It’s a topic that brings out my cantankerous old man persona. In the halcyon days of the late 20th century when everyone paid for restaurant bills in cash, tipping was a tolerable tradition. Throw in another $2 if you’ve got it, why not. You’d never expect the waiter to stand there and count out all the nickels and dimes for exact change, so you’ve got to raise the amount paid to the nearest round number anyway. Then we started paying with credit cards. If people were rational that would’ve been the end of tipping, but then if people were rational we’d still be paying in cash. After so many years of constantly seeing it done and occasionally even partaking in it, adding a tip to a payment made electronically still feels like a crime against nature.
i maintain that tips are perfectly okay, maybe even good, BUT ONLY IF IT’S CASH DIRECTLY IN THEIR HAND. And if the employer tries to take that cash, i’m going to wedgie them so hard that their grandchildren will suffer hemorrhoids.
CBC just had an interview the other day that said most of the point of sale tips get kept by the owners.
I know I used to keep mine. Restaurants and bars are often set up with heavy tip policing where all tips on shift are accounted for and pooled and kitchen staff get a cut. But check out tills, service station kiosks and other jobs of that sort generally have no tip policy.
I believe it’s this article? https://www.cbc.ca/news/marketplace/tipping-marketplace-1.7395871
I think that’s the research, I was listening to the radio and they were discussing it
If someone is doing their job, they should be paid for their job - by their employer.
The idea of tipping someone for doing their job makes no sense at all. Even if they’ve done an exceptional job and went out of their way to provide the best service possible, a tip seems appropriate at best.
Give them a thanks, and let their employer know how wonderful they were. Let their “tip” come from a raise, work incentives, extra time off, or whatever else their employer does to reward high-performing employees.
If they aren’t being rewarded at work, then the problem is with the employer, not the customer/employee relationship.
If their work is the type that word of mouth marketing and referrals can help them, certainly spread the word!
But tipping someone to pour coffee or to wrap a sandwich? GTFO.
Should.
If you go to a business (e.g. a restaurant) that is known for offering low prices by paying sub-minimum wage subsidized by tips, and you happily pay the lower price without tipping, you are not helping. The business owner has no incentive to change their compensation, you’re just screwing over a working class person.
If you take offense to this practice, don’t go to businesses that use it. Better yet, write your representatives to draft legislation to end tipped wages. Otherwise, you’re just treating yourself to a little discount at the expense of the worker, no different from their employer.
If the business owner is paying a sub minimum wage and banking on tips to make up for it, then it is the employer screwing a working class person, not a customer that doesn’t tip. Most places don’t have a big sign on the door stating “our staff relys on your tips you intend to come here.” Most customers are clueless to what an employer is paying their employees, expecting a customer to know what places are sub minimum wage and which are not is a bit ridiculous.
This is the norm in America. I would assume this is common knowledge, but even still my comments are directed towards those that admit they know the staff relies on tips, but don’t tip anyway because it’s “not their job”.
Again, if you go to these businesses knowing the majority of the waitstaff’s compensation is in the form of tips, and you patronize the business without tipping anyway, you are on the side of the employer. The employer sees zero loss in revenue from your lack of tip. You have formed an alliance with the business owner to exploit the worker.
If you would like to not screw the employee while also not tipping, the answer is simple: do not patronize that business. Contact the owner and let them know you don’t plan to return until they pay their staff a living wage. Otherwise, you’re just selfishly joining in the exploitation, full stop.
The server minimum wage in my province is $16.55/hr, the base minimum wage is $17.20/hr, a difference of $0.65/hr.
If the server get a $1 tip per hour, they are beating minmum wage. I’m not sure if the numbers are worse in the US but this really doesn’t seem that bad. I think servers should be paid the normal minimum wage, but i doubt there are many servers that stay employed at the restaurant making less than $1/hr in tips.
Which province is that? The only province I can find with a tipped minimum wage is Quebec and both of their minimum wages are lower than anything you said.
I searched for server minimum wage in Ontario.
I guess you can find anything if you search for what you want to hear.
Here’s the Ontario ESA Nothing about server or tipped wages.
Heres the page I assume you found (it was right near the top results of “server minimum wage in Ontario”) $16.55 is the old minimum wage for everyone until it went to $17.20 this October.
The tipped minimum wage in the US is far less than 96% of non-tipped. Federally it’s more like 70% of standard minimum wage, in my state it’s about 75%.
