[gambiting]

When I visited America(coming from Europe) that was the biggest shock to me too - we went for a meal with coworkers, the service was absolutely terrible, food was bad, we felt unwelcome the entire time. So at the end of the service I say - well, it was an awful experience, that means we don't leave a tip, right? No no no - say our hosts - you have to leave a tip, otherwise you look like a jerk.

I was like.....but surely.....the whole idea of a tip is to reward good service, right? If the service was bad, then why would you tip?

I still think about it sometimes. It's like the whole idea of tipping "maybe" started with good intentions(rewarding good service) but now transformed into some kind of idiotic virtue signalling(because at the end of the day, what if we look like jerks for not tipping? literally none of us will ever enter this restaurant again, the only thing we achieved by tipping was rewarding bad service, nothing more nothing less).

[saghm]

> I was like.....but surely.....the whole idea of a tip is to reward good service, right? If the service was bad, then why would you tip?

Unfortunately, minimum wage laws in the US have exemptions for workers who are expected to make most of their money through tips, which means that most restaurants pay them well under the "minimum". The question I'd ask in this situation isn't whether the service was good, but whether it was so bad that I think the employees involved don't deserve to even get paid minimum wage. I've yet to ever come to the conclusion that no tip is deserved, and in practice I struggle to think of any circumstance in which the service could be bad enough to deserve that. I guess if I was actually physically harmed due to malicious intent or something then it would maybe warrant that, but I don't think I'd realistically stick around to even eat in that case.

[dvfjsdhgfv]

> The question I'd ask in this situation isn't whether the service was good, but whether it was so bad that I think the employees involved don't deserve to even get paid minimum wage.

But ensuring the minimum wage is paid should be the responsibility of the employer, not some random customer. Everything is backwards here.

[kortilla]

> Unfortunately, minimum wage laws in the US have exemptions for workers who are expected to make most of their money through tips, which means that most restaurants pay them well under the "minimum".

Minimum wage is still the floor. The restaurant has to pay the difference if they are under.

[AngryData]

But they don't get paid minimum wage for just your meal, a person not tipping just ends up taking away from tips they earned from someone else that was over minimum wage. Not to mention not making tip minimums and asking for more wage from the restaurant will quickly get you fired.

[TheCoelacanth]

In theory. In practice, asking the restaurant to actually follow that law is a good way to get fired.

[EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK]

>> minimum wage laws in the US have exemptions

No waiter would accept minimum wage in lieu of tips. This is all bogus talk.

[CalRobert]

Ask any dishwasher if they'd rather have tips or minimum wage (which is what I got as a dishwasher) and I assure you they'd pick tips. There's a lot of workers in the restaurant who aren't as fortunate as your server.

Not sure what the real point of this is but I wish people remembered that in the restaurant hierarchy servers are nowhere near the bottom.

[Broken_Hippo]

That's untrue in some circumstances, and misleading in many others.

Some folks are making around minimum wage anyway, and some employers steal tips. At least a steady wage gets you something easier to fall back on.

It should be said that minimum wage is low enough that fast food often pays more. So yes, you are correct that minimum wage isn't competitive enough. You'd have to pay more.

Few might trade tips for minimum wage, but trading tips for a steady income? Sure. No more getting shafted. No more getting stuck with low-tipping shifts because someone else is more liked by the manager (folks get punished with low-tip-earning shifts). Customers won't be able to have so much leverage over you because they will no longer be directly responsible for your week's wages.

[RHSeeger]

> Few might trade tips for minimum wage, but trading tips for a steady income

Not if the wait-person believes that their low pay + tips averages out to a good amount more than the steady income would.

[saghm]

Even if that's the case, is that an argument in favor of withholding tips? My point is that tips generally are the bulk of the compensation for restaurant staff, so if you don't tip, you're essentially enjoying a meal subsidized at their expense. It doesn't realistically matter all that much what my preferences about tipping versus higher wages for restaurant staff is as a consumer; my only choices when eating at a restaurant are to tip or not to tip, and personally I don't really see any way I could justify choosing the latter given the circumstances.

[masukomi]

The federal minimum wage for servers and other tipped employees in the US is $2.13 per hour. I don't think it's increased in literally 40 years.

some restaurants have slow days, and the waitstaff doesn't have a choice. They get minimum wage because there are no tips, or there are so few customers as to make the tips meaningless vs the hours spent.

[RHSeeger]

However, as noted previously, that sub-minimum wage is "before tips". If, over the course of a week (iirc), the waiter makes less than the actual minimum wage ($7.25 federally), then the employer must make up the difference. That being said, I would guess any wait staff that go this route on a regular basis don't wind up employed for long.

[m000]

> No waiter would accept minimum wage in lieu of tips. This is all bogus talk.

