• De_Narm@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    Something I don’t get, why is it percentage based? I mean, I get it from the waiters perspective. But as a customer? Whether my one plate of food is 20$ or 200$, he did the same thing. Scaling with more items or time spent would seem more appropriate.

    • greedytacothief@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Well usually more people means a higher bill, more people is more work. Lots of places even just add gratuity to the bill once a group size is large enough.

      But tipping is dumb, and working in the service industry sucks… I have no easy solutions.

      • Sprawlie@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        I have no easy solutions.

        There’s an easy one that could be legislated tomorrow by any states.

        Raise minimum wages and enforce it throughout ALL workplaces, including wait staff. Nobody should be earning less than a living wage just because they’re restaraunt staff.

        • Patches@sh.itjust.works
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          10 months ago

          Nobody would work in a restaurant for minimum wage. Full stop. It’s a shit job.

          That’s the secret nobody in the industry wants to tell you. They make way more than minimum wage on good nights. You could come away at $25-30/hr on a Friday night.

          • Sprawlie@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            Absolutely. it’s a bad precedent.

            Minimum wage staff still get tips though. I still tip here now that it’s mandatory they get paid min wage. Overall, means that they make more than before they were earning min wage as well.

            it’s a big win. They ge ta living wage doing their jobs and they get bonuses in tips on top of their living wage instead of relying upon it.

          • Tremble@sh.itjust.works
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            10 months ago

            Which is what workers at McDonald’s in other countries make per hour, not including benefits. Oh, and the food is cheaper than in the states too.

        • greedytacothief@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Politics is one of those things that’s easy when you say it, but much harder for you to do. But if that’s easy for you to do, then please do it, for all our sakes.

      • danc4498@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        I think the $20 vs $200 was a per person price. Like, if I order the steak for $50 and you order a grilled cheese sandwich for $8, we both got the same amount and quality of service, why do we tip differently?

    • Wogi@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Because it’s a con, and if it were a flat rate, people would see it for the con it is. By making it a percentage of sales, you can delude people in to believing they’re going to make more in tips than they would on an hourly rate.

      Sometimes that’s true, for the vast majority of servers it isn’t.

    • TheLowestStone@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      If you’re getting the same level of service at a restaurant serving $200/plate meals as you are at TGI Fridays, either you’re being ripped off of your local Fridays has amazing servers.

    • betheydocrime@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Serving a $200 meal requires a lot of knowledge and physical skill that the server down at Chili’s probably doesn’t have. The kind of restaurant that sells a $200 meal also has a larger support staff that must be given a percentage of the server’s tip

      • asteriskeverything@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        You’re not wrong, that’s the logic behind it. It’s not like you’re defending it so idk why you’re getting down voted! What you also didn’t mention is that at these restaurants is that it is a much more leisurely meal and experience, so there isn’t high table turnover which lessens the tips. I suspect they also have smaller sections.

      • dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works
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        10 months ago

        You’re the only one who gets it.

        Everything is probably a la carte. You gotta know what is in every dish, what pairs with it from appetizers to sides to wine to dessert. You don’t walk out and ask “who had the cheeseburger?” because the expectation on the experience is higher. You’re controlling the timing at the table as well. When do you fire the main after they get the appetizer? Salad? Bread? Drinks? Which SIDE of the person do you give or remove plates? And yeah you gotta tip the bartender, the bussers, the expediters sometimes, and who knows who else.

        It is still horseshit, but it’s not as easy as dropping a rib basket on the table.

        Be mad about the tip line on the sandwich shop menu, be mad about 20% tip on the burger joint that has a modern industrial interior and a $22 burger, don’t be mad about paying out the Friday Saturday night white tablecloth servers with a tough fucking job of conducting your whole anniversary meal. You get to have a good experience once a year, they’ve got 15 other once a year meals to solve and it’s just a regular dinner shift.

        • pjwestin@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          I’d say you also shouldn’t be made at the server at the $22 burger place, because they’re also working hard and probably covering more tables. I used to get mad about tipping for counter service because I assumed that they were making standard minimum wage, but then I found out one of my favorite cafes was paying $5 an hour (a dollar less than tipped minimum in my state). Point is, don’t get mad at anyone but the National Restaurant Association, they’re fighting to make sure you’re subsidizing your servers wage.

