I hate tipping culture. When I lived in places without such a culture, it was a much more pleasant experience. I hate the cognitive load of looking at a menu price and then seeing a new price when tipping. And I hate the fact that tipping has become mostly decoupled from customer experience -- after all, there's not really much a waiter or taxi driver can do to make the eating/driving experience better. I just want the food or the ride in silence.
I don't mind tipping as a way of saying "Thank you!" for great service. What burns me is when I go to order food delivery from an app, and it's asking me to "pre-tip" for service I haven't even received yet. I've seen several Instagrams and TikToks where drivers leave customers' food get cold at a restaurant because they didn't like the tip they got through the app.
Yeah that is another thing. I do agree with the "thank you" part though, but in North America, there are indeed a few times where the tip was "strongly encouraged" even before the service!
And TBH, of the hundreds of times I've eaten ANYWHERE in North America, the service has been exactly the same: "here is your food. [later]. Are you enjoying your food. [later]. Did you like the food? Okay, where's the 15% tip?"
"When in Rome, do as the Romans do." This holds everywhere. (Well, with the exception of some places where locals have gotten used to tourists behaving differently.)
To travel some place and then complain about the local customs there is just a rude if a someone goes from France to the US as if someone goes from the US to France. If you don't like the local culture in some spot, just stop going there.
In many jobs in the US, the tips ARE the salary, and the customer is the employer just as much as the owner of the place is. And if you (as a customer) don't pay for the work in such a setting.
Now if the locals don't like this arrangement, they should work to change it. But when we are visiting, we should try to adapt.
> Now if the locals don't like this arrangement, they should work to change it. But when we are visiting, we should try to adapt.
Well, I was a local in North America for decades and was ALSO a local in Australia for a long time where there was no tipping. So there.
Besides, I disagree. I think complaining about culture is fine. Culture should not be above criticism. After all, if other people write their perspectives, both positive and negatives, then it makes it easier whether to know when to visit. I have no idea why human behaviour should be above criticism just because it's been shoehorned into the nebulous concept of culture.
A lot of people here in Europe, perhaps particularily so in France, do NOT think it's ok when American's on vacation overtly behave rudely and without respect. One attitude they tend to bring (that is more true in the US), is that "the customer is always right", and that the staff should just suck it up when they're being rude about it.
Such Americans simply do not grasp that the small family restaurant in rural France has people in it that are NOT driven primarly by short term profit or tips, but (compared to a similar place in the US) more about tradition, professional pride and simply having an enjoyable time at work.
The same is true many places in Asia.
My point is that this goes both ways. That 21-year old waitress in that Hell's Kitchen restaurant has a completly different life situation. She may struggling to pay for her University fee, not to mention rent, and does not intend to stay a waitress forever.
So when the German tourist is offended when she (having experienced Europeans before) makes a point of making a circle around the 18% recommended tip when handing him the check, it's for good reason.
Also, just because even the base price of that steak he just ate is already higher than it would be in Germany, costs in Manhattan are correspondingly higher, so that price barely covers the expenses BEFORE the waitress can receive any kind of salary.
So in your particular case, you're not like that German. You simply favor a slightly different political/economic system than what is currently in place in the US.
Also, chances are that you WOULD pay that tip without making a scene.
> Also, chances are that you WOULD pay that tip without making a scene.
Who said anything about making a scene? I was talking about complaining here, as it seemed to be implied by one of the GPs. I'm not a social dolt. If I think the price is too expensive, I simply don't visit the establishment in the first place.
I think the point of the culture criticism is different in this context. Namely, that tipping as a culture is wrong. It's a must to tip your waiter in the States because that's basically their daily wage. But it's not okay to have to do it, the culture of not paying people directly but offloading it to the conscience of the customer is stupid. So this is the critique part. What would a software developer do, if instead of getting a monthly pay, they would receive tips from satisfied customers only? Honestly, would anyone here still keep their job and like it?
That NYC waitress is likely to have met quite a few European tourists who either tipped much too little, or were visibly grumpy at the expectation that they should tip.
Also, plenty of software developers work as consultants on some kind of commission model where part or all of their salary is some percentage of what they're able charge their customer.
