- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
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Everyone hates tipping, but this won’t affect US tipping culture at all. Paying staff almost nothing and making them depend on tips is allowed by US law. As long as that doesnt change, businesses will always pay their staff as little as they can get away with.
Businesses here are not nice. If a waiter can’t make rent, then its time to fire them and hire another waiter. Which they can do because most states have at will employment. So you can fire anyone at any time, for any reason. No notice needed, and you dont have to pay them any compensation.
This is why its always interesting when people (especially from europe) think that not paying tips is going to cause some kind of transformation. We are a corporate country. If you dont go after the business owners, there will be no change.
Keller said he’s changed the system so customers with reservations have to pre-pay for drinks, including a service charge. “It’s just to protect our staff,”
So, customers not paying tips is forcing the business to pay a living wage, as well as incorporate wages into the price model of products rather than leave it as a hidden morality tax?
Oh, The horror. /s
They won’t pay a living wage. That is just wishful thinking. They will just replace staff that quit, and continue to pay them nothing.
No? They are just going to mandatory tips that are included in the check.
I find the forced tip is better than the emotional extortion at the payment terminal… it ends up being the same price
And if it’s a forced tip, just take the next logical and include the service in the price of the item… and if service really isnt included in the production of the food, just let me pick it up from the kitchen myself. No need to pay $5 just to walk 20m with a plate.
Finally, the next logical step, include any taxes in the menu price and make round numbers… $10, $15, $18, etc… final bill $55… this is what they do in most of europe
I hate looking at bills that have numbers seemingly generated by RNG… $54.97 for a meal, wtf… just make it $55
There’s no fucking way the boh would just be ok with customers “just picking up their food from the kitchen” that’sa joke, right? Those people WILL spit in your food if you so much as look at them funny back there.
You think tipping servers is so bad? Deal with the head chef looking at your stupid gaping maw in the middle of dinner service. You’ll beg to tip a server.
Lol these people have no clue how many drugs the BOH is on at all times, half of them have prison records, you’ll hear at least one slur, and might get hit on by the dish, it’s lawless. There’s a reason most of them can’t get a corporate job lol.
Yeah, obviously i dont think customers should be in the kitchen…
Thats why it makes no sense for “carrying food from the kitchen” to be an optional service charge… it’s a MANDATORY part of the product you are selling… so make it part of the price…
Sounds like a good “problem” to me. Fuck tipping. It all originated from slavery also.
It really obscures costs to the consumer who is required to do math every time. A $20 meal plus tax plus tip lol. So stupid. Just post the price for the thing and be done with it.
I find service charges pretty horrifying. I would like the number on the menu to be the number that I actually pay when I cash out, and service charges don’t do that.
I’ve lived in the US for decades and I would like this too. The whole tip culture here is stupid. Just include a gratuity for the staff by default. Or better still, pay them a living wage like most other countries.
Yeah, it’s dumb. One of the many things we do differently than the whole rest of the world in service to the civic religion of capitalism.
It’s worse than that. It comes from racism and slavery. When you started having folks freed up from slavery who were doing jobs like being a waiter, Rich folk set the system up under the guise of saying good service gets good tips, but really it allowed them not to pay them. And so they had to work really hard for whatever tips they could get.
And that basically continues today. The system is absolutely bullshit.
Well, the US are the only country i know of that shifts the responsibility of making sure employees can have a home and food from the employer to the costumer. In central Europe, we tip when the service was excellent, but not by default, and only when being waited at a table.
THIS. I enjoy tipping for good service, when it’s above-and-beyond. But a living wage shouldn’t depend on a surprise tax levied 100% of the time. I worked as a waiter and I was pretty good. I enjoyed the tips I earned, but I worked in a country where the wage for a waiter was the same as a cook, and tips were excellent gravy for me and the BoH heroes who made me look good.
I live in Central Europe too but I have almost the opposite experience. The way I see it is that tipping culture is way worse in the US but we were always bad here aswell and we’re inching towards them every year. Honestly I also doubt that service industry people are not getting fucked almost everywhere in Europe.
The price on the menu isn’t anywhere near the bill the expect you to pay at the end.
Bill = menu-price + taxes + 20% tip
(where 20% is just a rough average)
North americans are so stupid that some restautants tried in canada and the US to simplify things
menu-price = food + taxes + 20% tip
Final bill ends up being the same price as before but people saw bigger number and freaked out…
They’d rather be lied to by the menu price and then scammed for tips at the very end rather than have clear and transparent pricing…
I dont want to live on this planet anymore
Taxes not included is insane.