    • GBU_28@lemm.ee
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      10 months ago

      Each plate of food or drink is a transaction, each with expectations of quality, and expectations on the waiter to make it right.

      • hark@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Make what right? They’re just bringing it to my table. If the food or service sucks I’m also told that you should tip anyway, so it seems like tipping isn’t based on quality (and really, it isn’t).

    • pjwestin@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      $20 is like, one entree, maybe a beverage at a cheap restaurant. $200 is probably closer to 3 entrees, 2 or 3 cocktails and an app at a moderately priced restaurant. You’re crazy if you think the amount of work for those two orders (putting them into the bar/kitchen, making sure they come out correct, running them, all while juggling your other tables) is equal. I also want tipping culture to end, but the price tag scales pretty well with the amount of work being done.

      • auraness@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        That’s insane. It’s literally the job. Imagine applying this logic to any service industry job.

        • pjwestin@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Yeah, I know. As is said, I want tipping culture to end. We’ve created a system where the customer pays for servers salary by the job instead of the restaurant paying by the hour. I’m saying that running a $200 order is more work than running a $20 order, just like bagging $200 worth of groceries is more work than bagging $20 worth of groceries. A percentage tip does roughly reflect the amount of work being done, but acknowledging that isn’t an endorsement of tipping culture.

      • player2@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        10 months ago

        It mostly bothers me when I just order 1 entree and a water. At one place that might cost $10, and at another place it might cost $30, and all the wait staff did was carry a plate from the kitchen to me in both cases.

        It doesn’t seem fair that the wait staff at the more expensive place gets tipped more than the less expensive place just because of an arbitrary custom.

        The extra cost of the expensive meal is mostly due to ingredients, the cooking process, the location, and maaay slightly more complicated table setting.

        • pjwestin@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Yeah, I agree, but if you don’t like it, take it up with the National Restaurant Association. They spend millions every year lobbying against ending the tipped wage.

      • wer2@lemm.ee
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        10 months ago

        Waffle House: feed a family of 4 for $20 Tip: $4 “Fancy” Restaurant: microwaved appetizer $20 Tip: $5

        A percentage scales within an establishment, but not really across them.

        • pjwestin@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          I’d say that varies more regionally than anything else. I live in a major northeastern city, and you could barely feed 1 person for $20, even at cheap chain restaurants. Drive 2 hours away and things get a lot more affordable, not only for food prices but also rent. In that respect, 20% actually scales with cost of living as well.

  • circuitfarmer@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    The whole damn system exists to place the burden of a living wage on the customer while the company paying peanuts can claim no wrongdoing. And the really sad part is: it has worked.

    Edit: and there are many, many businesses that wouldn’t be in business if they actually had to pay competitive wages on their own. The invisible hand can fix nothing if tipping culture says to throw more and more arbitrary amounts of money at people to subsidize their wages yourself. At some point (I’d argue we’re past it already), the band-aid needs to get ripped off. Only then will we see self-correction. The almost immediate loss of many businesses will likely trigger other actions. It’s already a no-win scenario.

      • circuitfarmer@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Yes, but one way is on the company first and one isn’t. Would prices go up if these places were paying living wages? Most likely. Many businesses would be insolvent because their business model was simply never designed to pay a living wage to employees. Others could remain solvent, but probably not if they continue to take so much off the top at higher positions.

        And that’s exactly it: the market never self-corrects if we throw arbitrary money in excess of listed prices to solve was is ultimately an issue of business solvency and ethics. There is no economic theory that would support such an idea in any industry, but here we are.

        The sheer number of businesses out of the space might even drive down rents. That’s the kind of thing I mean by “other actions”. But things cannot continue as they are.

        None of this is even to mention the sheer number of people in the service industry who are also on government assistance programs. They have to be – none of the blame is on them. But my tax dollars go to that, plus I am expected to pay extra to subsidize their wages with tips. I effectively subsidize them twice while someone reaps the rewards on their yacht. All I’m saying is the yacht people should be taking the risks first. That’s part of being a business owner.