Perhaps the customer doesn't pay the invoice, perhaps they don't want to hire you at all. But if you do a good job and manage keep the customer happy, you're likely to make a better wage than in a similar position with a fixed salary.
All 50 states have a law to the effect that minimum wage is minimum wage, and if tips + tipped wage dies not reach it,b the restaurant must make up the difference. With that in mind, why are service staff singled out to receive tips? Why not warehouse workers or street sweepers? Their job is less pleasant. Include everything in the price like in most of Europe, and have the staff know in advance what they'll be paid, it makes the experience a lot less stressful for everyone.
> With that in mind, why are service staff singled out to receive tips?
Partly for historical reasons. But also because it is one of the types of jobs where this actually works. (Because customers can experience the result of the work directly and because the quality of the work is quite variable.)
Other professions have other ways to provide incentive based salary. Lawyers, MD's, consultants, musicians or tech workers all have ways to (at least in some positions) profit from their own work directly. Construction workers may have team based rewards based on meeting deadlines, etc.
Then there are a few professions where such rewards don't make sense, including those you bring up. These are generally jobs where the quality of the work is either not very variable, is hard to measure or does not connect to any revenue streams. For such jobs, fixed salaries are required.
Typically, though, for most professions, fixed salary models tend to provide lower AVERAGE salary payments for those who opt for fixed salary. The risk involved in variable pay tends to lead to a risk premium benefitting the worker. And it may ALSO benfefit the employers, which in turn over time will result in an increased demand for workers.
Europe has a model with less incentive based compensation. Europe also has (on average) about 2x the US unemployment rate and about 50% of the salaries in many growth sectors for those who DO have a job.
In return, Europe DOES manage to have a lower salary gap between the warehouse worker and the software developer, but not necessarily a higher salary (even by PPP) than the US for the warehouse worker.
> Partly for historical reasons. But also because it is one of the types of jobs where this actually works. (Because customers can experience the result of the work directly and because the quality of the work is quite variable.)
No, it does not work. Good service is not babysitting customers so that they are sure every minute that you’re there to justify your tips. Decent service is the baseline expectation when you go to a restaurant. I don’t tip my phone’s maker when it turns on, it’s stupid. The social aspects completely decouple the tip and the quality of service.
That's only in theory, though. Service in France is better than in the US because waiting is respectable and a profession, and tipping in the US is linked to the quality of service by no one I know - tipping less than the standard 15 or 20% is basically spitting in the waiter's face and few have the guts/meanness required.
> To travel some place and then complain about the local customs there is just a rude if a someone goes from France to the US as if someone goes from the US to France. If you don't like the local culture in some spot, just stop going there.
Nah. Moaning and complaining is a human right. What’s wrong is to expect the locals to care or change their ways for you. But it goes both ways. I tip when I am in the US because that’s how it’s done. I will never stop saying how stupid, inefficient and unfair to the staff that is. Or arguing vehemently against anything like that taking root here.
Yeah, I mean most of the time I don't really need any other service. What are these guys supposed to do - dance on the table? I just want to have the food and don't need anything else. I don't get the tipping culture, it's inconsistent (why only certain professions get tips?).
If you think there is nothing the waiter or driver can do to worsen/improve the situation just shows that you don’t have any experience working in such a job. There are dozens of tiny things I can do as a waiter to improve your experience without ever talking to you. If you are a tipping customer I know you appreciate these improvements.
I'm sure there are food outlets in your area who would like to hire wait staff with a will to succeed regardless of the customer's attitude and behaviour.
Better establishments might equal better pay and even some support from the company that's not been fought for by unions and lawyers; just common decency to the people who are the face of their business.
I may be imagining a utopian ideal there, but it never hurts to encourage someone, which was my intention in this post.
You definitely are. Most people need some kind of incentive to do their best. What those incentives are, vary wildly. In a family restaurant, the whole family may share in the pride of providing a great experience (and maybe get rewards from online reviews).
Tipping is simply ONE approach. Part of a tipping culture (when it works) is that tips is not something "extra", no more than smiling or saying "thank you, it was delicious" or any other way of showing appreciation during the social interaction involved in the transaction.
To not tip in such a setting (without good reason, such as bad service), is simply to behave in a rude uncultured (relative to the local culture) way.
