[bscphil]

> When I delivered food

A "token amount" is pretty reasonable if you take tipping at face value, no? It's supposed to be a reward for good service. Waitstaff engage with you many times over the course of about an hour, and every person at a table receives service. It's fairly reasonable in this case to tip in proportion to the total bill. On the contrary, it's roughly the same amount of work for a delivery driver to deliver $100 of food as it is $10. Tipping the driver a few dollars (at most) seems not unreasonable in this case. The tip cannot possibly be reflective of any service rendered and it's essentially random what driver you will get, so you're not being biased or harming a particular person.

This is, of course, wholly separate from whether the tipping system is a good idea on the whole.

[nerdbert]

> It's fairly reasonable in this case to tip in proportion to the total bill.

Someone who helps you at a $10/plate restaurant can be just as helpful as the person working at a $200/plate restaurant. Often less annoying, in fact.

[gnicholas]

I honestly don't know, but do you think the $200/plate restaurant spreads your tips among more people? I would imagine their ratio of tipped workers to patrons would be higher than most restaurants.

[notch656c]

I'm sure this varies so I came to this same scenario at a high end sushi restaraunt where there is a waitress, a sushi chef, a non-sushi cheff, hostess, bartender etc and every single one of those people are working on your dinner (closer to $100 per person, but still).

I wasn't sure and I had hoped the tip worked as you said getting spread around (at least to the sushi chef who takes the sushi order directly and drops it at your table). I figured the hostess would tell me straight up since she's not taking my tip directly and doesn't benefit greatly one way or another.

She made it clear to me. Don't expect anyone beyond the waitress to get a meaningful share. I presume she meant either the sharing was very minimal or the waitress was likely to pocket most of it before reporting the amount to the people she may obliged to share it with. That didn't sit well with me but I have a feeling she was telling the truth, especially in light of the fact that the waitress would have every incentive especially with cash to just pocket the money and tell everybody else they were stiffed or got 5% or whatever.

[Dylan16807]

$200/plate restaurants are weird and I'm not going to use them to decide anything about how I tip.

[notch656c]

See my below post. The issue is the delivery driver has to pick up the order from a full service restaurant much of the time. The full service restaurant workers will blackball the delivery driver if he doesn't tip them, and that happens proportionally to the cost of the food. After 2-3 times the delivery driver not tipping the restaraunt at the food he's picking up, he will be waiting forever until his customers cancel.

[ramphastidae]

I’m having trouble believing this. You’re saying restaurant workers are expecting tips from the delivery drivers coming to their restaurant for pickup? I’ve only ever seen drivers show up, confirm their identity and orders to the restaurant workers via an app, take the food, and leave.

[mindslight]

> The full service restaurant workers will blackball the delivery driver if he doesn't tip them

Have things seriously gotten this bad, that restaurant workers are shaking down delivery drivers for extra cash? So much for solidarity with fellow workers.

Tips are for service, and selling food is not a service. At a restaurant, tips are for the waitstaff that brings your food and cleans up after you. Everything else is people hustling for extra cash. And yes we all like extra cash, but that doesn't make one entitled to it by putting a cup on the counter.

(Delivery drivers bringing food to your house, and drinks at a bar are two separate categories of service where tipping is legitimately expected. Although now that I think about it, maybe that second category was just the beginning of people getting suckered).

[godelski]

> Have things seriously gotten this bad, that restaurant workers are shaking down delivery drivers for extra cash? So much for solidarity with fellow workers.

This is why I call them bribes and say they are akin to feudalism (where the practice started). Because it separates us. Like I said in my main post, it divides a larger group that should be collectively bargaining for a higher minimum wage. I'm fine with tipping, but it being a social standard is barbaric.

[notch656c]

Minimum wage is feudalism again though. You're outlawing the jobs of those who create less than minimum wage in value, thus relegating them to the black market and/or less employment. It separates the wage workers and benefits some of the poor at the expense of the even more poor.

[godelski]

> Minimum wage is feudalism again though.

This is absurd, I'm sorry. It is logically inconsistent and means that if wages, payments, or exchange of goods exist in any form as compensation for work, then the system is feudalism. This would not only go against the common usage (words mean what we collectively agree they mean), but render the word meaningless. Please don't do this, you're just adding noise to an argument and not providing a useful comment.