        • Shenanigore@lemm.ee
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          10 months ago

          Dude, everyone understands the tipping system, the market isn’t gonna correct if it goes away because you’ll still be paying the exact same amount.

          • circuitfarmer@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            I’m not sure what isn’t getting across here.

            Customers subsidize wages with tipping. The amount is ultimately arbitrary and allows business owners to avoid costs.

            The actual cost of the wages is not arbitrary and should be put up by the business first.

      • MisterFrog@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        The difference is that on slow nights, staff get paid less, which is fucked up.

        The business needs to wear the cost, because they reap the rewards, which is the narrative capitalism supposedly is about.

        Tipping sucks, I’m glad we don’t have it in Australia.

        • Shenanigore@lemm.ee
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          10 months ago

          Oh look, an Aussie that needs you know that. Yes yes, everything is better there, it has to be, why else would y’all spend so much time trying to convince everyone of it.

          • MisterFrog@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            Tipping does still suck though, and the way it is in many states of the US, slow business literally means employees get paid less, which is pretty fucked.

            Australia certainly isn’t perfect, and don’t let anyone tell you how great Medicare is here because it’s not what it uses to be and slowly but surely slipping into private health insurance hell due to its languishing, but heck, defensive much mate?

            I am glad that I don’t have to deal with tipping. Tipping is trash and seemingly many Americans agree it’s trash.

            • Shenanigore@lemm.ee
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              10 months ago

              Not defensive, I really don’t care for Australians, they’ve a way of conducting themselves that I find very fucking irritating. New Zealanders i can get along with.

              • MisterFrog@lemmy.world
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                10 months ago

                I’m sorry for my place of birth, and I’m sorry for liking the fact I don’t have to tip because of my place of birth, I guess?

                This is just a strange internet interaction, but may I suggest not letting people you’re not a fan of them because of their nationality?

    • hglman@lemmy.ml
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      10 months ago

      Tipping is good bc you van pay the employee directly. What needs to change is that tips need to be mandatory and when tips fall short of a living wage the business must pay pay to make up.

      • Cannonhead2@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        I agree wholeheartedly! Let’s make tipping mandatory. In fact, let’s add it on to the price of your bill automatically. Better still, let’s just add it onto the menu price. Oh hey, we’ve come full circle.

      • LucasWaffyWaf@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        What difference is there to you, then, between “employer pays a reasonable living wage to their employees but raises the prices of the food a bit to accommodate” and “employer pays poverty wages, forcing the customers to pay their employees for them and forcing tax payers to pay up when people earning poverty wages inevitably rely on government programs to simply survive?” If tipping is mandatory, the only people that benefit is the employer since they can simply double dip - spend less money on payroll AND force the customer to make up for your lack of willingness to pay competitive wages. Yes, under current law, employers are supposed to make the difference if tips can’t cover at least minimum wage, but that’s not enforced nearly as much as it should be, which puts the onus on the workers being exploited in the first place, and even then minimum wage in this country is embarrassingly unfit for supporting anybody.

        The more important question to ask is “why am I expected to pay an employee when the money I already give to a business should cover wages in the first place?”

        I’m a tipped employee for my day job. I make a decent base pay, but the tips make up for that in spades during busy seasons. I’ve bought my current car with tip money. Despite this, I fully support getting rid of tips if it meant my livelihood wouldn’t be a gamble depending on factors outside my control, and especially if it meant fewer people had to rely on government assistance and could better provide a livelihood for themselves.

      • michaelmrose@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        A business is free to offer mandatory tipping and they do have to make up the difference if its not the minimum wage. The minimum wage could be higher of course.

  • zeppo@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    I don’t really get why the expected percentage went up. 15% was the standard for a LONG time. 20% meant you thought they were great. Now 15 is considered shitty, like an insult, and we’re supposed to do 18 or 25 or 30. Meanwhile prices also went up. Why am I supposed to tip 25% now? Service hasn’t changed.

