

Why Tipping Should Be Outlawed - PanMan
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/food-for-men/why-tipping-should-be-illegal-15603180

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pedalpete
I've had many friends over the years who have worked in the service industry,
and I spent a few months as a bar-back earning tips as well.

The thing this article doesn't mention is how many servers feel about tips.

When I first started earning tips, I couldn't believe how much money I was
making for the amount of work I was doing. I always had cash in my pocket, and
lots of it, and I didn't make as much as servers or bartenders.

I left after only a few months, and have fond memories of the job and swimming
in cash as a 21 year old.

10 years on, I had a few friends who were still in the service industry, and
had moved up to white-table service in very posh restaurants. They all wanted
to get out, but had a common complaint. They wouldn't make as much as they did
as a server in any other profession that was available to them. The tips
became the handcuffs that kept them in a job that was no longer of interest to
them.

Since then, the percentage rate of tips has continued to increase, so I
imagine this problem is getting worse rather than better.

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bobroberts
Go to a restaurant or bar frequently and tip generously. You will be AMAZED at
he great service you receive. May not be worth much for a one time drop in,
but for somewhere you frequent it is well worth the cost.

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jared314
I've always thought that tipping was just a way for restaurants to lower both
the wages and the advertised price of a meal. I would rather have a service
fee, because, when you are not ordering a multi-course meal, I don't know what
the servers actually do.

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toastedzergling
As an American who eats out a lot, I have to admit I loved going to Iceland
where tipping is not expected whatsoever. Tipping feels like prostitution;
when cash is exchanged it's hard to believe you're getting authentic service.

~~~
smsm42
Wait, what? You mean service from my car mechanic, gardener, pool guy, garbage
collector, repairman, contractor, hairdresser, sports trainer, etc. - all
"unauthentic" because I pay money for it? Or it is only when serving food that
paying for it somehow becomes "unauthentic"? It is extremely weird notion that
paying for service is somehow not expected. Why do you think all these people
do it - out of deep and passionate love for you?

~~~
aaron695
A gardener cuts my lawn for money they are not payed to be nice.

If they are nice then I assume it's because they are nice, not because they
are doing it for money, since there's no direct obvious correlation.
(Especially if they don't own the business.)

Prostitutes are payed to be nice, that is their service so the nice bit is
"unauthentic". Just as the gardener might not be cutting my lawn for love,
it's probably just money, but the friendly conversation probably is real.

Once you start tipping the niceness is much more out there as possibly faked.

Simple statement to me.

~~~
smsm42
There is an obvious correlation - if I employ someone and he's not nice to me,
I'll fire him (or stop ordering his services) and hire somebody who is. Why
should I suffer for my own money? Of course, there could be cases where I have
no choice - like when I'm dealing with some sort of government monopoly like
telecom or water company - but even there people are usually nice and there
are ways to deal with it if they are not.

>>> Once you start tipping the niceness is much more out there as possibly
faked.

What you mean by "faked"? I don't want each of these people to become by best
friends forever or have deep emotional relationship with me. I don't date them
or plan to spend a romantic vacation with them. I want them to be polite,
courteous and helpful. How can it be "fake"? How you distinguish "fake" please
from "sincere" please and what that even means?

~~~
geon
You can be perfectly polite, corteous and helpful without being nice. That's
just being proffessional.

Being _nice_ is to stand around after the job for a chat.

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invalidOrTaken
People working as servers have very little market power. I don't know what the
macro solution is, but the micro "solution" is: don't be a server.

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unsignedint
I don't really mind tipping for a job well done, and I tend to be harsh for
those who are lousy. (That's what tip supposed to be after all.)

I have complaints to people who is working in the service industry (or have
worked in there, as part-time and whatnot) telling me that I should never
undertip them/leave without tip, even if the service is horrible, because
that's how "they are getting paid properly."

That's total BS, if "tipping" is an incentive for better service. And if they
feel undertipping/no tipping is bad because I am docking their pay, by all
mean, just include that in the price and refuse any type of tipping.

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smsm42
So the summary is "I don't like doing it the traditional way, other people do
like it and keep doing it, so I must force them to behave as I want by
applying the force of government coercion". But of course.

Oh, and of course no case for government coercion can be complete without
throwing racism and sexism into it. It's not enough to call police on people
that behave not to your liking, you have also to call them racists.

~~~
geon
And your opinion is "it should be done the way it has always been done"?

> other people do like it and keep doing it

Well, a lot of people seems to _not_ like it, but keeps doing it not to be
seen as an asshole.

> I must force them to behave as I want by applying the force of government
> coercion

That was how slavery was abolished... Is that really your best argument?

Imho, the arguments were very well motivated. Can you offer any counter
argument to the actual points in the actual article?

~~~
smsm42
My opinion is government has no place in choosing the exact arrangement of how
to pay servers (or anybody else for that matter), and should not enforce one
way at the expense of the other because some columnist doesn't like it.

>>>> That was how slavery was abolished.

