As someone from a country where hospitality workers are paid appropriately by law, is there a benefit to continue supporting the tipping culture? From afar, seems like a win-win for owners. Patrons pay more to scrape from, workers cost less. Is that something you support so much you put your money into it voluntarily or am I missing something?
Every time I consider not tipping I just feel bad cause I know the workers are going to suffer for as long as it takes to make the restaurant or whatever to start paying properly.
But all the new places that now have a tip option but has never been customary to tip in the past can fuck off, don’t want to normalize that shit.
it’s really hard to not tip knowing they need that tip but also hard to enable shitty practices. I think the best play is to not buy things from places that pay employees through tips. If you tip or not, the business doesn’t fucking care but if you don’t buy at all and encourage others to not buy it makes them pretend to care.
I understand that. I don’t know how well the tipping culture works in offsetting bad pay, but it doesn’t at all seem to be in favour of the workers. Sure, in a single instance it does, but not overall. It’s hard to walk away knowing you could help, it’s not in our nature.
But it’s kind of like donating your money to the machine that makes so many lives hard because it knows people only think in the moment. Capitalising on humanity rather than being forced to show some themselves.
Tipped employees are paid far less than minimum wage before tips. They are guaranteed at least minimum wage if they don’t earn enough in tips (the employer has to make up the difference) but they can be fired for any reason. Not pulling enough tips to cover minimum wage is, effectively, a fireable offense.
If we eliminated the sub-minimum wage rate for tipped employees, tipping “culture” would quickly disappear.
is there a benefit to continue supporting the tipping culture?
only for business owners and people getting tipped. US businesses will never pay workers appropriately, and workers don’t want to give up their tons of extra tax free cash every week. so i rarely go anywhere that tipping is expected
I’m a big supporter of tipping, which is incredibly unpopular, IME. I was a server for several years at all kinds of restaurants, which could explain why my perspective is different. The main benefits I see are these:
Working as a server is one of the few potentially well paid jobs that you can get without education or a lot of physical strength (some strength is still required, as well as a lot of endurance, but it’s not common to lift more than 50 lbs/~22,5 kilos). I knew diner waitresses in their early sixties without high school diplomas who were entirely fit for the job and made enough over their career to retire at 65, but if they had to get a different career, they would likely not have made above minimum wage.
Because the majority of their pay comes directly from the customer, tipped servers are more incentivized to tell customers the truth about things like specials offered to move bad product. One restaurant I worked at didn’t sell many martinis and kept the vermouth unrefrigerated. I used to tell customers, even though martinis have a great profit margin for the restaurant, because it made customers more likely to enjoy their experience, and therefore tip me better.
Servers have the potential to make much more than minimum wage under a tipped system, and cannot legally earn less (on a pay period to pay period or monthly basis). When I served at a fine dining restaurant, I made $30k working part time as a student. If the US were to eliminate tipping (I can’t speak to other countries), I think it’s unlikely that restaurants would pay servers much more than minimum wage or a couple bucks over that, given the reprehensible pay kitchen staff generally receive.
I do think it’s reasonable (and morally required) to tip kitchen/bar/expo staff out at the end of the night, but some restaurants will then try to pay them the tipped minimum wage, which is fucked.
My wife worked as a server for a while, so it is ingrained in our brains to automatically tip, even though it is morally detestable that the companies make tipping required for their workers’ survival.
That’s why I like point #2. My husband works at a grocery store, and he’s more successful if he sells product that the store has too much of. I was always more successful being honest about the shady shit that happens at every restaurant. The restaurants are skimping on pay, but because of that, server loyalty lies more with the customer.
Well, a balance has been found. Prices factor tips in to some degree, that’s economics. Cash tips can bypass taxes, so that’s a little bit of a win for the employee, who both has a lower income bracket and under the table payments. Or if taxes are properly accounted, then the staff gets higher salary, so that’s fine. Staff also knows that their performance counts, so there’s a bit of a service quality benefit, compared to a restaurant where the staff doesn’t get tips / has no incentive. At the end of the day, it’s not really much different, you just remember that the prices on the menu are not final, just as you do for taxes, but the tipping model allows for flexibility in total cost
Tax is included in the price in the UK, and I’m pretty sure it’s the same in most of Europe.