Should be the employer paying their employee for doing their job, not the customer
America is a broken country that rewards the rich few and has no empathy for the rest
This is just one symptom of that
Exactly. Also just write the price you got to pay, including tax, service, the whole. Just the full price!
(Either that, or I wanna see a full break-up of the costs /s … how much the farmer charges, transport, wholesale, sellers cost & profit, taxes … everything)
…but that doesn’t make it “confusing”. I’m not sure why any adult would find +20% confusing. Is it fair? That’s a different question.
Most of the rest of the world expects that if you have 10 money, and see something that is advertised as costing 10 money, you can buy it.
Right and here in America we don’t piss on the streets as a matter of culture and toss trash out the window. Like a lot of the world. So, it’s bit like “the rest of the world” isnt a good metric.
But “the rest of the world” has good metric
The US is known for the clean city streets and good access to free public toilets, after all.
I learned this at a kid in the US. This fast food place had cookies labeled "99¢!” so said “mom can I have a dollar for a cookie?” and she gave me one, as a treat. I hope to the register and the girl says “ok it’s actually $1.06”.
I don’t think I got the cookie that day. I don’t remember it, but if I did it was soured by capitalism.
The American bait n switch
Yes, it’s confusing to say something costs $X then charge the customer $X+$Y.
Almost like it’s deceptive.
That’s literally the reason given in the article why it’s confusing. It didn’t even have to exist if the employer paid the employee as I wrote above. The existence of the expensive tipping itself is confusing.
It’s not though. American employers don’t want to pay a living wage, therefore a 20%tax is issued to the diner. That’s not confusing and can be summed up in one sentence. If the idea is make other nations seem like idiots then… ok, I guess but it’s not “confusing”. Oh nooooo, in England I have to pay a tax on television? I’m so stupid and confused.
Why is it 20 now, it used to be 15?
It’s been 20 since before I was a server and that was 25 years ago. Fucking cave dwellers.
I’m an American. I was born here. I’m used to the taxes and the tipping and all of that stuff.
I don’t find it confusing, sure. But I’m also used to it.
But as an analogy, imagine that the posted speed limit wasn’t the actual speed limit. Well, in fact, it sort of works like that because you can usually but not always go 5 to 10 mph over.
But let’s say that it was a little confusing. That it was more like 20%. Or it depended on some sort of. I don’t know how to make this analogy work, but maybe sometimes it was 20%, sometimes it was 25%, sometimes it was 15%. The point is that having to calculate that all of a sudden when you never have before is difficult and a pain in the ass.
And if you come from a country with a speed limit, is the speed limit or it’s like always like five over would be safe or something like that. This percent thing is bullshit to you because you’ve never had to deal with this stupidity before. Doesn’t matter that the natives have no worries about it, this is weird and different and bullshit and there’s no good reason for it.
Not the greatest analogy, but if you try and use it to you know get an idea of how they feel about it. I hope it helps a little bit
…but that doesn’t make it “confusing”. I’m not sure why any adult would find +20% confusing.
We can do the math for sure, but we are not interested in the break-down of the costs. Just tell us the final price, that’s all that matters. We are used to be presented with the price we are gonna have to pay. Not some math at the end of the meal figuring out what the local tax rate is, guessing the expected tip of 15%-40% not based on actual service but … just the waiter’s expectations (or more frequently the waiter’s demand)
Not based on actual service but based on social mores and one’s ability to cold read the waiter?
Sounds like just what I need when all the blood has just gone from my brain to my belly
These days I’ve seen people trying to push 30% to 40% as the minimum tip. Either that or they sneak it in with service charges or gratuity fees with a suggestion of a 25% tip on top.
Yeah the combo of tips + taxes is enough to throw any european off. 13% where I am, so mentally disregarding the final price presented and then adding 33% on top of that is a huge difference than paying the number the items added up to on the receipt, and then tipping if the service was excellent.
I think State taxes are lower than my provincial tax generally, but its a big shoft mentally. You have to fundamentally accept and financially reward a system that considers underpaying its employees completely normal and actively resists improvements for those employees.
i do not tip the tax.
Hold on. Is there no tax on the tip?
As of last year, for the most common scenarios, yes, up to $25,000. https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/personal-finance/no-tax-on-tips
Well that explains why it’s so prevalent
Whats prevalent? Tips have been included in everything since covid.
