- cross-posted to:
- world@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- world@lemmy.world
Here is a crazy idea, Pay Workers A Livable Wage and price goods accordingly… that is the easiest step forward as I would be tempted to ask for more because profits are unpaid wages.
from the netherlands where this nonsense is starting to take root, i refuse to pay more than it said on the bill
i do not order or buy from places that dont include taxes in the price tag and report them whenever i come across them, i refuse to order from places that dont include the deposit on cans and bottles in the price tag, and i refuse to to tip people for just doing their job
ill tip if i messed something up, but i dont see any reason why i should pay someone extra for doing what their job requires them to do, especially since theyre at worst making the same minimum wage i am
Same in NZ. We have a high minimum wage and already pay pretty high prices for everything.
Some Eftpos/Credit card terminals will even ask if you want to tip when you make a payment. Such an awkward moment pressing “No” right in front of the person serving you.
Something I’ve noticed in the UK post Covid, is that take aways have a delivery charge and an option to tip the driver. Maybe I would have chucked him a few quid in cash when it was free delivery, but what’s the delivery cost for if not to pay their wages already?
Honestly I think the delivery cost is there because people are willing to pay it. Because they’d be “leaving money on the table” if they didn’t levy fees that people are willing to pay. I dont think the fee exists for any other reason.
I am so tired of it. Pay your god damn employees.
A solicitation for tip BEFORE any service is rendered is essentially blackmail.
“Hey, not for nothing, but sometimes pancakes can fall on the floor before they get into your to-go bag… I’m just saying… Anyways, here’s this tip screen, no pressure [holds eye contact]”
Said absolutely no service worker ever
Tipping is absolutely everywhere and it feels like a lot of these screens default to 20% or more. And the employees usually give you a look if you change it to below that or no tip at all.
A sit-down restaurant I understand for your server, but I still disagree with it and feel that they should just be paid a normal wage, not dependent on the tips. But I’m not going to tip for takeout 9/10 times.
Also how do we even know, as customers, if the tip is actually going to the employees?
I never tip with takeout. The only way to stop the cancer of tipping from spreading is to refuse to buy in to it. Pay your damn employees a living wage and then they don’t need tips!
No no, don’t feel bad about hitting that 0% button. I feel like this is a PSA but in the USA if you tip a minimum wage (untipped) employee, THEY WILL NOT GET YOUR TIP. Severs get paid on tips and a minimum wage (tipped) of about $2.50. Tipping a normal employee (on screens, not cash) will just mean that the employer has to pay them less wages. Seriously? Yes seriously. You can tip at subway, the only person getting that money is subway.
Strictly speaking, this isn’t true throughout the entire US. Wait staff in Washington, for example, get paid the full state minimum wage, and the minimum wage act explicitly requires that tips be paid to employees rather than retained by the restaurant. Of course, actual practice or compliance can differ, but there are a few states with better laws than the norm.
I appreciate the added details. As far as I’m aware, they aren’t keeping the tips. But it is legal to pay a tipped employee down to about $2/hr in every state. So most places like Sonic will reduce your pay when you get tips and you claim the tips (which you’re required to do wink wink). So rather than Sonic just paying their employees $10/hr at minimum wage, they’ll pay them $5/hr assuming $5 in tips. Saves the company money and the servers don’t make much more than normal minimum wage while the customer fronts their wages.
Isn’t that lovely?
I feel like how you’re describing it makes it sound more complicated than it is.
All employees are required to make minimum wage.
If your tips don’t take you over minimum wage, your employer has to pay the difference.So tips given before you get to minimum wage just reduce how much your boss needs to spend to make up the difference. Once you get there, your boss has to pay you at least some very small quantity and the tips increase your take-home
It’s a stupid system and exploitative, but it’s not as “wink wink nudge nudge” as you made it sound.
Thats fair but I don’t think this description is entirely accurate either. And I do think it’s a big scummy because minimum wage is already very low. So putting employees tips into their wages is just employers taking advantage. It’s legal, yes, but it’s bad for everyone except the employer.
not in every state. in Washington, my home state, there’s no such thing as a tipped wage and employers must pay all tips to employees. does this always happen? no, but it is illegal unlike what you’re claiming
This is only true for positions paid in tips. (Workers making below minimum wage like waiters/servers)
This is not true for people working jobs at or above minimum wage, like baristas at coffee shops. The vast majority of those places give their employees the tips on top of their wages. Most employees don’t put up with tips going to the owners and will let you know they don’t get it.
That’s the worrying part of this trend. The local coffee shop might still give their employees the tips. But the local chain fast food place? No. I’ve had subway workers tell me that directly. They said “don’t tip me, I don’t get any of it” and sonic employees will sometimes tell you the same.
I didn’t expect one of the things to carry over from reddit is the rabid anti tipping culture and abunch of people making up shit to justify their preferences.
