of the donor, who can grant or deny for any reason or no reason at all.

by master's internalization of the costs, purchaser is then unable to punish waitstaff by withholding gratuity, but must file grievance with master regarding defective performance of contract. master is then in position to take decision as to remedy, with recourse to law in last instance. considering that purchaser tends to complain normally, and rise in menu price to internalize labor costs should tend to equal the abolished gratuity, purchaser bears no additional burden, other than loss of arbitrary authority over someone else's servant. perhaps some purchasers find this authority valuable, but i wouldn't want to associate with them.

were master compelled by statute to internalize completely its labor costs, we might however discover that master will in retaliation against the policy terminate the employment of all servants and retain independent contractors instead. it works like a strip club, where IC food service professional pays a fee to the venue to render professional services, and is remunerated directly by purchasers. restaurant then drops menu price to cover its F and V costs exclusive of waitstaff labor. IC professionals haggle with purchasers for the cost of their labor at the time menu prices are disclosed. the state might regulate this kind of sliminess by statute, naturally, but i can see an enterprising state legislature, such as in the great state of louisiana, pick up the idea, even while altering the workers' compensation statutes to render such IC subject to the WC exclusive remedy, as has been done for manual laborers in some places.

[The Iceman of the North]

Not exactly - more like 15% is the default, and quality of service brings it up or down - and sometimes by a considerable amount.

Except that the research done by Michael Lynn of Cornell Hotel School (see the Freakonomics blog mentioned above), have calculated that just 4% of the variation in tips can be explained by quality of service. For instance the race of the person giving or receiving tips is far more important.

[wolverine]

In Minnesota, tipped employees must be paid the same minimum wage as any other job.

I live in a rural low wage earning area and one of my friends tends bar on the weekends. He makes about 200-300 dollars in tips a night. His contract at work pays him about $500 for the entire week. I have never understood the expectation of tipping when YOU walk up to the bar yourself and get a drink.

[Sturn]

Why don't we expand tipping to all service proffessions! That fireman got your cat out of the tree. Give him a $10. Your child's teacher was excellent this year. Give her a $20. That cop recovered your car stereo, give him a $5.

[wolverine]

Why don't we expand tipping to all service proffessions! That fireman got your cat out of the tree. Give him a $10. Your child's teacher was excellent this year. Give her a $20. That cop recovered your car stereo, give him a $5.

Sounds a little dangerous. You tipped your kids teacher $500, now they get an A!

[RhaenysBee]

In most restaurants around here (that is in Central Europe) there is a service price, either as an individual item of the bill, or included in the prices of drinks and meals, and yet people still give tips to staff. I personally don't see anything wrong with tipping, I always tip delivery men, taxi drivers and waiters. And it works well, because I always get my sushi or pizza or anything I order on a lazy weekend in less than half an hour, even though the confirmation email never says less than 40 minutes.

[sologdin]

understood the expectation of tipping when YOU walk up to the bar yourself and get a drin

i usually put a dollar as the tip on drinks, which is completely arbitrary, but might be as much as 40% and as little as 10%, all for the several seconds it takes to prepare the drink and set it in my IV.

[Greg]

Omg Stop fucking my mind.

Good heavens, Scrappy, if you think that's a mind fuck, go back to Reddit.

Solo, that was actually an interesting way of looking at the whole server/owner/customer transaction. I now work as a server/server trainer for a chain restaurant and have recognized for some time the legally twilit territory in which servers work. Paid like IC's but treated in the legal/workers comp sense like EE's. Most servers complain bitterly about how very crappy the pay via tipping system is, but most appreciate that it pays much better than comparable retail positions.

[Whitestripe]

Why don't we expand tipping to all service proffessions! That fireman got your cat out of the tree. Give him a $10. Your child's teacher was excellent this year. Give her a $20. That cop recovered your car stereo, give him a $5.

Many parents do give "teacher appreciation gifts" at the end of the year. Sometimes it's even a gift card, which is almost the same as cash.

[lupis42]

Except that the research done by Michael Lynn of Cornell Hotel School (see the Freakonomics blog mentioned above), have calculated that just 4% of the variation in tips can be explained by quality of service. For instance the race of the person giving or receiving tips is far more important.

Whether or not that's true even in aggregate is pretty unconvincing given his sample size - 140 parties over the course of lunch in one restaurant on one day.

[Isalie]

Isn't it stressful to work for tips? It must be pretty hard to calculate how much you'll make next month, and how much you'll make probably varies a lot depending on the season?

I'm not in the business, but I would prefer to work for a salary.

[Greg]

Isn't it stressful to work for tips? It must be pretty hard to calculate how much you'll make next month, and how much you'll make probably varies a lot depending on the season?

I'm not in the business, but I would prefer to work for a salary.

It is stressful. The uneven income requires a great deal of thrift.

I would prefer a salaried job as well and have been looking for years to no avail. However, I found that once I started to acquire my monthly mortgage payment $2, #3, and $5 at a time, I became much better at handling money. Direct deposit paychecks seem almost unreal to me, while walking into the bank with a small box full of bundled small bills, provides a powerful visual reminder of exactly how much money I am making on a month to month basis.

[Starkess]

I dislike tipping. It make me feel uncomfortable and like I am going to be judged by the server. Or finding out after the fact that there was an expectation of tipping that I didn't know about so I stiffed someone. I would much rather be charged a fee and pay it. Done.