Like drinking wine from the bottle and eating the steak with your hands in France.
Honestly, I’d rather be left alone unless I try to get your attention.
If anything, tipping culture seems to have made it so that uber drivers feel compelled to make small talk or a waiter feels compelled to keep interrupting us to make it clear they’re being attentive, which is making the experience worse not better (IMHO).
Tipping is an awful trap. Passing on the responsibility of fair wages should be outlawed. Passing on some inferred responsibility as a burden onto the customer is a loss for all parties. Normalising the behaviour only allows employers to perpetuate this myth that customer service workers are somehow entrapraneurial in they can make more based on their effort. How about just paying people fairly and not paying for poor performance? How does it make any sense to pass this responsibility on to the customer? All customer touch points should be handled by the limited entity.
Seeing a comment on there from the CEO of TiPJAR, which is a private company that provides a "tronc" service to allow allocation of tips at arms-length from the employer, services which are specifically called out in the statutory guidance, left a slightly bitter taste.
Companies are already finding work arounds including distributing tips to everyone in the organisation, but not equally. So you may end up just putting money in the bosses pocket like before.
Banning tips in the hospitality sector would be a bit like banning stock options or similar equity incentives in the tech sector (and startups in particular).
Having to replace such performance/luck based incentives with fixed salaries would make a lot of business unviable, and restrict growth and innovation.
Furthermore, the current workforce in places where such compensation is common will often have self selected for the kind of people who prefer this model (due to the potential upside, excitement, feeling of purpose, etc) over the safety of a fixed salary.
So banning tipping in such markets tend to have a similar reaction as would forcing such incentive models on markets where people are used to a fixed salary.
> Banning tips in the hospitality sector would be a bit like banning stock options or similar equity incentives in the tech sector
Not the tech sector or startups in particular, but I think that the incentive culture in general (e.g. stock options for management, bonuses in banking) has been very harmful and it would be great to get rid of it. It encourages short termism, and manipulating the numbers. Goodhart's/Campbell's law (not sure which is more accurate here).
Compensation models have pros and cons. I would argue that in countries where is is common (legally, not as corruption) tend to do better than those who don't. But it also leads to moral hazards.
> I could ban it, I would.
But THIS I really have a problem with. Outright banning practices you don't like is something I would see as an authoritarian streak.
Kind of like how authoritarian religious people want to ban gay sex or authoritarian capitalists want to ban labor unions.
Stock options is also a very American tech thing, and mainly provided by US tech companies in the EU.
Peformance bonuses paid by the employer when you reach targets set by them is somewhat common and could be used in hospitality too.
However, the majority of jobs do not have such performance incentives other than keeping your job if you keep up your end of the bargain, and possibly getting promoted to a higher role if you show certain skills.
I live in Europe, so I know. But the respect for such differences should go both ways. A system based on tips makes it easier to start a new place, and then find a few young people to help staff it.
Like many places in the US, or in popular vacation resorts even in Europe.
On the other hand, systems based on fixed salaries favors more established businesses (like McDonalds) or, at the opposite end of the spectrum, family run businesses where family member salaries are set more to minimize overall tax burden more than to compensate performance.
Just like French small/-ish restaurants may be an excellent solution in the French countryside, the US model can work well in Miami or some steakhouse on Route 66.
> A system based on tips makes it easier to start a new place, and then find a few young people to help staff it.
So this is to allow new businesses to start easy by not having to pay their employees if there isn't business? Imagine if other industries picked up on that, stopped paying living wages and instead made it every employees job to attract business and satisfy customers themselves in order to be able to pay rent.
Starting any business implies up front investments and a gamble on its future profitability. In any other industry, if you lacked the cash to pay salary you'd have to offer things like equity to share both risk and gain with the first few employees. Using tips mean you only share a high risk of them not being able to make a living off this new unproven business, without any benefit other than "if everything goes well and we're lucky, you'll be able to pay rent!".
If we wanted performance-driven salary, then a living base wage and a pre-agreed performance bonus with no concept of tip would be more appropriate.
Recently, there was a lot of focus on tips due to how Square/Cube/whatever has affected tipping, and it appears that the consensus in the US is not in favor of tipping.
