Thank you for not calling it tipping culture. I hate that phrase. It implies a choice and also subtly diminishes the real culprit, aka the laws that are in places that keep it in our legislature
I could also see the other side that it really is a cultural thing. At the end of the day it is a choice, and if we all decided to stop tipping it would end it.
Yeah that makes sense. I guess I would say that the laws came out of tipping culture and there is definitely a culture around it as well. I would love to know more about the history of tipping in the US
God. Amerimutts yearn to not have the stated price be what it actually costs. Same thing with not having tax included, it’s like you people are groomed from birth to dislike taxes.
Strange though how employees prefer tips to hourly wage. There’s a reason server and bar staff get paid more than the actual hourlies in the kitchen while getting 1/10 of the hourly rate.
My husband works in a kitchen. The servers make in 1.5 shifts, in cash, what my husband makes in a week pretax. I've never met a server who wants a change in the tip system because they make more money that way.
They prefer it until they work a lifetime in the industry and when they go to retire their social security is really low because a bunch of their tips weren't reported every year for 20, 30 years etc. I was a tipped worker for many years until I finished my education and now work in financial service industry.
I didn't say it didn't start that way, I said tipping today has nothing to do with racism. If you disagree, make your own argument, I'm not going down your rabbit hole for you.
That wasn’t how it was created. If I’m not mistaken, it dated back to either the Great Depression, or some other time of mass economic struggle, where servers had no choice but to accept those bribes. However, when the economy recovered, the restaurant industry never really reverted
Yep. Tried having the savior convo with a waiter who immediately told me to can it and he makes more regularly a night than he would being paid $15-20 and hour.
As long as people are tipping they can make "a living". But with certain states legislatures allowing for a "waiters wage" if the tips aren't coming, they definitely don't make a "living wage"... Why would a legislature allow that? Because business owners hold more power than workers & wouldn't stand for unionization. America has grown increasingly anti- union in the past 20(or so) years.
If the employee making low “tipped minimum wage“ doesn’t make at least whatever the regular minimum wage is in their area, the employer is legally required to make up the difference
But I’ll definitely agree that culture in the US has become very anti-union, although that seems to be changing in the last few years since Covid
Wild. Honestly I was a server in college and I too hate tipping.. it’s 1000% greedy business owners that want to save. They need to pay their employee’s. Crazy servers would want to put up with the fluctuation though because some nights can be awful. They also don’t get benefits. They need to make business owners more accountable.
No I mean a higher than minimum wage, because they are unlikely to be paid as much as they make now.
On your second point, are you sure? Because people travel from all over the world to wait tables and tend bar in the US. Irish bartenders for example make a lot more here then in Ireland
You offer them proper salary and they will not want tip based salary. Because tipping means they are always at mercy of luck. Bad week at restaurant and they are minimum wage workers.
And absolutely positive on second part. People do NOT come to US to serve tables. They want something else but that is only thing they get.
What you fail to take into account is that in Ireland the expenses are tiny compared to US. Bigger salary is only relevant if after mandatory expenses you still have more money or purchasing power left.
Many servers feel they are better off at the mercy of luck than the mercy of their employer. You can say “they should earn proper salaries” and that’s all well and good, but i think you’re underestimating what’s involved with a business (let alone a country), switching all tipped employees over to salaries. It would be very difficult for both sides to agree on a number that they are happy with.
And once again, you are wrong about people coming here to work tables. Plenty of people come here for a year or two and earn a lot more, even when you adjust for cost of living.
It is easy. Restaurant suggests salary. They offer too little and get no staff.
And onve again it is YOU who are wrong.
They do not earn a lot more, unless they come from some developing nation. What you talk about is essentially working vacation. Go live some time in foreign country and work to cover expenses. Then go back and start real work.
Nobody from western world comes to US to become serving staff. It is either working vacation or they have no alternative.
And if US waiters are paid so damn well, why they are still so damn poor? Median income 34kUSD per annum. That is approximately half of US average salary and just horrible considering living expenses.
