No, it’s because their manager who manages the business(hypothetically) isn’t paying them.
Just like groceries don’t include tax in the advertised price. the system is designed to screw us over.
Just like groceries don’t include tax in the advertised price.
Nah, that’s just in America, because Americans are dumb. Tipping doesn’t exist here BTW, because it’s idiotic and why would we do that.
(if Americans aren’t dumb, why did they vote for Trump twice?)
(I finally found an upside to the Trump presidency!)
Canadians do tip as well, and you can’t blame Trumpets for that 😁
Australians don’t tip, and Canadians are just Americans with a French accent.
Almost 70 million people voted against him, myself included. We’re not a monolith. Also, only 11 states tax groceries.
Left, right and a hook.
Americans are dumb af. Source: am American
Tipping doesn’t exist here BTW, because it’s idiotic
Idk where “here” is, but I’ve seen plenty of foreign countries’s restaurants adopting tipping, particularly at higher end establishments, as business owners realize they can just ask for extra and get it.
American culture is still seen as something to emulate in many parts of the world. Hopefully less so after the next four years. We’ve had the same stupid tipping culture emerge here as well - seems like a sign that taxes aren’t high enough at the top end.
To be fair, no products sold (that I’m aware of) include tax on the sticker price, and here in TX groceries (unprepared food) are not subject to state sales tax.
Exactly.
The reason, from my understanding, is that taxes on products can vary from region to region, so it’s impractical to expect the store to have the price listed with the sales tax included, especially on advertisements. The sales tax in my state can vary by 1% or so between cities/counties, and advertisements are frequently at the state level, if not national level. My next door city has a 0.10% lower sales tax rate vs my city, and the resort area in the county has 1.5% higher sales tax than the rest of the county.
Food is taxed at a different rate, and the tax is split about 50/50 between state and local. Our state has been discussing ending the tax on food, but that would only end the state portion (1.75%), so the local tax (1.25% pretty much everywhere) would remain.
AFAIK, Europe includes it because it’s imposed at the government level (I think EU?), not the local level.
I still think it’s dumb, and it should at least be on the price stickers in the store so I can have a chance at estimating the final bill before I get to the register.
It pits the well being of the customer against the well being of the server. It’s a pretty evil system. Pay everyone a living wage. Everybody deserves to live.
tariffs
walk it yourself then
Literally happens every time you get food from a place that serves you from a bar and STILL expects a tip.
gladly would if they’d let me
Except the food cost is only a small part of what we are paying for at a restaurant. What we are paying for is the worker’s time and skills. We could, mostly, eat the same ingredients at home for much cheaper.
A lot of the other costs are small and make profit in scale.
In this case wouldn’t the cooks time and skills be more important? Almost anyone can carry a plate but it takes a more diverse set of skills to cook various meals in timely manner while trying to prepare another 10 orders as well.
Not to say the server isn’t important as well but tbh, I’d rather have shitty service and great tasting food than have amazing service and terrible food. Ideally great food and great service, that will defintely get me back.
Cooks wages are integrated into the price of the food, and the waiter’s are not. But some times cooks are tipped out too.
Sounds like a broken system where workers are being exploited. The operating costs of everything should be pirced into the food. Customer’s shouldn’t be expected to subsidize wages.
You undervalue good service. Good service, like good cooks, keep people with allergies from dying. Who exactly do you think passes on the allergy information? In a more general manner, good service makes sure that your order is presented the the kitchen staff correctly and matches expectations when they say it’s ready. It’s not just about whether or not they have a pleasant demeanor.
I could get the best service I’ve ever had, if the food tastes bad, makes me sick, or is undercooked I won’t be returning.
I could have rude service, have to send my order back for being wrong, and maybe even wait a while, if that food is delicious I’ll be coming back.
It takes a whole team to run a restaurant but if the food sucks or is unsafe no amount of good service will make up for that.
hey the waiter doesnt carry the food, the runner does that
the waiter asks me how im doing every 5 minutes and upsells me drinks and excess food. now that is special
never mess with the people who handle your food.
Reminds me of that episode of Scrubs, where Dr Cox was going around with a tip jar, because if a guy pouring coffee gets a tip, he should get one from the people whose lives he saved.
“Why tip someone for a job I’m capable of doing myself? I can deliver food, I can drive a taxi, I can and do cut my own hair. I did, however, tip my urologist. Because I am unable to pulverize my own kidney stones.” -Dwight Schrute, “The Office”
Makes me glad I live in a state that got rid of the tipped minimun and just has one across the board minimum wage.
I’m so sad we voted against it. Legalizing magic mushrooms had more support than making tipped minimum wage the same as normal minimum wage.
