
Why Tipping Should (And May) Be Made Illegal - signed0
http://jayporter.com/dispatches/observations-from-a-tipless-restaurant-part-6-why-tipping-should-and-may-be-made-illegal/
======
sologoub
While this article brings up some disturbing points that I was completely
oblivious to, discussions like "<something> should be illegal" make me cringe.

There will always be some behavior deemed socially undesirable. The real
question that should be asked is where is the line between good social
protection and an undue infringement upon personal freedom? At the extremes,
it's very very clear, but as you get towards the middle, everything blurs and
it's in the eye of the beholder.

I can never, and would never attempt to, justify providing inferior service to
people based on their origin or appearance (or other identifiable factor),
prohibition is a blunt instrument. Education and socialization with diverse
communities is another option, although slower and much more difficult.

~~~
astrodust
If not illegal, then why not _policy_? There's ways of carrot-and-sticking
this to the correct course without having to make it outright illegal.

Where I live they tried to cut down on the number of plastic bags used by
instituting a $0.05 fee for each one. It's not a tax, it's just a
recommendation by the city to retailers that they charge that much for bags,
nobody had to do it, but a lot did and for the most part it worked.

If your city went "tip-free", by the same token, with clear advertising and an
explanation of the implications made through the media, that would be as good
as making it illegal: It'd make it old-fashioned.

~~~
sologoub
I agree, some incentive/penalty would be better than blanket prohibition.
Santa Monica I believe actually requires a $0.10 charge per bag. But that is
very different from saying "you must bring a re-usable bag."

For tipping, flat-rate minimum tip (like for larger parties, and also
described in one of the articles), for instance could level the field. If I
want to tip more, I can just leave the cash on the table...

~~~
jtc331
>> "For tipping, flat-rate minimum tip (like for larger parties, and also
described in one of the articles), for instance could level the field."

My belief is that that will mean you rarely get tips higher than the minimum.
Tips are supposed to be--by definition--voluntary, and in some sense a reward
for service. As such, it offends me when a minimum tip is added (note: pre-
adding it is different that merely showing off to the side what certain
percentages of the bill are as a helpful arithmetic guide.) In keeping with
that feeling, I _never_ tip higher than the minimum if it's pre-added, even
though in almost all cases the tip I _would_ have given would have been
(sometimes significantly) higher.

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howeyc
I remember travelling to countries where tipping is a no-no, what a breath of
fresh air.

Tipping is so arbitrary. The line for who "can be tipped" is different for
everyone: waiters, cabbies, hair dressers, hotel maids... you get the idea.

Why does one low skill profession get a tip (wait staff) and others do not
(fast food). They both require just as much (little) skill. I don't get it. I
mean seriously, the Sonic car hop walks food from the kitchen to your car and
the waiter walks food from the kitchen to your table. Is it because the car
hop doesn't have the added task of taking your order?

I'd rather no one received a tip just so everyone dealt with the same rules.

~~~
rjbwork
Sonic car hops make $2.25/hr just like waiters, difference being they are
almost always reimbursed to min wage since nobody tips.

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pixie_
I got the feeling my server was offended when I didn't order wine or a dessert
last friday when I went out to a nice restaurant. F- tipping, it makes both
sides of the table into jerks.

~~~
joonix
I don't drink and nor large groups of friends I have, we're all used to this.
As soon as a table demonstrates it's not ordering alcohol, waiters basically
disappear for the night or give us attitude. Tipping is stressful for
everyone. It's nonsense and broken. Non-tipping systems work just fine
everywhere else.

~~~
larrys
Why is it stressful for the customer? For what reason?

~~~
clicks
It's stressful because it often results in a lose-lose situation: if I tip
poorly, this is not action that will learn them that what they did was somehow
bad service, it'll just turn the situation into an antagonistic orientation.
So, the next time I come in, I'm not really sure if he's gonna spit in my
food. So in the end I always end up reluctantly tipping the same amount, no
matter how the service was.

Also, as a brown male, reading the article made it pretty clear why I receive
markedly poorer service when I'm with my family (also brown), vs. when I'm
eating out with my white friends. Being reminded of racism in this way is,
well... pretty stressful.

This essay was also posted on Reddit, and I saw similar responses from African
American folks there: even though a lot of them tip pretty generously, they
can sense that servers don't look forward to being at their table providing
service, as if they're anticipating a bad tip.

~~~
larrys
Interestingly, and not trying to compare to what you experience but I'm not
very tall and when I have to get a drink at a bar it's truly a challenge. And
I always think "If I was one of those tall guys I would get better service".
(I've not done anything to verify this other than it seems that way).

Likewise sometimes I am in my car and someone looks over at me. I think "wow
if I was a girl I would think they are looking at me because of that!"
(Because I tend to check out girls!)