I now have a job that gets tips, if someone doesn’t tip IDC, the overall tips are good and I don’t know the story of the person not tipping. When I give a funny look is when someone hits the no tip button and looks up at me like they’re waiting for some kind of response.
I don’t have time to care about your financial state, you all are just making up shit in your heads to justify shit to yourselves
Tipping isn’t prevalent here so your comment seems strange to me. I’d never tip unless service was above and beyond. The reason why is that I feel companies use tips to depress wages, and tipping culture puts pressure on customers and not the company.
I don’t see why you’re angry at people who choose not to give you money in a system that allows them to choose, when the system is clearly the issue.
I’m sorry, I misunderstood who I was responding to. I don’t get how to see the parent comments on this service.
I don’t care if someone tips or not. If you provide top tier service regardless of the tip amount, then the tips you get at the end of the pay period are quite good.
I’m upset and tired of the near conspiratorial tone and constant complaining about tipping. Would it be better if wages were better? Yes, but they are not, tip or don’t, that’s fine. Some people may get upset if someone doesn’t tip but I find it really unlikely that servers will even remember who you are by the end of the night much less hold or grudge or try and mess with anyone’s order over you not giving a couple bucks or so.
This seems like a weird take. Put another way, you’re withholding what you know to be fair compensation for services rendered as a form of protest against the company, but at the workers’ expense? Just trying to make sense of your perspective.
The fair compensation for the service is the actual price of the service I have to legally pay. How the worker gets compensated for their work is not my concern. The service worker is employed by the restaurant for example, not by me just wanting to eat a pizza.
Tipping is an optional reward for outstanding service, and american companies realised their employees could survive (probably) on tips so they don’t have to fairly compensate their employees. If you have to ask for optional donations from people just to survive you are just a beggar, the fair compensation for your work needs to come from your employer.
Hear hear. I’ll support any workforce if they unionise and fight for better pay. I won’t support them passively aggressively shaming customers for not wanting to pay more than the advertised price to top up wages they agreed to in their contact.
The way I see it is that the company is already withholding pay for this situation to even exist.
Americans are being led to believe tipping is the only way “unskilled” low paying work can exist. Yet these companies often make money hand over fist. They’d just make less money if they had to fairly pay their staff. But Americans seem to look down on the workers that do these roles, so companies get to exploit them.
If you’re salaried, imagine your boss randomly said to you “Sorry, I can only afford half your salary. But you can ask our clients if they could graciously donate a small percentage of what they’re paying for our services. Hopefully it makes up the difference.” You’d be furious! You wouldn’t agree to such a change. So why agree to it for food service workers?
Then the workers need to unionise and bargin with their employer to get a living wage. It shouldn’t be on the customer being guilted into topping that up.
Then the conversation isn’t relevant to you is it?
I guess not. Have a good day
You know lots of us on Reddit were anti tip as we come from countries without the “pay your stuff under minimum wage and let customers top it up volunterily” culture. In the UK, I don’t feel guilty about not giving a tip as I know the waiter, delivery driver, etc is being paid a living wage to begin with. I may leave a tip of I think the service or food is above anf beyond what’s expected, but it’s not for every meal. I’ve noticed a lot of food places have delivery costs now they didn’t have before Covid so I’m less likely to top those drivers.
It’s not just people being cheap. I encourage you to read this piece and think about the ideas in it:
I never said it was “just people being cheap” also that’s an article written by the business owner, who’s business went under a month before. He also tried that again in Oakland and that closed as well
do people really not tip then expect a reaction? that’s just fucking weird.
I ordered some stuff to get delivered from Walmart, and they wanted me to tip the delivery driver! Fuck that! I’m not going to tip for that. Pay the drivers a living wage! If they don’t get tips and don’t get paid enough, then these companies just wont have drivers anymore.
Yes because capitalists are known for running out of service-sector workers due to low wages. Also learning from labor shortages.
I just don’t get how not tipping workers is supposed to teach corporations a lesson. They’ll just churn through willing bodies all the same.
well, there are only so many willing bodies out there. If enough people don’t tip, then word spreads quickly and people don’t want the job…
I ordered food from a place with zero human interaction. I ordered from a tablet and picked up my food from the counter after receiving a text. I was still asked to tip. At that point, I didn’t even know what I was supposed to be tipping for.
I used to not tip for takeout (since I had thought there was not really “service”), but I’ve since learned that the packaging for take away can be rather involved. So, I do tip now for the labor of readying the meals to go
How do you know if your tip went to the person who did that labor though?
That makes sense, I just wish they included those costs in the price rather than making me guess how much I should pay, especially when it’s less clear who the receiver of the tips will be.
@wholemilk @Harold exactly! The tips should be the exception not the norm. I tip when the service, the quality or the experience was so good to me that I want reward the ppl o made it possible as complimentarily. An incentive to them keep doing an exceptional job. No job should be dependent of charity. That is subverting how a business should be run. Can’t accept it as a rule.