> if you lacked the cash to pay salary you'd have to offer things like equity
Do you think the 18-year-old getting a job serving burgers and beers at the recently started sports bar cares about the equity? Most of them would much rather receive $200 in tips on a good night over POSSIBLY having some stake in that bar 10 years down the road.
(The one exception I can see, is if the business is owned by her parents.)
An equity as a model is suited to another type of demographic working in a different kind of business.
And American tech companies have been substantially more successful that European tech companies so maybe it does actually make sense to have stock options as part of compensation rather than employer bonuses?
That feels a lot more like correlation than causation.
What you could argue is that because these companies are so successful, they can now offer disproportionately large compensation packages including stock options which draw talent from the rest of the world to keep them large. This in turn fuels the startup economy as investors dream of having a big share of the next big thing.
I don't think it makes sense as a justification for why these companies grew so big and attracted so much money, causing a gap in startup environments. It would at most explain why they stay so big.
American economic success is not due to old companies staying big. It's due to the immense rate that some startups tend to grow.
From the 100 most valuable companies on Earth, there are maybe 20-30 US (rough guess) tech companies that have been started in the the past 40 years, and several of them in the past 20.
And approximately 0 European ones.
And while this isn't PROOF of causation, it surely increases the posterior probability of causation, regarles of what your prior was before adding this evidence.
I think you’ve debated your own argument here. Maybe waiting staff should get stock options / performance incentives. Compelled tipping doesn’t encourage good performance when it’s taken for granted, it just becomes an extra tax.
While I agree that tipping isn't really tipping if it is compelled, it's not tax either. No more so than any other cost slapped onto a price that goes to the owners or employees of a company.
Taxes are those costs that are slapped on the price to cover payments to the government.
And yet when I went to Germany, China and Japan service staff did their jobs with a sense of pride and didn't chase for tips. In many places in Asia I've had tips outright refused.
And yet the tiny check in lady in Tokyo airport came from behind her desk to lift my suitcase onto the scales.
@junaru have you worked in the service industry?
Are you suggesting that people who work in areas where tips are common should just be paid more by their employers?
100% Agree that people should just be paid more.
But it's not that simple ...
Raising wages has an inflationary effect on the prices in the restaurants/bars.
And the people who suffer from inflation are the minimum wage earners who spend proportionally more of their disposable income on essentials like groceries.
I worked as a waiter/bartender for 3 years in college and the wages were terrible!
But I always made an effort and customers gave me tips.
Saved those tips to buy my first iMac which I used to learn higher-paying skills.
Having been a service industry worker and now in a different income bracket I always tip for good service. Without tips many people in the service sector could not get by.
> Without tips many people in the service sector could not get by.
I don't think that's necessarily true. In Japan tipping is a faux pas, and in fact restaurants will often return or refuse to accept them, yet the service sector is massive and the quality of service tends to be extraordinary. Much of Europe is similar, especially in eastern and southern parts. In China tipping is just not done...
How is it that they all get by, but the US service sector can't?
Indeed, people working in services in Japan people are paid significantly better than in the US/UK so tips aren't required. Also the culture is totally different and I prefer it that way too.
At worst, it's comparable. You could make a complicated argument that costs of living in Japan are lower so on pseudo-PPP terms they're paid better, but this is by no means clear.
> Japan as an example for this is like a red herring. The US/UK is not Japan. Just lookup "Cheating culture in Japan"
The red herring is raising totally unrelated behavior from a Reddit post.
In truth, most of Asia's tipping culture is much like Japan's. China's 1.4B denizens don't tip. I'm in Croatia and nobody tips here, either. It's only expected of tourists.
How is it going to have an inflationary effect when workers are already making that money? I don't really see how increasing menu prices or adding an automatic 12%-15% on the bill to avoid playing games afterwards with the receipt is a bad thing.
If costs rise, prices have to rise to maintain margins. Textbook definition of Inflation.
If there's 15-20% (discretionary) added to the bill, it's not perceived as the price but rather as a "thank you" for taking care of us during our experience.
Again, I don't like this system; and would welcome a viable alternative!
> Raising wages has an inflationary effect on the prices in the restaurants/bars. And the people who suffer from inflation are the minimum wage earners who spend proportionally more of their disposable income on essentials like groceries.