Tipping is prevalent.
Only as of the bill last year the president passed, but that no tax on tips, a campaign pledge, is temporary and will expire. I think after this year.
Only if the server reports it as income (in Canada, at least).
Almost all tips are by credit card now in the US so most all of them you can’t underreport for taxes anymore.
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FFS, it’s called a price for a reason.
If it were up to me I would turn the fucker around. Maximum listed on the menu, and if the customer behaved like an actual human being instead of an entitled prick, their final bill would be reduced by up to 20%.
Don’t worry American citizens are also confused by the expensive tipping culture in the US. I still maintain 15% for a good job, 10% for a mediocre job, 5% for anything below. Giving above 15% is just subsidizing the pay the employer should be giving. It’s a symptom of the fact that wages have stagnated for over 50 years. The pay that once supported someone and even a child is now far below the poverty line for even an individual. So instead of increasing pay to match what it once was many businesses have turned to aggressive tipping over just increasing the prices of their service / products.
15% for a good job, 10% for a mediocre job, 5% for anything below
I maybe make a 10% bonus if my department absolutely smashes sales numbers… i cant imagine getting 15% for doing my job normally (i consider doing a “good job” to be my normal output) or even getting 5% for doing “below” mediocre…
In fact, in most jobs, doing below mediocre work usually gets you fired, not bonuses
Yes, I’m aware. Workers in certain restaurants make quite a lot, even more than some engineers with degrees I know.
But also, i dont want to make this about “X type worker shouldnt make more than Y type worker”… servers should be paid whatever they get paid. Just dont put the burden on the customer… i dont care if they make more than me, or my CEO or whatever… just dont hassle me with the tipping decision.
a lot of that kind of “servers make more than X” discourse ends up belittling one worker with “unskilled labour” terminology. I dont believe in anything called unskilled labour.
Me as someone not from the US: why would you pay even 10% for anything below exceptional let alone a mediocre job? I am not going öt subsidise their employer.
Irl, culture. 15% is becoming an insult but is still normal or acceptable most places. If you ever want to return to a restaurant and not have your food tampered with its best to keep with some agreeable norm. At 10% I wouldn’t suggest being a frequent visitor anywhere for your health and wellbeing. To zoom out a little, there’s been no country I have lived in where the culture was 100% agreeable even to the majority. We’re all policed in some way or another by it.
Crazy culture if my options are pay extra or be poisoned.
If you piss off food staff anywhere on earth your food may be tampered with. Now what people consider to be rude can be unique in different places.
I tip generously at my local bar and in return they sometimes give me free stuff. Got a whole sandwich recently.
Employers are giving you the option of cheating the employee and you are taking them up on it, claiming to be fighting the system, by cheating the employee.
Think about that, just because millions of cheating self interested half wits and tools and jerks agree with you, doesn’t mean you are right. You are cheating working people under a false pretense. If you don’t like tipping that much, don’t patronize establishments that use it.
It’s legal ransom, you’re mad at the wrong person
Pot calling kettle black.
You’re entitled to a sit down restaurant or it’s “legal ransom”??
I mostly decrease eating out which is arguably worse because now they get a 0% tip. If enough people avoid establishments that abuse tipping then the problem will solve itself.
But they don’t have to work for you for free if you don’t go, and you’re not actually subsidizing the restaurant if you’re not paying the menu price.
It’s for sure worse for the worker if you go, pay for your meal, and don’t tip them. The owner doesn’t care, he got his, and if the worker (who gets 0% in either scenario) quits another just takes their place tomorrow.
Maybe on an individual level but if no one goes there won’t be a restaurant or that job for long. Getting something is typically better than getting nothing.
Sure but “getting something” implies you’re tipping, I’m talking about people who still go and do not tip.
If you tip, then yeah, that is indeed better for the server. What’s better for the server overall is getting to the point where you can escape the industry but of course it has its ways of keeping you locked in (and not all of them are “tips or the lack thereof”), but in the short term:
Tip and work>no tip no work>no tip but still work
It’s like you didn’t read my comments at all. I never said anything about not tipping at all outside of the circumstance where I never went to the restaurant to begin with. If I don’t go then the owner gets $0 and the server gets $0 since I didn’t use their service or purchase their product aka they both get 0%.
The scenario you’re bringing up really has nothing to do with anything I’ve said this entire time.
Ok, I’ll run it back for you. Give me a minute to edit this all together, I’m on mobile.