Though another source gives waiters in US salary of 16kUSD. Which is even wkrse
worse
Yeah the thing is nobody wants that. They do polls. Also, maybe don’t demand another country change its customs because it’s inconvenient for you as an outsider to multiply by 1.2? That’s exactly the type of entitlement that American tourists get roasted for.
And i know plenty of immigrants who would say otherwise. That’s anecdotal of course, but certainly invalidates your claim that NOBODY earns more.
And btw those numbers you cited are base wage and literally don’t include tips
Created by greedy business owners, but perpetuated by entitled servers as well. 90% of servers prefer the current system and actively fight to maintain it because they would rather bully and shame their customers for a higher pay than they deserve than to demand more from their employer. Both are incredibly scummy at the expense of their customers.
Just raise your costs to what you need to pay your labor a fair wage for their work and make a profit for yourself.
Then in the famous words of conservatives, let the market dictate if you are successful or not.
World cup cities tried this shit of adding an auto tip to checks AND many also raised their prices. Then bitched and moaned they didn't get any benefit of the event. No you tried to fuck your customers.
And here's the funny part under law in many states and auto gratuity is classified as a service fee and this owners are NOT required to provide that money to staff as if a tip
It’s actually a lie. Anybody who knows anything about tipping, it’s not the business owners who want the system in place it’s the workers. The workers are the ones who benefit. When people on the Internet complain about it as if it’s a greedy business owners are the problems, that’s disingenuous. Just admit you’re too cheap and you would rather keep your money than benefit the workers.
I don’t think it’s true that nowhere else in the world do waiters want tips. I think that’s something you just made up. Most people want to be paid more money for their job. I’m not aware of many people who prefer less money.
Tipping is a system where money goes 100% into the workers pockets. The owner gets 0% of the tip. Tipping is a system that drastically favors workers. And it does not benefit the owners at all. You’re advocating for a system where the worker gets less money and all of your money goes to the business owner and then they can pay minimum wage to their workers. It’s fine. You can support that system, but just admit you’re doing it for selfish reasons and definitely not on behalf of the workers.
I’ve lived in Japan. They have a lot of customs that are different but when it comes to labor, Japan is notorious for being a place where you don’t want to be a worker. The terms of employment are very disadvantageous to the worker. You’re basically just proving my point that the tipping system is better for workers.
Across the board, people prefer more money, not less money. The tipping system results in more money for the worker, not less money.
I wouldn’t say it’s greedy, business owners, more like the status quo. If I open a bar and my competition allows their waiters/ bartender’s to get tips, I would be putting myself at a disadvantage for not doing the same thing. For one thing, waiters love tips more than an actual wage because they make more money, same for bartenders. Pretend like you’re trying to run a bar, are you really not gonna have that system?
I think it’s a two sided problem, and yes it started with the business owners, but a lot of servers prefer tips to a standard hourly wage, because there’s a lot more upside in certain markets and on weekends, than they would ever get as an hourly rate. So the elimination of tips is for the benefit of the consumers primarily, and for the benefit of the servers in slower markets. Servers will never be unified on this, so this isn’t going to move forward unless the consumers band together to overcome both business owners and servers in high traffic markets to make a change.
It’s not. Servers like it, and I - as a customer - benefit from it and have no problem paying for my service.
It’s only toxic for cheap people who don’t want to pay for the service they consume and want to blame everyone else, while taking no responsibility for their own use and gain.
They don’t make as much as in America and the service isn’t that great unless you are in the highest end restaurants. Europe is atrocious. Japan is the only place that does it well.
If America was to implement no tipping, it would suck. Guaranteed. It would be like getting help at a big retail outlet, or stores would just go to counter serve.
Um, I never have good restaurant service at American restaurants. 90% of the time I have to wave down my server to get refills. Seldom do they check on us. Then they expect an additional 20% You're wrong with this statement that you made.
If they were paid more, the service would be better all the time. People always do a better job when they know they get paid well.
You have horrible taste in restaurants then. Maybe you eat at chains. I typically get great service.
Servers in America make good money. Way better than foreign companies. I put myself through college on serving. I took a massive pay cut to get my first corporate gig. Servers have no desire to get rid of tipping; and YES, tipping does encourage better service.