(Maybe with the odd exception where a company primarily sells to businesses and excludes VAT)
As someone from a country where hospitality workers are paid appropriately by law, is there a benefit to continue supporting the tipping culture? From afar, seems like a win-win for owners. Patrons pay more to scrape from, workers cost less. Is that something you support so much you put your money into it voluntarily or am I missing something?
Every time I consider not tipping I just feel bad cause I know the workers are going to suffer for as long as it takes to make the restaurant or whatever to start paying properly.
But all the new places that now have a tip option but has never been customary to tip in the past can fuck off, don’t want to normalize that shit.
it’s really hard to not tip knowing they need that tip but also hard to enable shitty practices. I think the best play is to not buy things from places that pay employees through tips. If you tip or not, the business doesn’t fucking care but if you don’t buy at all and encourage others to not buy it makes them pretend to care.
I understand that. I don’t know how well the tipping culture works in offsetting bad pay, but it doesn’t at all seem to be in favour of the workers. Sure, in a single instance it does, but not overall. It’s hard to walk away knowing you could help, it’s not in our nature.
But it’s kind of like donating your money to the machine that makes so many lives hard because it knows people only think in the moment. Capitalising on humanity rather than being forced to show some themselves.
It’s not a culture thing. It’s a legal thing.
Tipped employees are paid far less than minimum wage before tips. They are guaranteed at least minimum wage if they don’t earn enough in tips (the employer has to make up the difference) but they can be fired for any reason. Not pulling enough tips to cover minimum wage is, effectively, a fireable offense.
If we eliminated the sub-minimum wage rate for tipped employees, tipping “culture” would quickly disappear.
Workers can choose to not work for a shitty company that underpays them, right? Or is it the only employer or restaurant in town?
only for business owners and people getting tipped. US businesses will never pay workers appropriately, and workers don’t want to give up their tons of extra tax free cash every week. so i rarely go anywhere that tipping is expected
I was being sarcastic
I’m a big supporter of tipping, which is incredibly unpopular, IME. I was a server for several years at all kinds of restaurants, which could explain why my perspective is different. The main benefits I see are these:
Working as a server is one of the few potentially well paid jobs that you can get without education or a lot of physical strength (some strength is still required, as well as a lot of endurance, but it’s not common to lift more than 50 lbs/~22,5 kilos). I knew diner waitresses in their early sixties without high school diplomas who were entirely fit for the job and made enough over their career to retire at 65, but if they had to get a different career, they would likely not have made above minimum wage.
Because the majority of their pay comes directly from the customer, tipped servers are more incentivized to tell customers the truth about things like specials offered to move bad product. One restaurant I worked at didn’t sell many martinis and kept the vermouth unrefrigerated. I used to tell customers, even though martinis have a great profit margin for the restaurant, because it made customers more likely to enjoy their experience, and therefore tip me better.
Servers have the potential to make much more than minimum wage under a tipped system, and cannot legally earn less (on a pay period to pay period or monthly basis). When I served at a fine dining restaurant, I made $30k working part time as a student. If the US were to eliminate tipping (I can’t speak to other countries), I think it’s unlikely that restaurants would pay servers much more than minimum wage or a couple bucks over that, given the reprehensible pay kitchen staff generally receive.
I do think it’s reasonable (and morally required) to tip kitchen/bar/expo staff out at the end of the night, but some restaurants will then try to pay them the tipped minimum wage, which is fucked.
My wife worked as a server for a while, so it is ingrained in our brains to automatically tip, even though it is morally detestable that the companies make tipping required for their workers’ survival.
That’s why I like point #2. My husband works at a grocery store, and he’s more successful if he sells product that the store has too much of. I was always more successful being honest about the shady shit that happens at every restaurant. The restaurants are skimping on pay, but because of that, server loyalty lies more with the customer.
Well, a balance has been found. Prices factor tips in to some degree, that’s economics. Cash tips can bypass taxes, so that’s a little bit of a win for the employee, who both has a lower income bracket and under the table payments. Or if taxes are properly accounted, then the staff gets higher salary, so that’s fine. Staff also knows that their performance counts, so there’s a bit of a service quality benefit, compared to a restaurant where the staff doesn’t get tips / has no incentive. At the end of the day, it’s not really much different, you just remember that the prices on the menu are not final, just as you do for taxes, but the tipping model allows for flexibility in total cost
Tax is included in the price in the UK, and I’m pretty sure it’s the same in most of Europe. (Maybe with the odd exception where a company primarily sells to businesses and excludes VAT)