Actually you just made it bogus, by bringing up a strawman argument. Who mandates that waiters should only be paid minimum wage? Or that they would have to yield tips in exchange for a fixed wage?

[kcplate]

Sure, but then you change the equation and reasoning behind the need. By increasing the base amount it becomes no longer about the employee earning a minimum wage (who likely already is and many times over the minimum wage via their tips), but about intentionally punishing the employer.

[m000]

How comes that a fair wage is "intentionally punishing the employer", but paying subminimum wage is not "intentionally punishing the employee"?

[kcplate]

Because the employer is not paying a sub-minimum wage—they are guaranteeing the minimum wage and provide the employee to make more than minimum wage. If you force the employer to pay a higher rate as a base, you are forcing them to have a greater expense, which affects the bottom line

[workingon]

While I wouldnt have tipped this person, you still tip during regular 'bad service' (like slowness or burnt food or whatever), because even though things didnt meet your expectations doesn't mean you should take advantage of the fact that the state makes it legal to pay servers only $2 an hour. The prices of your shit meal were lower because of this, so you should at least make up the difference to a minimum livable wage, which is the cost it would've been if the state wasnt retrograde.

Unless of course you think people who are bad servers don't deserve to make minimum wage.

[gambiting]

>>Unless of course you think people who are bad servers don't deserve to make minimum wage.

I think that it shouldn't be the customers responsibility to even know what the server is making, and logically it shouldn't be their responsibility to make sure they are paid X or Y. You come in, order food, pay for the food, leave. The business owner should be responsible to keep their employees compensated well enough that they don't want to leave.

But like I said in another comment - the situation in US is a result of literally decades of social conditioning, where the population has been told by business owners that it's their(customers) responsibility to make sure that service workers are compensated well enough to not be in poverty, and it's your personal responsibility to tip or the person will starve.

It's gotten to the point where people make this argument in absolute earnest, and truly believe what they say, like it's the most obvious thing in the world. It really is a marvel of social engineering, and a boon for American businesses I'm sure.

>>because even though things didnt meet your expectations doesn't mean you should take advantage of the fact that the state makes it legal to pay servers only $2 an hour

That actually furthers my point above - the side taking advantage of $2 minimum wage is the employer, not the customer.

[RHSeeger]

>> Unless of course you think people who are bad servers don't deserve to make minimum wage.

> It's gotten to the point where people make this argument in absolute earnest

Because the way the pay works at the moment is the way the pay works at the moment, and we tip based on that. The fact that people believe the pay _shouldn't_ work that way is no excuse for not tipping your wait staff at all _today_.

> That actually furthers my point above - the side taking advantage of $2 minimum wage is the employer, not the customer.

Not really, at least not in most cases. If tips went away and the employer paid more, the prices of the meals would go up to compensate. The restaurant owners aren't making more money because of the current system; most of them aren't making a large profit. The owners aren't paying sub-minimum wage because they want to pocket the difference; they're doing it because to do otherwise would drive them out of business (because their competition is also doing it). You need to change the rules for everyone in order for almost anyone to do better.

[workingon]

Youre just bucking the responsibility thats put on you. It sucks the state makes it that way, but youre only hurting other people. If you disagree with tipping then dont go to a restaraunt in a state that requires it. Your self righteous arguments fall on deaf ears of people who work for tips and have to put up with jerks like you.

There are so many instances where the government allows people to be exploited here in America. If youre taking advantage of that and exploiting them -- you are a part of the problem -- it is that simple.

[origin_path]

Why does the state make it that restaurants don't pay waiters enough? There is no obligation to only pay the minimum wage. Some countries in Europe don't even have a minimum wage at all and there's still no tipping culture like the USA. It really is just something that's considered normal in the US and bizarre everywhere else.

[gambiting]

>> If youre taking advantage of that and exploiting them -- you are a part of the problem -- it is that simple.

The only side expliting anyone here is the employers exploiting their employees. It's that simple. But we don't have to agree on this.

>> If you disagree with tipping then dont go to a restaraunt in a state that requires it.

Like I said in my comment above, I was only visiting America - and I did tip while I was there, for your information.

>> Your self righteous arguments fall on deaf ears of people who work for tips and have to put up with jerks like you.

All I have done so far is made my arguments here on HN, not sure that deserves being called a jerk.

[ctrlmeta]

> Unless of course you think people who are bad servers don't deserve to make minimum wage.

Why should the responsibility of paying a bonus (a tip) to the server fall on the customer? Why shouldn't the business be held responsible for paying them the bonus? As someone from Europe, I find it difficult to wrap my head around the fact that it is somehow customer's responsibility to pay them a bonus/tip even if there has been a bad service. In my mind it should clearly be the responsibility of the business to pay them what they deserve.