Quebec is the only province that has a lower minimum wage for tipped workers at 80%. Everywhere else, a server at a sit-down restaurant you’re expected to tip is making the same as a server at a fast food restaurant that you’re not expected to tip.
If you go to a business (e.g. a restaurant) that is known for offering low prices by paying sub-minimum wage subsidized by tips, and you happily pay the lower price without tipping, you are not helping.
I wouldn’t support at a place like that at all.
If a business is paying sub-minimum wage, it’s 100% up to the business to get their act together. We should force them to as a society (legally or otherwise), rather than bend over backwards to cover the shortfall as “tips”.
I wouldn’t support at a place like that at all.
That’s perfectly fine. If you don’t approve, don’t give the business your money. If you do, you’re complicit.
for me, it’s not even about the money… i just want to avoid the guilt and extra button presses on the damn machine!
if you want to take $100 from me at the end of the night, just set your pricing accordingly… i just want to tap and be done with it… i don’t need the guilt trip and the extra math homework when i look at the machine…
I’d prefer clear pricing (even if that raises prices) to have the comforting knowledge that some asshole can’t underpay a server and leave them short of paying a bill just 'cause. Servers deserve predictable income and customers should feel obligated to be polite themselves to receive politeness in turn.
Also, tipping culture is sometimes used as an excuse for customers to engage in various levels of harassment with wait staff. This is particularly common in “breastaurants” like Hooters, Twin Peaks, etc.
is it wrong for me to think those places are disgusting?
No, it’s not. They’re strip clubs without the honesty.
I mean to each their own, but ‘breastaurants’ and strip clubs are different levels of lying. I wouldn’t consider strip clubs honest. They are selling the lie. That’s their whole business.
everytime i saw the sign as a kid going north on the 400 to barrie id shudder “what the fuck is going on?”
Thank you for introducing my new favorite word for my least favorite thing!
I only tip for service. I get mad when places that don’t provide service ask for tips. You don’t tip the clerk at McDonalds or other situations like that. Tipping deliver drivers is unethical - you are inciting them to break driving laws as that is the only way they can provide better service.
Depends on the delivery.
Sometimes I get grocery delivery. They need to handle my groceries such that the eggs aren’t cracked, the flour isn’t spilled, and stuff is delivered to where I can retrieve it. It’s also nice if they can do so courteously.
However, the tip has to be added at time of order. I tip because it’s a long way from the store to my place, and they are providing a service I could be doing myself. However, I do always worry that if the system is set up “tip up front,” that could indicate that the people are being underpaid, and it’s not just regular employees who are getting an extra tip plus regular pay to do a bit of extra work normally outside their job description.
Not cracking eggs is part of the job. If they crack and egg they failed. If they don’t crack your eggs they did their basic job. If your distance is longer by enough that this matters they should just charge you more for delivery not pretend about it.
Tipping a wait who fills your water is about them doing a job, and even there it is more about not tipping a waiter who doesn’t do their job.
I still don’t think tipping is appropriate, or even necessary, in that context.
When I was a teen, working at a local grocery store, I would do my best to go above and beyond for customers.
If I was on cash, I would pack their groceries. If a customer needed help bringing their groceries outside, or to help load it into their car, I’d gladly do that. I wasn’t being paid extra for any of that, but I considered it my job to provide high-quality service, even at a grocery store.
We didn’t accept tips back then, so this wasn’t fake customer service.
Tipping these days has gone beyond just habit. We get asked to tip for quite literally a single movement, or a 10-second task. It’s beyond the point of absurdity.
Nowadays, grocery stores do not provide the services that I took pride in providing decades ago. They expect you to be the cashier and bag packer now. Funny enough, they don’t ask for tips when you work for free, they ask for donations, instead!
Tipping is the enshittification of the customer service industry. And as a consumer, it gives me one more reason not to spend my money at those places.
Tipping is a symptom of employees not getting compensated properly for their work
eh that’s a bit too simplistic imo, tipping is fine so long as it happens rarely and for specific reasons (e.g. they had to clean up your baby’s vomit), and you make it clear that it’s a gift specifically to the people who had to do extra work.