You said:
I mostly decrease eating out which is arguably worse because now they get a 0% tip. If enough people avoid establishments that abuse tipping then the problem will solve itself.
To which I replied:
But they don’t have to work for you for free of you don’t go
As in while you’re giving them 0% tip, you’re also giving them 0% work to do, by not going to the establishment.
The problem is those who give them 0% tip and 100% work to do.
Not as a server. No it’s not.
So getting a 15% tip is worse than getting no business at all?
Much better for them to work for free to serve you without pay? GTFO.
I tip what was once normal or even generous a few years ago and generally avoid places that push this behavior so the business owner and the employees get nothing from me. Mostly though if I eat out it’s at places where tipping isn’t customary.
The federal and state governments are cheating staff by allowing employers to pay slave-level wages of $2.xx/hr, if staff are paid ~$5/hr or more through tips.
This has gone on for a while so you’re right, maybe I shouldn’t visit some states in the USA anymore even after Don the Con is gone.
Maybe you shouldn’t if you’re going to cry about our culture (that gives young single women/moms a damn good paying job for little skill and time). Yea we don’t need more entitled trash in this country.
There is a world in which you don’t have to sacrifice restaurant jobs while still having a proper minimum wage and having some level of tip culture. I live there, it’s called Canada. Servers, cooks and cleaners can make good money from tips while still being paid at the very least $15Cdn/hr ($10.60 US) by the restauranteur, higher outside the Prairies. Tipped minimum wage exists in Quebec but it is $13.30Cdn/hr ($9.35 US). It doesn’t have to be a one or the other situation, you can call it entitlement, but I call replacing wages with tips shifting the blame.
You tip 20% of the bill, or less if you are an asshole. What’s so hard to understand?
Don’t get pissed off at me, get pissed off at the asshole who won’t pay you and expects ME to.
It’s kinda insane to me how successful tip propaganda is. 20%??
My whole life, 15% was considered a top tier tip. Prices have gone up on everything across the board, but tips are a percentage meaning 15% is still more money than it was twenty years ago, so why in the fuck has it gone from 15% for a great tip to 20% as a minimum?? So not only are prices higher, you want a higher cut of that higher price?? Insane.
Once again 20% was the norm in 2001 when I was doing that job. It has not creeped up. It hasn’t changed in nearly 30 years.
I don’t know what job or where in the country you were, but 20% was never the norm my whole life going back to the 90s.
It’s been creeping up too, 20% is now the offered minimum but I’ve seen the options go up to 30% at least
People are stupid and that’s why it’s done what it has.
I hate when I walk to a counter, order something then the machine is programmed to ask for a tip. Fuck everything about that. Hate hate tipping culture to begin with.
Pay has gone up less than prices. That’s why tip percentage has gone up.
Most people’s haven’t; why am I further subsidizing the restaurant’s payroll??
Because you’re choosing to go to restaurants that use the tipping model. Choose to go to ones that do not, EZPZ.
BUT IM ENTITLED TO SOMEONE SERVING MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! You’re wanting me to go to an establishment of poors!
They’re all from places where the price on the menu is the final price.
But in case you’re thinking “you have to adapt to the culture,” Americans are still notorious for standing out as tourists and not adapting.
Americans are still notorious for standing out as tourists and not adapting.
And are rightfully called out for it all the time, just like this. Welcome to the club!
Yes, we are.
Are you all saying you can dish it but can’t take it?
We aren’t just going to get shit on by you people and not call you out for the same behavior. Why the fuck are you people so entitled? Is it the culture where you’re all from?
Is it the culture where you’re all from?
Yes. Europeans have been shitting on each other for centuries. Welcome to the fun.
No one asked them to go there, and it is all known and written in so many subs what the US tipping culture is about. Own fault. They should stop behave like 5 year old.
Exactly. Fuck FIFA, fuck USA. Stop giving money to these fuckers.
Finally, a good answer. Pass it on.
Blame the victim. Nice…
You Europeans think you’re a victim because you need to tip now?
Being unaware of local customs isn’t a good reason to complain about them. Just learn them. If you travel without taking five minutes to understand the local culture, don’t be surprised when you run into unpleasant surprises.
Not hard to understand, innit?
It’s not, but it’s a problem of “unknown unknowns”. People look up mandatory vaccines, which health insurances actually cover them there, which part of town to avoid etc. Not “am I randomly expected to give money to people?”.
