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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.
> "pre-tip" for service I haven't even received yet
"pre-tip" is particularly insane because it comes across as "don't spit on my food" extortion.
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?"
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.
Why not do the best job you can all the time?
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.
Same, the cognitive load and worries about making an error is just not worth it. Why we decided this is a good model is beyond me.
While I agree with the general point, there is often quite a lot waiter or taxi driver can do to make the eating/driving experience better.
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.
Here's the government's press release: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/millions-to-take-home-mor...
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.
Tips should not exist.
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).
I could ban it, I would.
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.
The hospitality sector does not have to differ.
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.
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?
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.
Does it really make sense that 20% of the entire turnover of business shouldn't go through the business?
Is good service only available to those who tip?
Why are there so many hidden costs in American pricing? Why can't everything be upfront and honest and transparent?
Whose responsibility is the welfare of the staff?
Why do only waitstaff get the tips when the less-visible staff also contribute to good service?
> 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.
Seems sensible. Just really hope the US tip for everything insanity doesn’t arrive on these shores.
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.
If you actually want to tip for a better job well done some kind of service escrow would make way more sense.
Instead of tipping perhaps there should be a feedback mechanism.
Tips should be abolished.
You want to make it illegal to give people money for good service? Or do you mean it shouldn’t be allowed to ask for it?
Yes, it is bribery. Treat it as such, jail both the giver and receiver.
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.
Tipping in the UK? Since when?
I mean, I know they're keen on imitating the US eversince they lost their empire...
"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.
Gratuity charges are what they mean. Parties over a certain size have them added, or it’s sometimes offered on the payment terminals.
Always a fixed percentage of the bill.
It's extremely common for there to be a (not really) optional service charge included where there is table service.
Since the Tudors, before the US as we know it.
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.
That’s not a good argument, your problem should be with your employer not your customer paying what they were quoted.
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?
I also lived off tips for many years and would rather see the system abolished - and have been paid a livable wage instead.
Care to explain further? You are just saying the rest of us do not know, but not explaining what we do not know.