The problem I have with that is you have to tip before you even eat the food. They could have screwed up your order, burnt your food, etc., but you won’t know until after you’ve already tipped them.
And here I am, avoiding bars and restaurants just because I prefer to eat at home.
I appreciate the sentiment from most folks here that this culture is ridiculous and that we should not take part. I’ve been told the more effective way to eliminate tipping culture is to vote in elections and it was so astoundingly tone deaf. Another reason why I like it here!
I’m glad to have moved from a country where taxes and (high) expected tips are on top of the price, to a country where tax is included in the price and tips are usually not expected. It makes a surprising difference in affordability when you can actually buy a €5 item with €5.
As soon as companies started asking for tips at self check-out, it became obvious that it’s just a way of trying to underpay their staff and shift that responsibility on the customer.
Yeah, I actually stop going out for any restaurant or outing ever since the tip inflation went out of control. I just rather spend the money on a cooking class and cook things myself. I really encourage everyone else to do the same, you save a lot of money, and you can add whatever creativity you want to the meal.
Same here. For me it was the realization that what I thought was appropriate tipping – 15% – was actually an insult to servers. Thanks to the internet, I saw how servers retaliate against what they think is a bad tipper. I realized that proper tipping is subjective, and there was no way to be sure I wouldn’t be punished for something I did wrong unknowingly. So rather than risk it, I just decided to learn how to live without eating out.
Yeah, 15% was considered good in the '90s, but it’s been upped to 20% for a couple decades now.
The alternative is 0%, because i just won’t eat out anymore
Which means the longer that the minimum wage for tipping remains $2.13 for nearly half the United States - we’re probably going to see that social expectation rise to 25%.
Which honestly- sucks more for the workers than most of us who will be shifting to that level of tipping. Because it will be met with social resistance to wanting to pay more, and probably a period of actually less income for them.
It’s bonkers how much money you can save making food yourself by just planning meals based on what’s on sale this week. People don’t believe me, but chicken thighs/legs go on sale here every 3/4 weeks for 99 cents a pound. Week’s worth of meat for the equivalent price of a McD’s meal.
I don’t really eat meat. The thing that gets me are the vegetables. If I want anything fresh, it costs so much more than canned or frozen. Frozen/canned veggies are fine for some meals, but for others they can really taste a bit off. We just moved and I’m hoping there are some good farmer’s markets around where I live now with decent prices (the place I moved from were worse than the grocery store).
If you can, I highly recommends saving up for farm bot, while you might not be able to grow every food yourself, but you can grow quite a lot and those would be extremely fresh.
Goddamn that’s cool! I only wish it had a flamethrower attachment to ward off the squirrels that keep raiding my garden…
Lol, you could use electrified wire to shock the squirrel away (not to kill the little rodent, but enough that it’s deterred from raiding your plant.)
Related, but has anyone else noticed the “default” tip amounts (on registers and such) are higher now, too? In the past I would see 15-18-20% as kind of the standard options, and now I don’t seem to see anything lower than 20% on those preset options. I saw one the other day that had 35% as a default option.
Yeah, it’s ridiculous, but that’s why other -> 0% is always a valid option. I’ll tip if I’m paying after eating a meal or if someone delivered some food to me, otherwise miss me with that shit.
I forget if there’s a term for it but I think it’s intentional because it raises the expectations for what people think the minimum acceptable tip is.
You might be thinking of anchoring. Some restaurants have a couple of outrageously expensive wines on top of the menu for that reason - everything else looks cheaper in comparison, since the first thing you saw is “anchored” in your mind and used as a point of reference.
Is it price anchoring maybe? Seems like I knew the term for it and can’t remember it now, ha ha!
I made an online order for a restaurant a while ago, and there was a tip option with a message that said “100% of tips go toward supporting the restaurant.” First of all that’s a super vague statement, and secondly, that’s not what tips are for. Tips are for supporting the specific people who serve me, not for supporting the restaurant as a whole. Why would I want to leave a tip when I don’t even know where the money is going.
Went to a concert the other day and they were asking for tip on their $6 hot dogs. The options were 20% 25% and 30% and no option for custom lol.
I’m not tipping at a concert concession stand when stuff is already outrageously overpriced. GTFOH.
If you can’t afford to pay your employees a decent wage, you should raise your prices or you shouldn’t be in business.
There are a few places here in Seattle which have eliminated tipping, raised prices, and raised wages. I greatly prefer this, personally speaking. Add no, I’m not going to start tipping every random cashier just because they start prompting me to.
The problem is - restaurants in most parts of the states cannot reliably do that. They’re going to see a higher price and they’re probably walking out soon after. Or worse - they stay and leave a shit review because they set their expectations at a higher bar of food quality than was provided.
If we could unilaterally remove exemptions for tipped wages, I’d see the possibility of it becoming much more common.
Most restaurants in America as they exist now should not exist. We’re essentially all subsidizing low quality, frozen food.
So these people are willing to tip for naff food but not pay more to begin with?