[notahacker]

"Customary" works both ways. If it's "customary", then we should probably also accept that the custom doesn't involve tipping as much as the article author thinks bartenders deserve if people generally don't tip as much as the article author thinks bartenders deserve.

And a former state labor official of all people should be blaming the employers for not paying a proper wage (and proposing regulation to solve that) rather than the customers for not making uncustomarily large tips to make up for them.

(Also, in most of the world it isn't customary to tip bartenders)

[fnordpiglet]

Ok, but sit back and ask yourself (if you’re in the US, which is the context being discussed and what they do in another society isn’t particularly relevant), do you tip at restaurants and bars? Almost everyone would agree they do.

The situation here is it’s a restaurant and bar that shows movies.

I wouldn’t expect to tip on the ticket prices, but it is surprising to expect to not tip full service waiters and bartenders.

I will be willing to wager $2 that the same people at a bar would tip their bartender as is customary in the US. The context mixture of theatre with bar is likely the cause of the anomalous behavior. And the authors point is: if you don’t want to tip your bartender at the theatre, then expect there won’t be a bartender at your theatre as they will work at a bar, where you would tip them.

That seems pretty fair?

[notahacker]

> And the authors point is: if you don’t want to tip your bartender at the theatre, then expect there won’t be a bartender at your theatre as they will work at a bar, where you would tip them.

Or maybe, just maybe, the venue selling the drinks at substantial markup could pay them properly rather than trying to extend the custom of staff wages being dependent upon the charity of customers to a venue where customers generally don't feel like tipping. You'd think a government official in a labor department of all people would get the idea that employers paying living wages should be the rule rather than the exception.

Tipping customs often vary according to venue, range of products served and how they're served (sometimes in nuanced ways that are baffling to outsiders). Honestly, I have no idea whether it's considered customary to tip at that sort of bar at that sort of venue in that state, but a complaint about making less than a dollar per hour at a supposedly busy event is a data point against.

[fnordpiglet]

I would note in a labor market labor has the option to work for the employer who maximizes the employees benefit. As you note the author is in a labor department and they meticulously detail all the reasons no one would want to work for this theatre. They use this as an explanation for why companies are complaining they can’t hire - because they aren’t competitive and make a hostile work environment. Instead, employees are exercising their at will employment rights and going to employers that offer reasonable work environments.

Which I think you’re agreeing with their point. The employer could fix the situation but instead just barrel ahead oblivious to the reasons their people are quitting. It wasn’t the managers, it wasn’t even the customers even though the customers weren’t awesome. It was the owners.

[BoiledCabbage]

And who created the odd mix? The movie theater company.

So instead of losing all of their staff, they should simply pay to retain them and post a "no tipping" policy upon entry.

It really is easy, but too people on HN will contort themselves into knots to avoid having any company have any accountability at all in any decision making.

[fnordpiglet]

Well, that is actually the entire thesis of the original link.