North American Tipping Culture vs the Rest of the World

[Finger Cookin]

Originally Posted by Bleeding Red

Ageism.


What if that young person is an older person (40+).
What id that person is wearing a wedding ring or not?
What if that person is heavier or has smaller "attributes"?
What if that person isn't working hard enough to your liking based on your scale??


Judgment calls all. And not necessarily nice.

Yeah I definitely wouldn't tip you.

[troutman]

Originally Posted by Bleeding Red

Ageism.


What if that young person is an older person (40+).
What id that person is wearing a wedding ring or not?
What if that person is heavier or has smaller "attributes"?
What if that person isn't working hard enough to your liking based on your scale??


Judgment calls all. And not necessarily nice.

It is usually young people, but I tip everyone that is making close to minimum wage.

[troutman]

Originally Posted by Bill Bumface

This is exactly the attitude that has us in this place.

1. A wage is the hourly rate they are paid for showing up and working. Tips are supposed to be an added bonus for doing a great job. We've normalized that they are expected.

2. Someone pulling me a drip coffee out of a carafe isn't a server. They can take their 20% prompt and collectively shove it. 10% is better than the 0 that should be expected for that job.

I’m not tipping necessarily for the service provided. Just trying to help a student, or single mom, immigrant, or person down on their luck.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Bill Bumface

This is exactly the attitude that has us in this place.

1. A wage is the hourly rate they are paid for showing up and working. Tips are supposed to be an added bonus for doing a great job. We've normalized that they are expected.

2. Someone pulling me a drip coffee out of a carafe isn't a server. They can take their 20% prompt and collectively shove it. 10% is better than the 0 that should be expected for that job.

You’re encouraging the tipping behaviour by varying your tip based on arbitrary behaviour. If all people behaved like you you would be tipping more every time.


Decide where and how much you tip and quit thinking about it. That ends the whole discussion. There is no need for this weird game you are creating to give your self a little power depending on how someone behaves.

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by GGG

There is no need for this weird game you are creating to give your self a little power depending on how someone behaves.

Sure there is. This is exactly how a free market works.

Places with stupid tip prompts get less of my business and less $ per transaction. If everyone acted like me (amazingly) the market would force these places to knock it off.

Conversely, establishments and employees that respect the fact I may not be Daddy Warbucks capable of inflating all of my purchases by an arbitrary 30% will now see more market share, and more $ per transaction. This will hopefully fuel expansion by the "good guys" and imitation from the poor actors in their space.

Problem solved. Thanks to my "weird game". You're welcome

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by troutman

I’m not tipping necessarily for the service provided. Just trying to help a student, or single mom, immigrant, or person down on their luck.

Same, but begrudgingly. I hate that it allows the condition of un-livable hourly wages to persist.

There is no way in hell I'd be tipping at all when buying a cookie from a bakery if the world wasn't broken.

[cheevers]

All I want is there to be legislation that says any establishment that asks for tips has to say how the tips are distributed at the till. If I'm buying food from a place and it goes to the employees then great. If it's some fast food chain where the owners pocket it, those bastards can walk in front of a bus.

[Ryan Coke]

Originally Posted by troutman

I’m not tipping necessarily for the service provided. Just trying to help a student, or single mom, immigrant, or person down on their luck.

So what about non tipping jobs? People who work hard but don’t have a machine with a tip prompt? The person checking you out at wal-mart, the guy selling you shoes at sport chek, the ramp workers at the airport…the list goes on. Why does someone handing you a coffee or beer deserves the extra that lots of other jobs don’t get? How about they all do the job for the pay offered, and not rely on a selective system where some of them get extra arbitrarily. Do you feel like it makes you a better person giving a few people extra, but not others that a societal ritual has deemed aren’t worthy?

How do restaurant workers in Europe and Japan and many other places survive?

[topfiverecords]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

You clearly think about tipping far more than just when you’re active in this thread.

There’s no reason to get offended by the comment. I couldn’t tell you what range of numbers the last 20 tipping prompts, or which places had prompts that were deserving vs not deserving. I don’t read anything into it. A place that has 15, 18, 20% options vs a place that has 20, 25, 30% options are viewed no differently to me and I have trouble imagining why they would be. We’re just different folks.

Just because I tip 20% and don’t feel the need to pinch pennies around it doesn’t mean you should feel bad about 12% or need to justify it. I just don’t really care to math it out and make a dining experience an evaluation of someone’s performance. A flat 20 solves the “just make it part of the cost” issue because I know everything is just 20% more than what it says.

I get it though. My partner always asks me what to tip. They put thought into it literally every single time that machine is in their hands. I just think it’s silly.

Thanks for letting us know in 800 characters what you don't care about.

[topfiverecords]

Originally Posted by Bill Bumface

This is exactly the attitude that has us in this place.

1. A wage is the hourly rate they are paid for showing up and working. Tips are supposed to be an added bonus for doing a great job. We've normalized that they are expected.

2. Someone pulling me a drip coffee out of a carafe isn't a server. They can take their 20% prompt and collectively shove it. 10% is better than the 0 that should be expected for that job.

If you look at this in reverse, it's actually the defined case for why tipping should be abolished.