[notch656c]

You said tips were akin to feudalism.

Personally I didn't agree with your redefinition, but since you go by a completely different standard than everyone else I went to your level to make you understand your absurdity.

> It is logically inconsistent and means that if wages, payments, or exchange of goods exist in any form as compensation for work, then the system is feudalism.

And no I was saying minimum wage law is doing the exactly thing you fear, which is split us apart by outlawing poor people from working if the value of their labor is less than the minimum wage amount. It creates the same bifurcated society you feared where the very poor now have their jobs outlawed and have to work in the black market and shadows already more than they already do. Minimum wage law is basically a giant "fuck you got mine" to people creating less than that value and creating a cartel where a number of poor people benefit at the expense of the even more poor through violence of the state.

[notch656c]

The issue is the waitstaff that prepare takeout at some restaurants are "tipped" service workers.

Which means they don't earn almost any wage.

So if they spend all their time prepping takeout orders for delivery workers they make NO money. So they get very pissed doing this work and intentionally slow it down.

my experience is from several years back, things may have changed.

[mindslight]

This sounds like straight up employee misclassification and wage theft that should be taken up with state regulators. Surely a fast food place like McDonalds can't just put a tip jar on the counter, play coy that their workers are tipped positions, and underpay their employees. So it's a matter of enforcement on the smaller outfits that are able to fly under the radar.

I don't want to completely wash my hands of it because it's certainly possible the state regulators could be corrupt and just ignoring the problem, but just giving in to the corruption doesn't seem right either.

[runnerup]

The law has always included consideration for this loophole. Every employee must at least average state minimum wage for their 80-hour paychecks, including tips.

So the employee has to record their tips (often but not always, in the same computer system they record their hours) and make sure their employer correctly compensated them for the shortfall between actual earnings and minimum wage.

Minimum wage laws basically says “Every employee must make the minimum wage when tips and employer payments are combined. Also, employers must always pay at least $2.13/hr (federal) regardless of amount that is earned in tips.”

The “real” issue is that $2.13/hr combined with averaging earnings over a paycheck leads to very very mismatched incentives for a business deciding what hours they should be open. The business has very low marginal cost so they’ll stay open during hours when it’s not profitable to the laborers because not enough customers ever walk in to make them minimum wage during those extra off-peak hours.

[mindslight]

Good point, I had forgotten about that. It seems like the real issue in this case is that minimum wage isn't really much of a guarantee. Waiters are expecting to make much more than minimum wage, but got pushed into a different role that unilaterally altered their wage.

[nsxwolf]

There was a class action suit regarding servers not being paid a full wage while being made to roll up silverware and napkins and other tasks like that where they were on the clock but not able to earn tips. My wife worked at Applebees and got a couple bucks out of this lawsuit.

This sounds like the same thing.

[notch656c]

What the businesses I saw this at did was the waitstaff worked the tables part the time and prepped take out orders part the time. So in effect delivery workers were stealing time they could use to wait tables or directly serve a takeout customer that would usually tip them something. It wasn't that they had staff just for takeout that wasn't getting paid regular wage.

Naturally the waitstaff super resented having to maybe take on less tables to do essentially unpaid work on the side of taking your order, prepping utinsels and drinks, possibly even making some very simple ready made stuff themselves, and plate bagging it up etc and a lot of the shit they have to do for a normal table except for no tip.

[Dylan16807]

How much are they being asked to do? The rule is 20% of their time max or they're supposed to get normal minimum wage.

If it's less than 20%, well, that's just part of the job.

[bscphil]

Yeah, it's certainly an unfortunate situation all around - mostly for the restaurant staff who are dependent on the tips - but probably doesn't change much from the consumer's point of view. FWIW I've not had significant problems with delivery. I think a lot of restaurants have gotten used to "the new normal", though to be fair the majority of meals I've had delivered have been mediocre, sometimes cold.

[ipaddr]

As any hourly worker waiting forever is a nice break from having to actually deliver food. Bonus if the orders are cancelled. Fault never makes it to driver.

[notch656c]

I was working as a contract worker through postmates. I was not paid by the hour and earned nothing if the customer cancelled.

Later the courts ruled this was technically employment and I got a token check in a class action, but of course never back paid for the hours as an employee.