To insure proper service. Congratulations, everyone at the joint now knows your face and that you’re cheap.
You’ll get the worst service imaginable at your once favorite place. You’ve ruined it for yourself.
So waiters spit in my food because I pay the amount that’s in the menu, and I’m the problem here?
Jokes on you, we don’ 'Merica
Sounds a lot like the maffia. “Pay protection money or else we’ll tear your shop down”
So what you’re saying is, tips are bullshit, and it’s really just a shakedown? Got it.
Tips are commonly pooled
Tips were only shared between FoH staff at the place I worked as a teen
Depends on restaurant
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If you find like paying for service don’t go out. This is the way that it is and these are likely the guests that then get on Yelp and complain…about service. You can adjust minimum wage all you want but professional waitstaff aren’t going to pander to the wealthy for minimum wage. Minimum wage service sucks as it should, you get what you pay for; minimum wage, minimum effort. If you don’t like the system, change it, don’t victimize your fellow workers. They accepted the job under this current system. I’m in that system and am working to change it but until then if you don’t tip due to your high moral standards YTA. And it’s not because USians are stoopid (we are), it’s just the ingrained culture. Under capitalism the guest will be paying this money regardless. Much like this fauxmockracy, your choice is an illusion…
“If you don’t tip don’t go out”? Telling people who want to see the tipping culture removed to not go out means that either way, the waiter doesn’t get tipped. Europe has restaurants, so clearly tipping or not tipping doesn’t dictate the existence of restaurants.
If a waiter works an entire shift and receives no tip, they are entitled to actual minimum wage instead of the reduced minimum wage. So there shouldn’t be any moral misgiving to not tipping, it’s just social pressure.
When we stop making money we’ll quit. And then there won’t be restaurants since they can barely staff them as it is. Getting ‘waited on’ by another human being is degrading to them and expensive for you. Tough tits for everyone if they don’t want to cough up. We’ll be getting paid or your service will suck. That’s how it is. Or cook and clean for yourselves. And no minimum wage in this damned country is a living wage.
I tip if I order food at a sitdown place out of habit and social pressure. Maybe my ignorance is the problem in the world but, I don’t understand how I could feel the service went above or beyond handing me a bag if all they do is hand me a bag.
I also don’t tip
Because I don’t go to restaurants with servers
I vote with my wallet that the whole concept is stupid, I hate paying 20% for someone to be fake nice and move food 10 feet
you’re just in a different income class. nothing wrong with that.
but people with the money to burn tend to prefer enjoying nicer things, such as personal service, so they pay for it.
They should be replaced with automated mechanical food shuttles. I would tip those.
Why would you tip those?
he tips his fedora
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How else do you plan to knock them over?
This is the way. By going but not tipping you’re just fucking over the server, not the business. To hurt the business’ bottom line you have to not go. Or dine and dash, but that then fucks the server harder while also affecting the business.
That why they said they don’t go to restaurants with servers. Either go to a restaurant where you buy food at a counter and bus yourself, or go to a tipless resturant with servers. Obviously don’t just screw over the server.
Though, on a large scale, if everyone just stopped tipping all at once, nobody would be willing to work for server wages anymore, and restaurants would have to increase pay or get fucked. Too bad our economy is based on fighting for survival, and not the profit motive, because the reality is that it would just fuck people’s lives up really bad.
And I was agreeing, thus starting the comment with “that is the way,” which I’m assuming you missed.
And sure, and I’m assuming you mean more than $7.25, but there’d be a lot of missed rent and power bills along the way until they catch up.
What about dine and dash, while leaving a cash tip?
There’s a good chance the restaurant will take it all since they were “owed”.
9/10 chance that goes to cover part of your bill and the waiter gets fucked, but if you could guarantee they pocket it that’d work.
Hmm, maybe slip it to them when asking for the bill?
That’ll get them fired for looking like they conspired with you
Sure, that might work, or give it to them up front (protip btw, you want GREAT service? Frontload that tip, your server will break the law for you if you do that lol).
It’s not exactly legal, but a lot of places will charge the server for a done and dash.
Hmm, what about fake checks? Surely there’s an angle here where the server isn’t punished, I don’t go to jail, and the restaurant takes a hit.
Who’s the cheap one in this equation?
… the customer who is paying the owner of the restaurant for the food AND is obligated by social convention to pay extra to the waiter who is underpaid.
or
… the restaurant owner who doesn’t mind living in a world where we have normalized underpaying restaurant workers to the point where we pass down that responsibility to the customer who is already paying for the food.
Pay your workers a proper wage and get rid of the idea of tipping.