    • normalexit@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Service has gotten worse at many places.The servers are still great, but quite a few places have adopted the model of having you scan a QR code, you order online, pay with your credit card plus tip, they have you pick it up at a window, you eat, and at the end you bus your own table. Then they have options like 18, 25 and 30% to guilt you into the middle one. It’s like, damn I haven’t even talked to anyone yet, you’re jumping to the end first

    • jaemo@sh.itjust.works
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      10 months ago

      15% is standard, great even. It’s this one weird trick I do. See: how this works is I’m the one with the money which means I’m also the owner of the yardstick that measures average, good and great.

      I’m baffled by comments like this. One ought to be empowered to decide if someone has met or exceeded your standards, and to what degree. Letting social pressure dictate that is nonsensical.

        • SkippingRelax@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Non American so bear with me.why the % would go up? Prives have gone up considerably, 10% now should be like or better than 10% then or am I missing something? Is there a point in the future where someone says 113% was okay in the 2040s but not now?

          • iknowitwheniseeit@lemmynsfw.com
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            10 months ago

            It’s basically an artifact of how pay is set. The USA has a system where pay for certain professions is adjusted only by a new law. Since in capitalism the capital class has power over policy and the working class does not, the tendency is to resist increasing salary.

            Now for most workers this would simply be untenable, but for jobs that get part of their income through tips the workers can make up the difference by increasing the portion of their income they receive through tips.

            So over time the tip rate has increased. It’s actually an interesting proxy for how fucked capitalism has become in the USA. The higher the percentage of cost that workers need to receive semi-formally through tipping, the more the imbalance between capital and labor.

            • SkippingRelax@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              Still doesn’t make any sense. We all know how the tipping system works, it’s fucked but that’s not the point here.

              A fixed % of a restaurant bill in the 70s, 80s or 90s should give hospo workers the same amount of money adjusted to inflation so if 10% was good enough money then, it should be now too.

              Hell, I could argue that prices have gone up at inflation rates (that’s pretty much the definition ofvinflation) while salaries have remained stagnant, so a fixed % of an inflated restaurant bill makes hospo workers the only ones that actually have their income adjusted to inflation. Everyone else (salaried) gets a well below merit increase year on year. And that’s even before you take the socially accepted tip from 10% to 25 or 30%

              • iknowitwheniseeit@lemmynsfw.com
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                10 months ago

                Imagine in 1979 that 30% of the cost of a meal went to server salaries. Imagine that now it is 15%. Either the server takes a 15% pay cut or that money gets paid directly by the customer as extra tip.

                • SkippingRelax@lemmy.world
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                  10 months ago

                  Honest question, are servers paid a fixed amount of the cost of a meal by their employer, or you are just implying that their fixed amount went down adjusted to inflation like it happened to all other industries?

    • vamp07@lemm.ee
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      10 months ago

      Yup. The effect for me has been that I simply go out much less often.

    • _NoName_@lemmy.ml
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      10 months ago

      Because minimum wage for servers stayed dirt cheap while inflation skyrocketed, and now businesses are fighting to keep servers employed (but still aren’t willing to pay a living wage).

      It’s all fueled by cyclical logic where the business refuses to accept that they’re immoral for requiring tipping. Might be legal- it’s still a concious failure of responsibility to short your staff and expect someone else to make up that difference.

    • WaxiestSteam69@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      I’ve always tipped 20% for good service and 15% for average or below. I usually don’t tip less that 15% unless it’s just abysmal or I’m picking up a to go order in which case I usually do 8-10%. Several of the restaurants around me have changed from 15% / 20% on the suggested tip to 20% / 25% and a few have even added 30%. And I’ve also noticed the suggested tips are calculated on the after tax amount, and some restaurants that charge a credit card processing fee calculate the suggested tip on that amount. I tip on pretax and pre-fee totals and cap at 20%. If it get worse, my eating at restaurants will start becoming less and less.

      • Kongar@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        10 months ago

        Why on gods green earth would you tip when you’re picking up a to-go order? Insanity! Stay strong - don’t do it!

    • dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      10 months ago

      It didn’t. You’re just online too much. There is no “expected” amount. Anything you’ve heard to the contrary is just people bitching online.

      • zeppo@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Why would you assume I got this impression from talking to people online?

