It's not like you get better or more food, or get the food faster since all that depends on the kitchen that isn't getting tipped directly.
It's pretty much them coming to your table to take your order. I'd much rather have a free burger or drink (the equivalent of what I could get instead of tipping) with the slow service than get my water refilled every 5 minutes.
> It's not like you get better or more food, or get the food faster since all that depends on the kitchen
Oh, trust me, go to a decent place, be a regular, tip decently (not even extravagantly), you absolutely get looked after. For instance, several of my usual lunch spots my usual fountain drink is often "water" on the bill.
I've had similar experiences in all-inclusive resorts in Mexico and the Carribean where they stock your fridge. Leave a few bucks in the door of the fridge, it'll be overflowing. If you don't tip, you get the minimum. Tip the bell man well at the beginning of the trip, and every time you call the front desk things show up at your room real quick.
It's likely not like this everywhere but I've become a regular at a few places over my life time and asked about this. At least where I've been, it is actually all tracked. Generally, at least at bars, the people coming in and tipping well, are people who come in often and spend a lot to begin with so over the long run they end up making it back anyway. And honestly, when you're new to a city/place and don't have a lot of friends/are single, and you walk in somewhere and are greeted by name and served your usual without asking it's a nice retreat.
> so over the long run they end up making it back anyway
Yeah, they lose on the unit, but they make it back on the volume!
How are you both new to a city/place and they already know your name/usual before you've even tipped? Do they send runners out ahead with the information?
You know what works even better? Being a friendly and nice person. It has the added bonus that when they greet you and "treat you better" (whatever you mean by that) next time you’ll know it’s not just because of your wallet.
- Tipping results in lower pay for certain genders and races.
- laws that protect employees don't apply to customers. Your boss can't make inappropriate comments and pay you less if you complain. But if a customer makes inappropriate comments, its perfectly legal for the customer to pay you less if you reject their advances.
I don’t think any of this is fixed by banning tips.
As I said, tipping shouldn’t be mandatory nor required for someone to make a living serving, frankly, relatively wealthy people and experience.
If someone owns a restaurant, I can show gratitude by coming more. If my clients like me, they can show gratitude by giving me more business. If a server does a great job independent of their employer, a tip is a good way of showing that.
(That said, if a group of employees has agreed to no tips, they should refuse them and one shouldn’t push.)
customers can legally tip different depending on race and genders, employers cannot.
> If a server does a great job independent of their employer, a tip is a good way of showing that.
The problem is customers perceive "great job" more often when the person is from a certain race or gender or body shape. This creates an inequitable environment.
When I visited the US I’ve noticed some waiters would treat you worse or just ignore if they found out you were a tourist, so when I could I would order something small and pay right away with tip, just to get basic service. So your comment makes 0 sense.
That feels disturbingly like a lite version of paying someone to be your friend. Maybe we should just all treat each other well (in both directions) and not reduce manners and social graces to a financial transaction.
I have, in the UK. Probably 95% of customers didn't tip. I didn't have any problems with this.
Why?
I was nice to people because that was my job, but when I've travelled to the US I have definitely seen entitled customers treat staff like shit and claiming it's their right because they were tipping.
Tipping as standard should go out the window, it just drives customers to be assholes.
I worked in a fast food restaurant here in the States, people tipped but usually not well. I wasn't pressed about it, I was getting a full minimum wage. Entitled customers didn't give me trouble for whatever reason, they seemed to size up my coworkers as softer targets.
> Why?
I was just curious about how OP's experience informed their perspective.
When visiting the States I have observed on a couple of occasions where a customer shouted at staff and used the threat of withholding a tip as leverage to be unreasonably nasty to wait staff.
The service industry in the US is awful, and the tipping culture is really toxic. I don't understand those that defend the American approach.
To be clear, I don't defend it. I'm mildly against it. Unfortunately I don't in it's at the root of entitled customer behavior in the States, I think there's a deeper cultural contempt for service workers. You'll see similar behavior towards workers who aren't tipped but who provide some sort of face-to-face service, like cashiers and teachers.
> Unfortunately I don't in it's at the root of entitled customer behavior in the States, I think there's a deeper cultural contempt for service workers.
Completely agree with this position. I didn't mean to say that removal of tipping would solve the problem, more that it is an enabler of toxic behaviour. The more opportunities provided, the more likely assholes will be emboldened causing a normalisation effect both in them, and others around them.
Something that has occurred to me is that I have sometimes been that asshole entitled customer, and as I've matured I've learned to remove myself from a situation when I feel the urge to yell at a service worker.
It has never been about the money really. The only exception I remember was when I was upset about the way my bank processed my paycheck and yelled about it in my early 20s (my bad, I didn't know how depositing checks at an ATM worked but I ought to have). But usually it's because I felt insecure or disrespected in some way (which wasn't, to my memory, reasonable. It wasn't what the kids call a "valid crash out".).
For instance, it really gets under my skin when I am talking to technical support on the phone and they try to blame the problem on my running Linux. Argh! If it was Linux I wouldn't need their help! I'd either fix it on my own or ask some help forum.
I don't know how much that translates to the larger phenomenon, I'm not even talking about face-to-face interactions anymore, but that's my two cents.
People say this, but what is better service?
It's not like you get better or more food, or get the food faster since all that depends on the kitchen that isn't getting tipped directly.
It's pretty much them coming to your table to take your order. I'd much rather have a free burger or drink (the equivalent of what I could get instead of tipping) with the slow service than get my water refilled every 5 minutes.