Tipping is fine, but as in “keep the change”, not “we need to change this tipping culture”
Here’s the equation. Restaurants keep food costs low by paying servers next to nothing. If they paid them what they deserve, the cost of your meal would increase.
So by not tipping, you are benefiting from the low cost of food while screwing over the person that has no control over the situation. YTA
If you don’t want to tip, don’t go to a restaurant that has servers.
Now, other places that actually pay a living wage and also have a tip button (ie concession stands at a sporting event) can get fucked.
Here’s another part of the equation, the owner gets enough of a share of the business profit where they can buy a new house, expand to multiple locations, buy new cars, etc.
The extra couple bucks an hour per employee is a tiny drop in the cost pool per business operational hour compared to that. They could perfectly well keep prices the same without paying sub-minimum wages by taking a smaller cut themselves.
Except that I’m fine if the cost of my meal increases if they paid their servers what they deserve.
Same here. I’m just saying don’t protest tipping by not tipping. You’re screwing the wrong person.
Are you suggesting that food prices will go up by more than the cost of the tip tacked on?
Because if not it’s really just more honest pricing, and the same (or reduced) impact on customers, but without having to do math or having the option of being a leech.
If tipping ended and restaurants paid their servers, food prices would go up. That is undeniable.
You are eating at a discount with the expectation that you will pay the owner’s employee for them. Yes, it is unfair and sucks but the one making out like a bandit here is the owner.
So, not tipping is your way of benefiting personally on a discounted meal AND STILL giving the owner money. And the only one you have punished in your equation is a server (the leech???) who is generally living off that tip day to day.
So if you want to make an impact, quit going to restaurants that have tipping as an expectation! That’s it! Otherwise you are just encouraging the owner to keep the status quo!
It’s not a discount if you are expected to pay more to add a tip.
But dude, quit changing the subject, I’m not talking about people not tipping within the current system, never have been, and neither was the person you originally replied to. I’ve worked tipped positions, so I very much understand how they work.
So again, are you suggesting that if we do away with tipping, costs of food would increase by MORE than the present amount of a tip that gets tacked on? Because that’s the only way prices for the end consumer actually meaningfully raise. Most likely they will actually go down overall. Because again you have to pay the tip too.
You are really bad at reading comprehension btw. That, or you are a piss-poor troll and intentionally misrepresenting literally everything… the option to be a leech is the customer, who in the present system can skip the tip. Like a leech.
Also, there aren’t any restaurants around me that scrapped tipping, not a single fucking one within at least an hour of where I live, so your suggestion is impossible for me and very privileged.
So by not tipping, you are benefiting from the low cost of food while screwing over the person that has no control over the situation. YTA
Customers aren’t the assholes for the failures of the restaurant industry, just as customers aren’t the assholes for the refusal of the federal government to ensure restaurant workers are paid a living wage.
Customers who don’t tip are not the enemy.
*artificially low cost of food
Don’t like tipping? Protest the policies by not going to restaurants, dont shove it on the workers who are stuck in the system.
The owner is 100% happy you came to pay him and not the waiter he didnt wanna pay anyway.
How does this form of protest translate into a change of the tipping system?
Yeah this protest only works if there are also another set of restaurants that specifically tell you not to tip that you can give business to. I have been to some but they are very rare where I live.
At this point youre just being disingenuous. There’s a thousand comments in this thread answering that question, and explaining why stiffing the workers doesn’t really affect the owners, or incentivise them to change anything.
Thats one way of looking at it… but if everyone would stop tipping, they would be forced to pay them a living wage or go out of business when all the staff quit. Its actually in the consumers power to effect that change, but only on a mass scale. Unfortunately its an awkward social coercion tactic at play now, which just continues to perpetuate the problem pitting us against each other just as capitalism intends to.
If tips are bad, the worker quits. If sales are bad, the worker is fired and might collect unemployment benefits.
So we don’t need OSHA? We can just let construction workers quit if the contractors make them do dangerous stuff?
Youre a bit oblivious to your privilege. People can’t just quit or yknow, they starve.
Fuck that, there’s federal mandated minimum wage if waiters don’t make enough through tips. You’re a misinformation spreading lunatic. Probably right wing too.
The owner is evil, but anyone who doesn’t tip a waiter that earns too little to be able to afford to live is an asshole.
Sorry for the downvotes. Lemmy users can be remarkably shitty
Here’s a tip: that waiter should unionize.
You heard it here folks, it’s just that easy. Unionize today! I’m sure there is a well established Union already in your area ready to take you on and fight for you and your $15 a month in dues! Go gettem, tiger.
Of all the reasons I’ve seen for why people struggle to unionize, I have never seen anyone suggest that unions don’t want members.