      • zeppo@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        I do too well, thanks, but that’s irrelevant. I don’t get what your point is. None of that is anything new. When I worked at a restaurant in the 90s servers made $2.17 an hour plus tips, and it was okay to do 15%. 10% was for below average service, but 20 was if you loved them. 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s, always 15%. 25% was considered a really generous tip for great service. Now people expect to 25% though nothing has changed about the business or what waitstaff do.

        • BreadstickNinja@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Cost of living has risen far more than minimum wage, which doesn’t keep up with inflation, and business owners are shifting the burden to their customers in the form of tips rather than set menu prices that reflect real costs and pay servers the real wage value of their services. That trend started in the 80s but especially since the recession has become far more pronounced.

          • jj4211@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            But menu prices have been increasing, at least matching inflation (from my experience, eating out seems to have even outpaced inflation in other areas).

            A place that 5 years ago was $20 for a couple of people to eat was $40 when I went recently, ignoring tip. So a 15% tip went from $3.00 to $6.00, but the register suggested that we should be tipping 20%, $8.00. Also, they no longer let you order at the table, you order at the counter. They no longer bring the food out, they call out your number to come get your stuff. They no longer came out to provide refills, you had to go and ask for them yourself. About the only thing they did ‘above and beyond’ was bus the table after you left. I wouldn’t have even minded all the ‘self-service’, but it was maddening when combined with a suggested tip that was way higher than when it wasn’t self-service.

            Not to mention similar tip suggestions for take out, where you take the mess home with you.

          • SkippingRelax@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            Yes but a restaurant bill has risen more or less EXACTLY at the cost of inflation so if 15%of the bill was okay in the previous decades, it should be okay now.

            In fact this system makes hospitality workers among the few that have (the tip part) of their income adjusted to inflation. Everyone else salaried except for CEOs probably only got a 1-4% increase the past few years, not enough to keep up with the increase in cost of blrent, groceries and, well restaurant bills.

      • dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        10 months ago

        You’ve been downvoted by people that clearly have never worked in a restaurant. People aren’t entitled to a night out. It’s a luxury. And your slave that brought you all these nice things to your table can’t pay their bills. If they hate it they should quit right? That’s sustainable.

        • hark@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          People also aren’t entitled to tips. Regardless, I’d happily forego the “service” of bringing over a tray of food for a 15-25% discount, especially when “good service” is considered interrupting your meal to ask how it’s going or refilling your water (again, something I can do myself and it’s not like I’m drinking gallons of water).

          I typically tip around 20% when I have to go for an occasion, but otherwise I don’t go to restaurants.

  • Rooter@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    “Other struggling people are not the enemy”.

    Op is jeff bezos alt account.

    • hyperhopper@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Disagree. Most servers and bartenders are in favor of tipping culture and want it to stay this way with zero wages and societally enforced tips.

      Yes, the corporations are the enemy, but these other struggling people are on the side of the actual enemy.

      • Jennykichu@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        10 months ago

        Of course they’re in favor of it you idiot its how they make a reasonable living. The people choosing to go to a restaurant are not victims in this arrangement.

        If you can’t afford to dine out then maybe demand your boss pay you more. They’re the ones screwing you, not the waitress at Olive Garden.

      • dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        10 months ago

        Well sure, anyone would. If you give me $20 on a $100 bill, and you were in my section for an hour with 5-6 tables that all had similar bills and tipping percentage, I’d be ecstatic! That doesn’t mean it’s a good system for everyone. Hot girls make the most amount of tips while dudes serving break their back to make 15%. That hot 20 year old server that you had last time you went out to eat goes to Mexico once a month on her tips.

    • Cringe2793@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Well because the struggling people are blaming you when you don’t tip. They should blame the restaurant owner. But they blame the diner instead.

      That’s why people take servers/waiters as the “enemy”

      • recapitated@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Doesn’t matter who gets blamed, if things were corrupt (correct) the customer would be paying the same amount as tipping that much. Tipping culture just gives the customer a chance to shirk.

        • Cringe2793@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Well if you are calling it “shirk” then it’s basically required. If it’s required why even give the illusion of a choice?