I don't understand why you are conflating inflation of sit-down restaurant and bar prices (which doesn't affect poor people) and inflation of grocery prices (which does). You don't tip at checkout at a grocery store or a liquor store.
>Raising wages has an inflationary effect on the prices in the restaurants/bars
That implies consumers spend differently if they know the actual cost ahead of time, otherwise service inclusive pricing would make no difference. ie the whole industry is exploiting anchoring effects.
Removing anchoring effects would make restaurant businesses less profitable, and consequently the properties that host them less valuable, so lower rents.
There are clear incentives for pushing an inflation narrative.
How are tips immune from the inflationary effect you’re describing?
If a government mandates a higher wage or if 90% of a society voluntarily contributes tips, the effect is the same.
At the end of the day, the customer is likely paying an increased amount for a service being rendered. Except a mandatory wage increase may have the business reduce their margins while a tip puts the pressure directly on patrons.
I did tipped service work. It’s time to discourage general adoption.
The problem with laws like these is similar as increasing taxes on corporations, or mandating higher wages by fiat. The implicit assumption is that money is moved from the (presumably rich) owners to workers, but economically it's determined by relative price elasticities: if customers' or workers' elasticities are low, the increased costs to the owner can be largely passed through in the form of higher prices and/or lower base wages.
When people tip, they intend that the money received is kept by those they give it to, or at most, shared with the part of the staff actually providing the experience (such as the chef of a restaurant).
If a customer provides tip with the intention that it sould go the the waiter or at least the on-duty local staff, but the tip is taken by upper management or the corporation, I see that as deceitful communication, bordering on fraud.
I would support a law where the default is that tips are kept by the person receiving the payment and that any tip sharing model in any business is voluntary for ANY employee, and where ANY employee should be free at any time to withdraw from such tip sharing.
Basically, this would be a return to the cash based model, where tips were handed over physically to the waiter as a personal transaction between the customer and that individual.
If this means more tips for waiters and less for chefs, then either compensate through base pay or provide a way for the customers to explicitly ask that the tip should be shared with the kitchen staff.
it's kinda like a private tax or lottery if you squint so yeh I could see outlawing it yeh.
you don't tip firemen or policemen. well if you do the latter it's got a different name.
and unless you tip up-front it's not for good service.
"The practice of tipping began in Tudor England. In medieval times, tipping was a master-serf custom wherein a servant would receive extra money for having performed superbly well. By the 17th century, it was expected that overnight guests to private homes would provide sums of money, known as vails, to the host's servants. Soon afterwards, customers began tipping in London coffeehouses and other commercial establishments".
Tipping in the UK at restaurants has been a thing for a long time.
However it’s normally included in the bill as service charge so you just pay the bill and don’t have to decide how much to leave yourself. In London it’s usually 12.5%.
You are allowed to ask them to remove service charge from the bill but it’s an uncommon thing to ask.
I just treat the service charge as part of the price (when deciding where to eat or what to order) and would only not pay if it was really awful (not happened yet) but I will tip a bit extra if service is really good.
I lived off tips for years and those who say they should just be abolished don’t know anything about working in gastro/service - please check who takes care of your food and tip them or they will be replaced by a worse version soon.
I've never worked in food service. I did however do plenty of minimum wage retail type jobs and only occasionally got a tip, often for lifting something heavy for an older customer. Why is food service any different?
There are small number of places that have signs that state all tips are distributed equally amongst the staff -- I completely agree with this approach.
Where I worked we would split tips with back of the house, also with cooks, dishwasher - vivid not with mgmt lmao - maybe you had a different experience? Or are you just assuming things you know little about?
> Or are you just assuming things you know little about?
No, I've personally worked multiple food service jobs where I didn't get tips.
You're the one just assuming things you know little about, because I did all my food service jobs in New York, which prohibits back of staff from being included in tip pools, by law.
I also worked at places that didn’t include the team in tips or had no tips at all - usually they also had a very toxic workplace in other areas unrelated to tipping
If that was an option sure - but the trend is more going towards no tips and fuck all to the worker - but hey HN seems to have it pretty good, so keep the downvotes coming
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