It’s not that they don’t want members, it’s that people assume all unions are massive machines capable of turning your life around in a second, where in reality most of them will give you some legal packets so you know your rights, and a pat on the back if you take your employer to court. There isn’t a large restaurant union in my city, just a few small ones that are focused on single businesses. We all have to start somewhere, but just up and joining a small union isn’t going to help when the owner of the business can just let you go and hire someone else who isn’t unionized.
As someone who works in the service industry, this is the argument that I see all the time. “We aren’t going to subsidize your wage because your owner is an asshole.” Weird, you have no problem being a patron of his establishment. Do you think that your refusal to tip somehow hurts him? Because it doesn’t. It only hurts the staff. My argument always has and always will be that we increase the cost of menu items by 18% and then split that additional 18% with the staff. However, that idea always falls flat with the owner because, “We’ll be the most expensive restaurant in town. No one will come here.” Which is a valid concern. And so, we are at an impasse. He can’t afford to pay me what I’m worth, and he can’t increase the cost of the menu or he’ll outprice his customers, and I can’t quit because it’s not better at any other restaurant. In the end, in any direction, the customer is going to pay more, either as a tip, or just for the cost of the food, or they’ll pay with worse service because the experienced staff can’t afford to work there anymore. Refusing to tip isn’t a protest, it’s just being cheap and making yourself feel better about it. If tipping went away, prices would have to increase, and either way, the buck stops with the consumer. Want to eat cheaper? Cook at home. I’m sure you’ll be just as good as any of your favorite restaurants with their specialized equipment and cooks with a decade of experience.
I hope all you downvoters have something of value to contribute… Oh, no, you’re just downvoting to show your solidarity with the rest of the cheap-os? Ok, enjoy your meal.
I don’t know why you’re downvoted, it’s the average decent opinion: the pay has to be somewhere, either fixed in the prices or in decent tips.
So… If i read this correctly… The net difference is zero? Except when I’m being an asshole and I dont tip.
So in the end, this boils down to offering the option of being an asshole to your customers.
As an european I always find this discussion weird. And when visiting stateside I never really can “gauge” what I should tip. Am i in a joint which underpays the server? Is (s)he fine? Is 10% enough? More? Should i just make it whole? I just never know. I sometimes even have resorted to just bluntly ask the server or a patron what is customary. (my weird accent helps getting an honest answer)
It’s quite honestly a shit fest. There is an amount on the billl… But that isnt the real amount, except when you’re an asshole. And if you over tip you’re still an asshole, just a stupid one, and if you’re undertip you’re also an asshole.
Come to think about it: it really boils down to which kind of asshole do you want to be.
It’s a VAT, but it’s a choose your own VAT, and it’s based on what the service is worth to you. The customary amount is 20%, but a lot of people go between 15% and 20%, with my average take home being around 13% because of the people that don’t tip. So, choose your VAT. In the end, when adjusted for the cost of living, eating out in the EU is about the same as eating out in the US and adding a tip. The tip is just already included in the meal cost. If we could all agree to do that in the US, then it would be fine, but we can’t, so it isn’t done. It’s part of the establishment at this point, and change is something hard to sort out across 330 Million people all at once.
No idea why you’re being downvoted so much, you’re absolutely on point for US restaurants. I’ve served in them, I’ve managed them (still didn’t fucking get paid doing that)
And this press the union button bullshit above is insane. Restaurants have like a 5% success rate already, if they can just yeet entire Starbucks/Walmart locations on a whim, how the fuck do you guys think that’s going to go with a restaurant?
Unionizing may be the best route, but we have to stop pretending it’s a walk in the park to do.
I’m getting downvoted by the same people who think that it’s OK to pirate all the current running TV shows and movies. Everyone is selfish, everyone wants it for free.
Only thing that stands out to me is the percentages you’ve listed. I was always taught (and most of my peers seem to have been as well) that the normal tip for average service was 15%. Poor service (that is in the waiter’s control) gets 10%, and good/great is 18-22% (but usually 20%).
I was born in the early 90s if it makes a difference.
Varies regionally. For example, San Francisco techies should be tipping 20% (for typical sitdown service).
I have no problem with tipping, I have a problem with expected tipping.
Waiters should be paid properly and tips should not be expected or even mentioned. If I get exceptional service, I may want to leave a tip. There should be an optional tip section when paying the bill, but no separate screen or list of expected tips (or even percentage calculations) anywhere at all.
And who is hurt by not tipping
The staff member who is likely significantly impoverished…
OR
The business owner who got the $12 he’s charging you for tendies?
The business owner doesn’t give two shits if you tip, they get paid either way and $7.25 an hour per employee is pocket change to them.