          • recapitated@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            That’s my point. Tipping culture is stupid.

            Consumers should pay the cost to consume, including materials, operations and staffing.

            It’s not an illusion of choice, it is a choice, and a choice that abuses workers and confuses customers.

            • Cringe2793@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              The thing is the consumers are paying the cost. The business owners are just taking more of the profits. They just need to pay the workers more.

              And the “choice” you mention is a false one. People can’t really refuse to pay a tip, can they? They’ll get a lot of hostility from the staff (who have been brainwashed to think that it’s the customers’ responsibility). Notice that this isn’t really a thing outside the US.

      • dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        10 months ago

        How about we all agree that restaurant owners are the enemy? I don’t care that the 20 year old server working for the weekend doesn’t understand the nuance of the labor they engage in. They’re being exploited and you think that they’re the root cause of tipping culture, when in fact, it’s always been the restaurant owners.

        • Cringe2793@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          I think you’re deliberately misinterpreting what I’m saying. I am saying they should blame the restaurant owner.

          But it certainly doesn’t help the situation when the server is blaming you and being hostile because you didn’t tip enough.

    • ekZepp@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      I can’t agree more. Tips should be considered an “occasional” extra. This kind of bullshit try to shift the responsibility of the indecent low salaries to customers who already pay the full price of the service.

        • ekZepp@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          I do not agree on that. Charity is something you give for free without receiving nothing in return (except billionaire tax-cut apparently). A Tip is a surplus you give to someone as “reward” to a particularly well done job as symbol of satisfaction.

          This should still be treated as an “occasional extra”, the true income stability comes from “decent” paid jobs.

    • Zibitee@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      I mean, the city I live in requires at least minimum wage paid to service staff. It’s like $20/hour. They’re not going to decrease their tipping expectations because you know, greed is a thing

  • BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    Every time we go to Toronto we go to the same restaurant because they don’t accept tips, they just pay their staff really well. Fantastic restaurant and I love supporting them.

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      10 months ago

      That’s how it should be. Tips supplement incomes so restaurant owners can pocket the profits that would have gone to paying their staff better. If all restaurants moved to this model, everyone would be a lot happier.

      • Jennykichu@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        10 months ago

        Tips supplement incomes so restaurant owners can pocket the profits that would have gone to paying their staff better.

        I hate to defend small restaurant owners because so many of them are complete assholes but they are not exactly Scrooge McDucks dealing with Elon Musk levels of money. Elon Musk could cover the tips of everyone in America.

          • s_s@lemm.ee
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            10 months ago

            Most restaurants are chains and owned by a small handful of corporations and mega-franchisees. Their shareholders make a lot of money.

            Most small businesses (restaurants or otherwise) go broke because they are undercapitalized or otherwise mismanaged.

            It takes money to make money.

            And If you want to make the jump from wage earner to small business owner, making higher wages helps a lot.

            Higher wages means the next generation of small businesses are more successful. More successful small businesses create more competition and keep prices lower for consumers.

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        10 months ago

        Are you from Europe? This absolutely isn’t the UK, nor is it many of the countries I’ve visited here…

        • GiddyGap@lemm.ee
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          10 months ago

          I’ve lived for decades in several European countries, but not the UK. I’ve never paid a tip or been asked to pay a tip or felt like I had to pay a tip.

          May be different in the UK.

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            10 months ago

            Tipping has been implied pretty much anywhere I’ve eaten in France, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, and Greece.

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                10 months ago

                I was literally in Bergerac a few weeks ago, and a tip of 5-15% was expected practically anywhere I ate - and that’s not exactly a bustling metropolis…

                I worry that Lemmy fetishises Europe a bit too much as some bastion of freedom, great pay, or amazing rights.

                • GiddyGap@lemm.ee
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                  10 months ago

                  Well, compared to the US, Europe indeed is a bastion of freedom, great pay, amazing rights, and no least, sanity. I’ve lived for many years in both.

                  I’ve also never experienced tipping in Europe. You have. I guess we’ve had different experiences.

        • VaultBoyNewVegas@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Tipping is totally optional in the UK in my experience. Cafes have a tip jar but it’s up to the customer whether they leave one or not. Same with bars/pubs.