My local minor league hockey team would have the concession stands staffed with volunteers, and their tips would go towards their kids sports teams. This wouldn’t be so bad if the food prices reflected the fact that they weren’t paying for labor. A can of beer for $14. A small hotdog for $8. Popcorn for $6. And then you get told “I’m a volunteer, all tips go to support my kids team”. It was hard to train myself to hit the “No Tip” button, but eventually it got easier.
And then, as if it couldn’t get worse, they moved to a new arena that has completely automated concession checkouts. You grab what you want, put it on a counter that has a camera and it tallies it up for you. It’s an amazing process… but then, it asks you to tip.
And while I’m bitching… they also went ticketless, all tickets require a smartphone. And they charge for the convenience of them using my device too help them deliver tickets. Same with parking, must pay using your phone and there’s a $0.50 convenience charge.
Is there psychologically something wrong with me then when i click no to tip unless i have cash on me?
I don’t tip. Unless it’s a bit of cash to my Uber or cab driver for helping with luggage or something. Other than that, nope. It’s not my responsibility to pay your employees - and that’s assuming they even get the tip money which so often they don’t.
I only tip if the service was above and beyond expectation. As you said: it’s not meant to subsidize their actual pay. It’s a tip. And if I tip, I make sure the person I am tipping gets cash directly in their hand. Under the table if necessary.
That would be a valid point in cases where the employee isn’t being paid below minimum wage. In restaurants in America, it literally, legally, does subsidize their pay.
You misunderstand. It’s not my job to subsidize their pay.
You’re a customer, you don’t have a “job”. You have a bill for goods and services. You choose which goods and services you purchase. The bill presented to you at an American restaurant is calculated based on sub-minimum wages due to the tipping convention. There are some restaurants which calculate their bill with a living wage, and do not solicit tips, and this is reflected in higher prices.
By patronizing a restaurant that pays based on tipped wages, and not paying a tip, you are saving money by exploiting the system at the literal expense of the employee. Choose not to purchase from companies that secure low prices by exploitation, or write your representative to end the tipped wage laws that perpetuate that exploitation.
Just remember that the only one who suffers when you didn’t tip a tipped-wage worker, is the worker.
If a server is struggling to make enough tips to compete with minimum wage, what is stopping them from quiting that restaurant and getting a minimum wage job somewhere like retail or fast food? Most of the servers i know make A LOT more than minimum wage, some can easilly pull an extra $300 on a weekend night.
If your justification for a behavior is that it’s fine because all the people who don’t behave that way will compensate, your behavior is unjustified.
You could argue it’s kind of a gamble. You’re just betting on people tipping you and risking being paid below minimum. But in any case, it’s not relevant here as it’s not an issue in Canada, don’t most states require the employer to top up the difference?
It’s a good thing we’re talking about Canada then.
Huh, just noticed that.
I used to go to this ice cream place. It was one of those places where you get your own ice cream and toppings and then they weigh it and you pay. The people there were really nice and very friendly. Anyway, I was there one day and the owner was interviewing someone for a job there. She was telling this person how after they switched from cash tips to electronic tips, tips went up like 20 or 30%.
I never really tipped at this place, but it’s definitely something when they turn the screen and there is a button for like a 25% tip and then it goes up from there. Pretty fucked up when all they are doing is making sure the ingredients are there so you can serve yourself.
At this point I find myself tipping less and less. I will only tip at places that have full service.
I’ve been to places where the tip WAS about the service. When the ten best restaurants in the world - some kind of Michelin thing in 2001 - included just one American restaurant, I happened to have eaten at that place that year.
And. It. Was. Amazing.
The food was excellent. The wine went well, cheap and pricy both. The service is now my fucking gold standard as it was a rolling magic trick the entire time. We spoke in privacy but seemed never alone. They had what we needed when we needed it, with a superhuman awareness that I never could hope to have when I turned tables and spun plates. The waiter had hands when he needed them, who’d then disappear like ninjas in fog immediately after. Pull the course for the next and the table grooming began like infantry doing toothbrush work, focused and fast. Dessert was not taken: you never get dessert where you got your main. Coffee was suddenly lazy and hushed and introspective, steam curling up to the recessed dim warm lights high above.
The cheque came and the bistromathics forgotten. This cheque went away with embellishment the size of an hour’s cab ride, each way. And twice that still. And someone needs to chase payback tomorrow but keeps a stunning souvenir tonight.
Worth every red cent. For the food was Divine but the service set the standard. And I’d do that again in a moment.