No it's not. Slavery was abolished when the state refused to recognize that
human being can be owned by anybody and so nobody could make a person to work
for another person unvoluntarily. Since then, all employment is voluntary.
What the article asks for is to ban voluntary employment of some sort because
of some stupid ideas of this columnist about how everybody else should behave.

>>> Well, a lot of people seems to not like it, but keeps doing it not to be
seen as an asshole.

So to ask for the government coercion to force people to change the whole way
their business works - on the way probably putting a lot of people out of
business and out of work is not being asshole, but actually standing up for
what you believe in - is being asshole? Talk about perverted ethics... That's
like saying the only moral way of doing charity is if you hire a thug to mug
somebody and then donate the proceeds. Then again, that seems to actually be
very common opinion that charity can not be done without being coerced, so I
shouldn't be surprised.

>>> Can you offer any counter argument to the actual points in the actual
article?

I just did. I can do it again and very briefly: it absolutely does not matter
if you don't like how other people pay for their services and how other people
earn their money, and how they behave in general, provided these people are
happy with the arrangement. If you don't like tipping restaurant - open non-
tipping one and have the happiest servers in the universe and put all others
out of business. Or eat at the McDonalds - I have never seen anybody tipping
McDonalds cashier.

~~~
geon
>>>> That was how slavery was abolished. >>No it's not. Slavery was abolished
when the state (...)

It seems you misunderstood my point. Slavery was abolished when _the state_
declared it illegal. That kind of thing is what the state is for. If there is
a majority of support for "abolishing" tipping, that is where the state can
step in and enforce it. That is the point of democracy.

> So to ask for the government coercion to force people to change the whole
> way their business works - on the way probably putting a lot of people out
> of business and out of work is not being asshole (...)

This smells very much like the logical fallacies used by the copyright
industry. No business would have to go out of business and no costs would need
to change. It is simply about making the implicit explicit and to stop
pretending it is a gift. You yourself gave a great examples of how McDonalds
manages to run their restaurants without tipping.

>>> Can you offer any counter argument to the actual points in the actual
article? > I just did.

No you didn't? The article had very specific arguments. They are even nicely
numbered. Your "counter argument" is basically "I like it the way it is and no
one should tell me to change", backed up by a vague claim that people would
somehow lose jobs and business.

~~~
smsm42
I understood your point completely and I disagree completely. The point of the
democracy is not to enforce majority's views on the minority, at least if
we're talking about modern democracy. The point of the democracy is to protect
people's rights. Since you have no right to tell the restaurant how to pay
their servers, or to restaurant patrons if they should leave tips of not, no
democracy can or should give you this right, and it shouldn't matter how many
people agree with you - otherwise slavery would be OK as long as slave owners
are the majority. On the contrary, one has the right not to be enslaved (or,
made to work for other man involuntarily and without mutually agreed
compensation) - which makes slavery not OK. It is rather ironic that you
invoke slavery - i.e. work forced, ultimately, by government coercion - in
support of applying government coercion to mutually agreed trades between
people.

>>> No business would have to go out of business and no costs would need to
change.

Of course they would need to change - changing the structure of charges would
require changing all the prices, and as any price rise, perceived or real,
would cost business.

>>> You yourself gave a great examples of how McDonalds manages to run their
restaurants without tipping.

I don't go to McDonalds, but I go to other restaurants. So converting all
restaurants to McDonalds would cost them my business, that's kinda the point.
That'd the difference between our positions - I advocate that both models can
work for different people and different situations, and people should be
allowed to choose which one they prefer. You advocate that only one model is
right for everybody and all others should be banned by the threat of
government coercion, and nobody should be allowed to choose what you dislike.

>>> I like it the way it is and no one should tell me to change

It's called freedom. There was time it had some value in America. Now one has
to explain what's so valuable about it.

~~~
geon
> in support of applying government coercion to mutually agreed trades between
> people.

...But it isn't mutually agreed. It is enforced by social stigma. Very unfree
if you ask me.

> I don't go to McDonalds, but I go to other restaurants. So converting all
> restaurants to McDonalds would cost them my business, that's kinda the
> point.

Now you are just trolling. You seriously believe every restaurant would turn
into McDonalds by not accepting tips?

> It's called freedom.

No, it is called anarchy.

~~~
smsm42
Of course, free means you get to do what you like and everybody has to like it
and tell you so in polite yet colorful language. Otherwise it is not a true
freedom - true freedom can only be total absence of consequences for you
actions and complete subjugation of others to your wishes, right? If you do
something and somebody says its wrong, then is it "very unfree", right? In
true freedom, he'd be forbidden from doing this.

>>> You seriously believe every restaurant would turn into McDonalds by not
accepting tips?

No, I believe there is place for different things, even if I don't like some
of them. You, on the other hand, believe only things you like deserve to exist
and for some reason feel entitled to use government coercion to serve you.

------
michas
Why socialists always try to spend other's people money? Or tell them how they
should live their lives? America was once a free country...