My point is although there is no question you are subject to the actions you
(and others describe) but it also could be the case that it happens for other
reasons that have nothing to do with skin color. Make sense?

Lastly, while I am white, I am of a religion that has a percentage of the
population that is biased against us. But for some reason I haven't really
experienced that bad treatment that I can link to my religion. I think this is
because my last name doesn't scream the religion as some others do.

One more thing. I'm married to a physician and I dated a physician. And when
we are together people always assume I am the doctor or also a doctor. And
they always seem to defer to me rather than my wife (or in the past
girlfriend). My wife also has been treated by nurses without respect something
they don't do to the male doctors.

~~~
clicks
> My point is although there is no question you are subject to the actions you
> (and others describe) but it also could be the case that it happens for
> other reasons that have nothing to do with skin color.

I think that is a bit of a stretch. There is concrete evidence that explains
this happens a lot, and it's clear that racism [1] and sexism [2] are a key
part of it.

And -- not as scientific here -- but there's intuition I have gathered that's
backed up with 10 years of extensive dining out in various arrangements and
settings, and anecdotes from my server friends about the politics in
restaurants.

[1]
[http://tippingresearch.com/uploads/Business_Considerations_T...](http://tippingresearch.com/uploads/Business_Considerations_Tipping_final.pdf)

[2]
[http://tippingresearch.com/uploads/ServerAppearance1-3-08.pd...](http://tippingresearch.com/uploads/ServerAppearance1-3-08.pdf)

~~~
larrys
I wasn't questioning that it happens I said "there is no question you are
subject to the actions you (and others describe)"

I was saying that there are times that it happens that have nothing to do with
skin color and would happen (maybe the waiter is having a bad day who knows)
to anyone.

Like the man in the car next to me (assuming he is not gay) if I was a hot
girl I would automatically assume it's because I'm a hot girl. Of course this
is not the same as saying that men don't look at a girl in the car next to
them!

~~~
clicks
I'm sorry I guess maybe I still don't understand where you're coming from? Of
course there would be false positives -- are you perhaps informing me of some
possibilities with which I could rationalize why I was the recipient of poor
service?

Of course that's a possibility -- servers have bad days, sure, but these
isolated incidents don't negate the need to solve the bigger problems of wage
disparity in restaurants (cooks being paid half what servers earn -- close to
minimum wage in some instances, no matter that they went through culinary
school and incurred huge debt), the problems of racism and sexism, etc. I feel
non-tipping is the easy and obvious solution here.

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uslic001
I used to be a waiter on Mackinac Island Michigan. We always hated getting
Canadian or European customers as they rarely tipped anything. We also hated
getting a table of old ladies for the same reason. There were very few blacks
visiting the island so I can't comment about how they tip as a group. The
manager of the restaurant definitely used table assignments to reward some
waiters and punish other waiters. The waiters had to share a percentage of
their tips with the bartenders but otherwise tips were not shared between
waiters. Tipping has many drawbacks but I doubt waiters in the US would want
it eliminated given how much money they can make when they get a good tipper
who drinks a lot of alcohol. That makes up for a lot of bad tippers.

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nohuck13
TL;DR: the tipping system has a negative externality- some customers receive
worse service because they "look" like bad tippers, according to the
prejudices of the waitstaff (e.g. by being black). This negative externality
is so harmful, we'd actually do less harm overall by just getting rid of
tipping.

I agree that the first part happens. Not sure I agree with the second.

~~~
AlexandrB
What are the positive effects, if any, of the tipping system then?

Even a small negative externality is reason enough to ditch a system that
offers no benefit.

~~~
nohuck13
There's a benefit in incentivizing good service (assuming it leads to better
service, which my anecdotal experience at tipping vs service charge
restaurants makes me think it does). We tend to marginalize things like this
when big societal issues like racism come up, but it's definitely part of the
equation.

~~~
asdasf
>There's a benefit in incentivizing good service

Except it only incentivizes good services for white men without accents who
drink and dress well. That doesn't seem like such a great benefit.

~~~
jlgreco
Don't be hyperbolic, it also incentivizes good service to anyone that the
server recognizes... I typically receive mediocre to poor service when I am
dining alone until the staff learn that I tip well.

~~~
AlexandrB
So it incentivizes good service for regulars who tip well and "expected big
tippers", but not for tourists or individuals who are having their first
dining experience (which is probably the most important one to the employer,
BTW).