[lazyasciiart]

Those are very solid arguments for not allowing businesses to pay less than minimum wage, or for (as an individual) not visiting places that allow businesses to pay less than minimum wage. They aren’t terribly relevant to the situation where you just ate somewhere that does pay less than minimum wage.

[ctrlmeta]

> They aren’t terribly relevant to the situation where you just ate somewhere that does pay less than minimum wage.

Sorry for being obstuse but I still don't understand. How as a customer I would know whether the place where I ate at is paying less than minimum wage or not?

[RHSeeger]

As a general rule of thumb at almost any restaurant you're likely to visit, they're not. Now you know.

[lazyasciiart]

Depends how much effort you want to put in. Zero? Simply assume that it's true for any restaurant in the US.

[marak830]

As mentioned above though, as the company has to cover a lack of tips Uptoinimum wage, they won't be paid under minimum (at least that's what I'm taking from this).

[lazyasciiart]

Technically true, but nobody I know who has worked for a tipped minimum wage has ever seen this happen.

[tsukikage]

> The prices of your shit meal were lower because of this

Can one really claim that when, in the same breath, one also claims tips are near-mandatory?

What this situation actually means is that the business entices you in with a low price in the menu, but that price is only tangentially related to the amount I end up paying when it comes time to pay. The thing that is "lower" is not the amount of money that leaves my wallet at the end of the meal, and I am never told up front what that total will be. This is actually true of most transactions in the US, because taxes also work in a similar fashion.

Elsewhere, the norms are different. In some places, when, as a customer, you see a price for goods and services, that is exactly the amount of money you pay; it is the responsibility of whoever is setting the price to set it at an appropriate level so they can appropriately compensate whatever third parties they need to compensate. In other places, the norm might be to haggle; but even there you know what the agreed total will be before you receive the goods or services.

That said, the US approach is actually not entirely an unfamiliar experience to Europeans: budget airlines operate on the same principle of "quote low price up front then the customer pays way more at the end for things that are technically but not really optional" here - and we hate those just as much.

[madeofpalk]

> doesn't mean you should take advantage of the fact that the state makes it legal to pay servers only $2 an hour.

Instead the state and the restaurant should take advantage of you and the employee?

[RHSeeger]

If the waitstaff was payed more and tips were removed from the equation, the meal would cost more. It doesn't wind up costing you more to tip than is the system was changed; unless you tip very well (in which case, you might be one of those people that would tip even if the system was changed).

[madeofpalk]

Isn't that good? When the prices directly include the cost of what it takes to create it?

You say this as a bad thing, as if basically every other country doesn't do this?

[gambiting]

I just don't think that's true. Food in the UK(in restaurants) is just as cheap if not cheaper than in US and tipping is entirely optional, plus minimum wage and employee protections are a lot higher. So I don't think the low wage necessarily correlates to cheap meal prices

[raverbashing]

> Unless of course you think people who are bad servers don't deserve to make minimum wage.

No but I do think the establishment has the responsibility to list the actual price of services rendered

[yccs27]

I'd be inclined to agree, if the the tips didn't factor into the minimum wage calculation - so that in the medium-term, higher average tips ddidn't just lead to lower pay from the employer.

Of course this is coming from an European, so the whole tipping culture is foreign to me.

[mnau]

Incredible amount of goods or services I consume pay $2/hour, if they are lucky. Bangladesh, India, take your pick. I certainly take advatage fo that. Why should I pay more?

It's not my job to fix laws and it's not my job to make sure a person has a good wage.

[pasquinelli]

it's not really the point, but there's no reason to think your meal was cheaper because of the low wages. if you're the restaurant owner, if your labor costs suddenly went down, why would you lower your prices?

[RHSeeger]

I have no doubt at all that, if owners suddenly had to pay waitstaff more, the prices of meals would go up. Because the owners need to make money too, and most of them have pretty thin margins.

[dwater]

You will not be surprised to learn that tipping in the US started with racial oppression after slavery was abolished. It created a way to employ people without paying them wages.

https://time.com/5404475/history-tipping-american-restaurant...

[behringer]

I wouldnt have tipped. That said, as a guest to the country and at a work gathering you may want to tip just to not leave a bad impression of yourself.

[gambiting]

Well yes, obviously we tipped at the end, but I was just surprised that everyone in our group was unhappy with the entire service and food, yet we still had to top. There is a saying where I'm from "co kraj to obyczaj" - "every country has its customs". That custom just stood out for me.

[behringer]

hmm if it was a large party, generally you are obligated to tip and they already include it on the receipt. Be especially careful not to tip twice in these cases. Though I think that's insane, but I guess large groups have a reputation of stiffing wait staff.