Scenario A
- Greeted you
- Engaged with you to determine what you wanted from the establishment
- Brought you what you requested
- Took payment

Scenario B
- Greeted you
- Engaged with you to determine what you wanted from the establishment
- Brought you what you requested
- Took payment

Scenario A, person prepared what you requested. Scenario B, someone else prepared what you requested and they carried it to you. In one scenario you're seated at a table. In the other scenario you're at a counter five feet from where you seat yourself. One deserves a tip, probably 20%. The other deserves nothing.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by topfiverecords

Thanks for letting us know in 800 characters what you don't care about.

It was actually a little over 1000, and I definitely care about tipping. If I didn’t I don’t know why I would tip.

[malcolmk14]

If I stand at a counter to order or pick food up and go, I don't tip.

Otherwise I tip 20%.

[chedder]

Originally Posted by troutman

I like tipping. Young people working hard that can use a few bucks more than me.

My whole issue with this thought is why does the young person schlepping beer and food deserve more than the young person stocking shelves, working behind a counter, cleaning floors etc. Are they not working hard? There's no way the server is working that much harder to deserve double or triple the pay of any other low skilled job.

[Engine09]

Originally Posted by malcolmk14

If I stand at a counter to order or pick food up and go, I don't tip.

Otherwise I tip 20%.

I was on 17th to grab some food last week, walked to the counter and placed my order, pulled out my card to pay and the minimum tip was 22%. That worked out to a $7.10 tip, not doing that again.

[topfiverecords]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

It was actually a little over 1000, and I definitely care about tipping. If I didn’t I don’t know why I would tip.

I excluded spaces to make you feel less bad about the number.

[TorqueDog]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

You clearly think about tipping far more than just when you’re active in this thread.

There’s no reason to get offended by the comment. I couldn’t tell you what range of numbers the last 20 tipping prompts, or which places had prompts that were deserving vs not deserving. I don’t read anything into it. A place that has 15, 18, 20% options vs a place that has 20, 25, 30% options are viewed no differently to me and I have trouble imagining why they would be. We’re just different folks.

Just because I tip 20% and don’t feel the need to pinch pennies around it doesn’t mean you should feel bad about 12% or need to justify it. I just don’t really care to math it out and make a dining experience an evaluation of someone’s performance. A flat 20 solves the “just make it part of the cost” issue because I know everything is just 20% more than what it says.

I get it though. My partner always asks me what to tip. They put thought into it literally every single time that machine is in their hands. I just think it’s silly.

I'm not at all offended at what was kind of a ridiculous throwaway thing to say in a thread dedicated to the subject, it is what it is.

It's not one of those things you consciously dedicate much time to thinking about in any one lump of time except when one finds themselves in a thread like this. It was a really slow series of realizations every time a PIN pad was presented to me, while at the same time noticing my bills for my favourite restaurants started to get significantly higher for the exact same meal I'd been having before.

Then one day, the PIN pad prompts for a tip and literally all of the values are more than what would be reasonable for the level of service you just received, your muscle memory goes "duhhhhh wut" and you actually have to think about what you're gonna put in.

Again, when I'm spending hundreds of dollars, they're not starving on 15%-18%.

[Harry Lime]

If you are having a meal (food and a drink for one person usually ends up on the 25 to 30 range before tax) that costs around 60 to 70 dollars, I have trouble tipping 14, which would amount to a small main on the menu. I'm not sure if I should be obligated to buy the server a meal.

[fotze2]

My conflict between wanting to not waste money and being good person. Why I give a ruck what a stranger thinks of me is confounding.

[Amethyst]

It used to be you tipped 10% at a restaurant and 15% was generous. Now 15% is less than the lowest option at most places. The cost has gone up over the years, so the percentage-based tip would also increase. But now the percentage has also increased.

Everyone (except troutman apparently) would rather not have the hassle, but it's like banning smoking. No business is going to be the first to eliminate tips, because they're afraid to lose business if their prices "look" more expensive.

As the amount of tips has increased, I've started selecting "no tip" more and more. Now it's really just for sit-down dinners and deliveries/ ride share (because I feel like if you don't, no one will accept your request).

And as a former young person, who used to work minimum wage jobs where there were no tips, I don't feel like young people who work at restaurants / bars deserve special treatment that all the others don't get.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Thing is, it's rare that I actually get bad service nowadays. I've been eating out a bit more the last week and a half for YYCEXP, and the quality of those meals has varied, but essentially I end up with the following scenarios:

1. Meal is great and service is good (e.g. Love Damian). I'm tipping 20% and that's fine.
2. Service is good, but meal isn't great (e.g. Ibu on 14th st). I am still tipping 15% or 18%, because it's not the server's fault their menu wasn't up to standard.
3. Service is good but the kitchen is slow and the meal isn't great (e.g. Wilde on 27). Again, it's not the server's fault, so I'm probably still tipping the same as I would be otherwise.

The problem here is that in scenario 2 or 3, I'm still paying at least 40 and more often 50 bucks per person, and I didn't feel like I got good value for my money. Yet I'm getting even worse value because I don't feel like I'm going to express that in my tip, because it wasn't the thing I'm tipping for that caused me to feel less than happy with the experience.