Seems like the equivalent of a software system that only works on weekday
afternoons, except in March where it works every other Sunday too (maybe).

~~~
jlgreco
> _(which is probably the most important one to the employer, BTW)_

Possibly, but I don't think that is generally true. I eat at a (pretty damn
touristy) place two or three times a month and the owner behind the counter is
always overjoyed to see me and throws in extra stuff for free all the time.
Now, in that particular case it isn't tip motivate, but he absolutely
appreciates the regular reliable business. I think that regular reliable
business is most important to many small restaurants, which is why you see so
many of them offering punch/stamp cards to regulars. If you frequent small
locations, it becomes clear pretty quickly that the business owners really do
love regulars.

If preferring repeat customers was actually bad for business, the business
owner would be well within their rights to forbid tipping at their business
and instead pay their staff the proper minimum wage. I suspect this isn't ever
actually the case; either repeat business makes up a significant chunk of your
business and is more valuable for its reliability, or your business is so
touristy that the occasional regular getting better service has no significant
impact. Maybe there is some sort of middle-ground between those two, but I
suspect it is elusive.

~~~
AlexandrB
To clarify, the first visit is important for _attracting_ the repeat
customers. There's nothing wrong with treating repeat business better, but
this naturally accrues as servers learn your name, favourite foods, etc.
Tipping potentially complicates this process. For example, what if you tip
exactly average? Now do you get better services as a repeat customer?

Finally, in the video linked elsewhere in this thread, Bruce McAdams talks
about the effects tipping has on turnover among waitstaff (it increases it).
This is probably detrimental to serving repeat business better.

Edit: For that matter, what if you're a repeat customer that tips lower than
average? Now the interests of the owner and the waitstaff are at odds. The
owner wants you to come back and spend more, but the waitstaff will treat you
(relatively) poorly.

~~~
jlgreco
It is going to take _a lot_ of concurrent repeat customers to appreciably
degrade the service that new customers receive, at which point the value of
obtaining new customers is diminished. We don't have to talk in hypotheticals
with this though, we need to look no further than how business-minded owners
treat repeat customers in real life. Repeat business is preferred business.

Server turnover in practice is unlikely to hurt repeat business unless we are
talking about unprecedented amounts of turnover on the period of days or
weeks. A churn period of several months or more is unlikely to dramatically
harm repeat traffic. Certainly I have never stopped visiting a bar because my
preferred bartender left.

Furthermore, presumably if a repeat customer repeatedly gets poor service,
then that customer does not care about the quality of service. I get fucking
awful service from the coffee shop I usually spend my Saturday mornings in
(perhaps because I only take my coffee black, or perhaps because I refuse to
tip baristas...), but I don't care because I don't need frequent coffee
refills and I mostly like them for their decor.

tl;dr: If tipping _really is_ bad for business, then the business owners would
be fighting it. They're not stupid, knowing their customers and maintaining a
customer base is their _livelihood._

------
astrodust
The slight against "Canadians" is probably that the customary tip is 12% to
15% in Canada, and for whatever reason Americans tend to prefer 20% to 30% for
the same thing.

It's absurd that we have tipping at all. Why is this custom rampant in some
countries, and totally unknown in others?

~~~
mhurron
The article clearly laid out what they were talking about when they said
'Canadians.'

They meant black people (read racial slur here) are cheap and don't tip. They
didn't mean people from the Great White North.

~~~
sharkbot
Actually, the article specifically mentions Canadians as poor tippers:

"So now we have a restaurant industry where African-Americans are demeaned as
“Canadians”, in reference to another group which is considered by US servers
to be low tippers."

~~~
jlgreco
I expect that most people in the industry are probably unaware of how _actual_
Canadians tip. Frequently encountering Canadians is probably a pretty
geographically dependent thing.

~~~
hackula1
Can confirm from the south here. No idea about real Canadians but "Canadians"
pretty much never tip in my area. I was shocked when I first heard this, but I
have friends who have been in the industry for years and it seems to be nearly
universal. I asked a couple black friends about it once and they pretty much
said it was just a cultural thing and they were not taught to do it as kids.

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wkearney99
Bullshit, all around. If you want to pay your employees more then fine,
integrate that into your pricing structure. But do not try and play political
correctness games with your customers, because you'll lose.

Me, I tip based on services rendered. Do a perfunctory job and get around 7%.
Be reasonably attentive and get 10%. Treat me like you want me to come back
and get 15%. Screw things up and take too long to even bring me the check and
get nothing.

I could honestly not care at all what persuasion the waitstaff happens to be.
I'm looking for food service and that transcends pretty much all the rest of
the nonsense. Do that right and profit from it. Don't and, well, torment
someone else in your next line of work.

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youngtaff
Oh and what he proposes instead is a service charge - screw that I've paid for
my food, surely the cost of serving me is included in that?

The real problem is the low wages that waiters and waitresses get so they are
forced to rely on tips to live.

~~~
marssaxman
I think the service charge is a bridge idea. In the long run it'd be simpler
to pay servers reasonable wages and roll the price into the cost of the meal,
but that's a big step; in the short run it would be much easier to switch from
"optional, customer-calculated tip" to "mandatory, restaurant-calculated
service charge".