          • EnderMB@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            Well sure, no one tips in cafes or pubs, but it’s definitely expected in restaurants. Hell, we had the tip machines for contactless payment before the yanks did…

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    10 months ago

    It does annoy me slightly when POS systems have placeholder tip amounts but they’re like 18%, 20%, and 25%. Sorry, but I just do the standard 15% in most cases so now I gotta calculate it out in my head.

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      10 months ago

      Henry Ford paid those high wages to his own staff. He did not prevent any other local companies from also paying low wages.

      So Ford’s strategy had a significant advantage over minimum wage laws, in that his strategy didn’t destroy any jobs.

      When you increase minimum wage, there is a sliver of the market that gets shut down: the set of jobs that made sense between the old minimum and the new minimum. Those are jobs that people were happy to work, but which they aren’t allowed to any longer. Those people are now out of a job.

      When Henry Ford decided to pay his own workers well, he did so with his own money, and in a way that didn’t break anyone else’s existing economic arrangements.

      In other words, he didn’t violate anyone’s consent in order to enact his version of economic activism. This matter of consent is the key difference between the actions of a private entity, and the actions of a government.

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        10 months ago

        Those are jobs that people were happy to work, but which they aren’t allowed to any longer. Those people are now out of a job.

        Happy to work starvation wages? Are you high? Desperate, the word you are looking for is desperate enough to work for starvation wages.

        I swear this supply side fanfic is so out of touch with reality it would be laughable if I didn’t realize people actually try to set policy based on it.

      • bufalo1973@lemmy.ml
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        10 months ago

        That’s complete and utter BS. Spain has risen the minimum wage from 735€ (2018) to 1080€ (2023) and unemployment has gone down. And if the raise in minimum wage is the reason you have to close your business you weren’t having a benefit on your customers but on your workers. And that has another very different name.

        • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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          10 months ago

          if the raise in minimum wage is the reason you have to close your business you weren’t having a benefit on your customers but on your workers

          I’d say if the customers were buying what you were selling, then it was of benefit to them too

          • bufalo1973@lemmy.ml
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            10 months ago

            That would be a benefit FOR your customers. A business has to benefit FROM the customers, not from the workers.

      • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        There was no set minimum wage and companies at the time were against increasing it, until Ford set the precedence and the rest followed suit. He was the trend setter.

        When you increase minimum wage, there is a sliver of the market that gets shut down: the set of jobs that made sense between the old minimum and the new minimum

        Makes sense but…

        Those are jobs that people were happy to work, but which they aren’t allowed to any longer. Those people are now out of a job.

        Yes, I’m sure people were sad to see their old workplaces shut down who provide poor pay and toxic work environment, instead of moving to better alternatives!

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          10 months ago

          If there were better alternatives they would have already moved to it. Being forced to move to something better is only better in the eyes of the person doing the forcing.

          Consent is important.

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    10 months ago

    Last night, my wife and I ordered Chinese for Valentine’s Day. Cost $100. Tried to tip the delivery guy a $20, and he turned it down lol. He then gave my cat a temptations treat, out of a freshly opened bag he had in his pocket. Dude was amazing!

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    10 months ago

    Getting real sick of the customer holding the weight of being the financial planner for a business and the owners getting by with no blame for wage stealing and shitty business practices in this circumstance.

    • Shard@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Are you sure? I’m hearing news about suggested tip values on almost all point of sales machines. Maybe even grocery stores.

      • Agent641@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        The day the supermarket asks me for a tip is the day I start shoplifting even more than I already do

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      10 months ago

      Yes and no. It’s a vicious circle, why would an employer, the owner, start paying a proper salary if they dont have to, no one else does, and they would probably go out of business by doing so?

      At some point the player needs to put the foot down and start making demands. Few rights were handed out for free throughout history, usually someone need to wake up and start fighting for them.

      The US has some catch up to do, its not only waiters. White-collar folks could do better too… I’ve (Europe/Australia) heard from too many American colleagues and managers that they wished they also had paid sick leave, parental leave, so much PTO, and long service leave (look it up, an Australian thing, a few extra weeks off after a few years of service, hoe many depends on the state you live in).