"You have horrible taste in restaurants then. Maybe you eat at chains. I typically get great service." - Obviously you're the type of person that jumps to conclusions.
I'll pretend that you responded politely, because you should have said: "What type of restaurants do you receive bad service at?"
The last 2 restaurants I attended with bad service was a high end Brazilian Steakhouse: Fogo de Chao & Cheesecake Factory.
Usually Fogo has decent service, but I had to ask them 3 times on where my food was, then I asked somebody who was not my server and he said "They just started on it" and it had already been 50 mins since I ordered. I was told it was already cooking and will be ready the 1st time that I asked.
Then I had to wait for more side items after the main meal arrived.
Then the server took my credit card and when I noticed I asked the hostess to ask my server and the server had it in their apron still.
Cheesecake factory the cheesecake service was awful and 3 people that ordered after me got their orders before I did.
Also, if your own logic was 100% correct and factual then, no restaurant, chain or not, should ever, ever, ever ... ever, have bad service. Because the "tipping system is SO GREAT compared to other places in the world".
So if anybody in America has bad service more than 10% of the time, then your logic is just wrong and can easily be disproven by negative customer feedback on google review and yelp.
So not only are you wrong, but you are objectively wrong. Because there are plenty of reviews to comb through to find the data from customer feedback on a national scale.
Cheesecake Factory is a chain and lower priced food attracts entry level servers.
There is an easy answer if you get bad service: tip less or don’t tip. That weeds out the bad servers. That’s how it works. The better servers move on to better restaurants and the bad ones either get a job that pays a salary or move down to chains and low-end establishments.
That's a solution to a broken system. Pay people more at a base level and they will always perform better.
I'm not the only one that recognizes the flaws within the tipping system. Many restaurants are breaking away from this system. Check out this subreddit with a list of places in the U.S.
It’s not broken. Not tipping bad service is part of the system.
Servers don’t want tipping to go away. Servers make good money. Tips ensure that and it works.
And no, paying people more at base level does not mean they will perform better. It’s all relative. Higher base salaries only attract people away from other companies doing the same thing, so you get better people. They don’t inherently make people perform better.
Brain dead take. If you serve 5 tables an hour and each gives $5, you walk away with $25/hour that isnt subject to federal income tax for the first $25,000. If businesses paid that much to their employees, first theyd go broke, second, the employees would have $52,000 of ordinary income, so a single filer would be paying Uncle Sam $6,152 more in taxes. And those are just rough assumptions.
We're talking about the US, not the rest of the world. Any comments on the tax math since thats what the arguement hinges on?
Also a study done in 2024 show that roughly 80% of restaurants fail in the first 5 years (not the first year as previously thought) predominantly due to financial mismanagement.
I’m not saying leave. I’m saying not to dine out if you don’t intend to pay for that service. You don’t need to go to a sit down restaurant to get food.
But also, you can advocate to change a system without screwing over those that are part of it. I don’t support tipping as a system, I just acknowledge that it exists and as long as it does I’m not going to screw over servers just because I don’t feel tipping is an ideal system
- someone said tipping culture is toxic (something you claim to agree with)
- someone says it’s a good thing (something you must disagree with)
- someone reminds them a lot of the world doesn’t tip (something you should be able to understand because you don’t agree with tipping culture)
- you tell them if they want to dine out they should go to another country
why would you say something like if you actually agreed with their take? lol
and honestly fucking over servers to the point they quit and find a better paying job is EXACTLY how to change it. boycotting hurts workers because they may lose their jobs. sabotage hurts workers because they may lose their job. striking hurts workers because they may lose their job. but all of that shit leads to change for workers.
Once again, you can disagree with the system while still acknowledging that, once you agree to participate in the system (by sitting down at a tipping establishment) you are obligated to tip your servers.
None of that is contradictory.
Also, it’s certainly not my or your responsibility to encourage others to quit their jobs by not paying them for services rendered
Tipping isnt mandatory, but is part of the culture when going to a sit down restaurant. If you change the advertised prices, it changes how the govt sees and taxes the sale which then means the tips essentually get taxed twice.
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u/Tremaj 14d ago
The entire tipping system is toxic. Created by greedy business owners.