------
msluyter
If you haven't read the previous 5 articles in the series, I highly recommend
them. Fascinating and eye opening stuff.

------
koenigdavidmj
We have better ways of achieving social change that making the undesired
behaviour illegal.

------
fnbaptiste
It annoys me that I feel I have to tip. If I'm not ordering alcohol it's
pretty much certain I'm gonna get bad service, but I still have to tip. And
even if I decide to tip less because the bad service, I'm just furthering the
idea that people who aren't drinking will tip less. And it annoys me that no
matter how bad the service is there's still social pressure to tip the usual
or I'm a cheapskate.

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serverhorror
OT: Wtf "black customers" Kind of discriminating... (I get it's not about
black people but still keeps the mindset going where non-caucasian are thought
of as lesser persons)

Is that how american people phrase things? (On the bright side I now know that
my native language isn't alone having very deep rooted problems when you try
to be equally friendly -- its a lot easier to equally offend everyone...)

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squozzer
Having worked a little in the industry, tips should be abolished. Generally
people tip the same unless the service was terrible (not necessarily slowness,
but demeanor). For the most part, the amount of the tip is outside the
server's (or pizza delivery person's) control.

Pooling seems like a decent compromise, though as the author states, letting
the employer control the tip jar...

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DonGateley
Like so many things in an ideal world he's right. However you can't get there
from here. Far too many employers in tipping services discount the employees
pay to where the tips make the take home approach a living wage. Getting those
employers to increase the cost of their services to cover lost tips with extra
wages is not the least bit realistic.

------
aet
How can service members see the upside of any sales without tips? Bar has a
big night and does $20K? Sorry, here is your $20/hr instead of your $500 in
tips. Can any bartenders comment?

~~~
koffiezet
Because on a slow night, they will still get $20/hr...

I live in Europe and I always thought the tipping system in the USA is a bit
backward. Mind you - we DO tip over-here, there's just no unwritten X% rule,
and tipping is not mandatory. Service is always included and people are able
to live from what they are paid by their employer. I do tip depending on the
service (which sometimes means no tipping at all). Also in a lot of places,
all tips are collected centrally and then evenly split at the end of a night
without intervention from the employer (I worked in pubs as a student).

~~~
aet
The thing is, the establishment can't afford $20 on a slow night.

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btilly
I've always wondered. In what legal sense is a tip different from a bribe?

~~~
voidlogic
Are you serious? A bribe goes to a public official and is designed to
encourage the official to put _your interests_ above the _public 's interests_
(or more cynically, "realize" your interests happen to be aligned with the
public interest ;) ). Wheras; a tip is a reward for someone doing well at
serving you in regards to something they are already supposed to do for you-
and they are usually a private party.

~~~
btilly
Public officials are frequent recipients of bribes, but there are many classic
examples of bribes that went to other parties. For instance the Pakistan
cricket spot-fixing scandal of 2010 involved athletes taking bribes from
bookmakers to underperform.

In the case of tipping, it has been pointed out that a demonstrated
willingness to tip results in the server putting your interests above those of
the other customers in the restaurant. How is this any different than bribing
in effect?

~~~
voidlogic
>Public officials are frequent recipients of bribes, but there are many
classic examples of bribes that went to other parties. For instance the
Pakistan cricket spot-fixing scandal of 2010 involved athletes taking bribes
from bookmakers to underperform.

Yes this is the case, in majority of cases the word bribe only applies to
officials of public trust, which most of the time means government.

>In the case of tipping, it has been pointed out that a demonstrated
willingness to tip results in the server putting your interests above those of
the other customers in the restaurant. How is this any different than bribing
in effect?

What you are describing is a tip as opposed to a bribe above and is normal as
opposed to being a crime. The biggest distinguishers are:

1\. The is person already getting paid to do what you are paying them to 2\.
They are non-govermentment / public trust

If both are true, it is a tip, not a bribe.

------
bluedino
_Arguments for tipping:_

Reward hard-working waitstaff

Leave a large tip for a cute member of the waitstaff and get their phone #

 _Arguments against tipping:_

Kitchen staff isn't rewarded, front of the house is

Staff will be lazier and less attentive without tips

~~~
sukuriant
_Counter argument against the anti-tipping one:_

It is not uncommon for the night's tips to be shared amongst all of the
employees at the restaurant.

~~~
a_c_s
Counter argument: Waitstaff in Europe offer significantly poorer service than
those in the USA

~~~
signed0
Qualify what you mean by poorer service. Just because the service is different
doesn't mean that it's worse. I'd take a waitress that was curt and left after
I'd placed my order over one that asks me if I need anything every 10 minutes.

~~~
hackula1
10 minutes is perfect. I do not want to wait another half hour when I need my
check. <5 minutes though is extremely annoying.