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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        10 months ago

        At some point the player needs to put the foot down and start making demands.

        And if you’re in an at-will employment state, they can fire you for that. Then poison you to all the other places in town where you might get a restaurant job.

        I don’t think you understand how difficult it is to do any sort of labor action in the U.S. It’s frankly amazing that any of the Starbucks franchises have been able to unionize.

        I would love everyone to be in a union, but it’s too easy to stop employers from quashing that idea. They can and will continue to get away with paying waiters less than they should and there are enough people desperate for work to take them up on that offer.

        So I will continue to tip. It is not the fault of someone who just needs a job that they aren’t being paid what they deserve. The least I can do is give them a hand.

        • SkippingRelax@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Seems to me like this is happening in all 50 something states though, not just the ones with special laws, we sure that’s the problem?

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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            10 months ago

            Of course it is. Why would you expect different states to have different tipping policies? How would people remember what or whether to tip in each state?

            Believe it or not, non-union restaurant businesses, being the vast majority in the U.S., have a lot more clout than unions.

        • SkippingRelax@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          How would people remember what or whether to tip in each state?

          Maybe not in each state but maybe in the one they reside, where it’s most likely they’ll go out eating? I’m not familiar with at will employment in the us but you seem to imply it’s inly in some states. What about the others.

          And in the end, doesnt really matter how difficult it is for service workers to fight for those rights, no one else is going to do it for them which was my original point. What i do know is that the US has a history of people standing up and fighting for rights, it being difficult hasnt stopped others before.

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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            10 months ago

            People travel.

            Is it really fair for the servers to be paid different amounts based on whether the person in the restaurant is from the area and therefore knows whether or not to tip? Isn’t that worse for them than it is now?

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              10 months ago

              Is it fair for the servers not to be paid by their employers?

              I’m at a loss mate. I’m having these conversations here on lemmy about us-unique problems that have pretty straightforward solutions (and note that I am not saying easy, but pretty obvious how there is one way to fix them, and pretty much one way only). All I hear back is weird stuff, of course it’s not fair to be paid different by locals than non locals but how did we even get down this rabbit hole? Everyone here seems to agree that tipping is stupid, that servers should unionise or at least ask for better treatment. Wtf, did Rosa Parker spend time arguing about how black people in some state had it worse than other states?

              The same seems to happen when discussing about gun control. Not easy, what worked in other countries like Australia wouldn’t work here. But we need guns to defend ourselves from gun nuts. What about trans women that need to defend themselves (a real convo I had with someone, probably still in my comments history).

              You know what? In other countries waiters are paid minimum wages, we barely suffer from tips issues, have universal healthcare, guns are pretty hard to obtain, mass shooting are a once in a century issue, our kids don’t do drills at school or have to go through metal detectors, white collar jobs have paid sick leave on top of 20-35 holidays days a year and if you need to fight nazis you can hit them with a reo bar. I’m not bragging, it’s sad to see how bad the US has it and even when discussing with people that agree in general with you (you seem to be in favour of unions etc) there’s always an obstacle or something that “non Americans don’t understand”, as i said in other comments you can wait for politicians or your employer to give you more rights or money but that rarely (never?) works.

              • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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                10 months ago

                No, of course it’s not fair. That’s exactly why I tip. Because it’s not fair for them and they need help.

                I can’t change that for them. They probably can’t even change it.

                That’s just not how America works unfortunately. America is totally beholden to corporate interests.

                Also, saying “they do it in other countries” as if that means it’s possible in the U.S. when other countries have totally different laws is silly. Australia was able to get rid of guns because they don’t have guns enshrined in their founding document.

                • SkippingRelax@lemmy.world
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                  10 months ago

                  Wrong Australia was able to get rid of guns because everyone was shocked about what happened with a mass shooting, had the right to bear firearms been enshrined in the constitution there would have been a discussion about making a change to it, hasn’t the American constitution ever been amended? Any more reasons why changes can’t happen there? You guys fucking overcame slavery and black people managed to get equal rights (I am sure a few naysayers in the sixties were sceptical about that). Give yourselves more credit