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NYT: $3 Tip on a $4 Cup of Coffee? Gratuities Grow, Automatically

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Somnid

Member
You guys know that tipping isn't mandatory right?

It is and it isn't and many people don't understand how it should work especially with social pressure. If you pick the item up yourself, you don't tip and shouldn't because it re-enforces a bad expectation. If you have someone who "cares" for you like a waitress, salon or other sort of service then that expectation is there. In actual tipping scenarios it's not strictly required but it's socially required which is effectively the same thing.
 

ppor

Member
Pq7IUyF.png


That is Square's tip page. There is a big difference in the customer/cashier interaction when the store moves from a standard tip jar to this kind of prompt at a payment screen. In the first case it seems like an option where you can add a tip if you think they provided additional service. In the second case you have to explicitly state at each transaction that you don't want to tip.

And also notice that the tip is calculated post tax. Even websites like Grubhub seem to calculate the tip percentage on the total, which includes a sometimes large delivery fee already.

Yea, I've gotten shamed into tipping for takeout food. The cashier swipes the card and then physically swivels the iPad to you staring at you like an eagle.
 

neorej

ERMYGERD!
I remember a video with Remy LaCroix where she was a perfect lady and asked for just the tip. She didn't want to shaft the gentleman.
 

Risible

Member
I waited tables through college so I know it can be a shit job. This idea lately that now everyone should be tipped is asinine.

A few months ago a buddy and me went to a diner here in NY. The service was meh bordering on shitty, but we left $3 on a $20 bill. The guy had the balls to come out after us with the $3 in hand and ask if the service wasn't good enough because we had tipped so low.

I said "Oh sorry, give me that and let me see what else I can do", took the three dollars, put it in my wallet, put the wallet back in my pocket and the two of us walked away while he said some very bad words to us. Fuck that. I don't tip just because you showed up for your fucking job, I expect you to actually do it.
 

ppor

Member
I always tip 25% because I used to be a waiter and know what it's like. If you don't want to pay tips, either vote to raise the minimum wage for service workers or advocate for the mincome. The struggle is real out here.

I'll go one step further, remove the tip exemption and paying waiters the standard minimum wage. But make the full wage comes from the restaurant, and not the customers. Earning tips would just be gravy.

BTW, the spread of waiter minimum wage is all over the place.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipped_wage_in_the_United_States
 

Madness

Member
Apparently a lot of people feel any service provided to another human guarantees them a tip. You still do get a wage for your job? If it's not high enough to pay bills, live comfortably, that's life. How is pushing the burden onto your fellow citizens any better as opposed to getting large corporations to pay proper wages?

I only tip if some exemplary service was provided to me. If someone waited on my table, if someone packed and delivered food to my door, carried my heavy luggage to my door. Why would I tip someone to pour me a cup of coffee? Or drive me 3 blocks in a cab? I'm so glad tipping culture in Canada is far more relaxed and nowhere near the norm of America. Plus, our wages are a bit more decent.
 

Apath

Member
Some people want to be seen as good so they tip decently. Is that so hard to understand?
Yes, it is. I do not see how someone turning an iPad towards you or handing a receipt for you to sign is any different.

I have never once tipped someone who just makes me coffee. Especially when coffee is so over priced.
Do I need to tip a place if someone isn't bringing me my food/doesn't have waiters? I feel like so many places that serve food all have a line for tips on the receipt now, barring fast food joints.
Of course not. Tipping is only "mandatory" when the employee earns their wages through tips.
 

Cybrwzrd

Banned
A few months ago a buddy and me went to a diner here in NY. The service was meh bordering on shitty, but we left $3 on a $20 bill. The guy had the balls to come out after us with the $3 in hand and ask if the service wasn't good enough because we had tipped so low.

I said "Oh sorry, give me that and let me see what else I can do", took the three dollars, put it in my wallet, put the wallet back in my pocket and the two of us walked away while he said some very bad words to us. Fuck that. I don't tip just because you showed up for your fucking job, I expect you to actually do it.

Do you have a newsletter? I wish to subscribe to it.
 

Valnen

Member
I actually don't understand this one. Most places have a delivery fee, don't they? So the idea of tipping on top of that seems odd.

The delivery driver is not given that delivery fee, and chances are he's using his own car and his own gas, as I understand it.

Seems someone already mentioned this, but it's really a shitty thing. It essentially means the employer is placing his job onto the customers.
 

Kinyou

Member
When I was in high school in the 90's I was a bagboy at a grocery store where we would take each customer's cart out and put the bags in their car. I got a few tips offered for that but never accepted them.

I don't think any grocery stores do this anymore do they? This was like a defacto thing all my life growing up even at the huge grocery chains like Kroger but I don't think I've been to a store that does this in the last 15 years.
Funnily enough I'd actually consider tipping the bag boy. Not the cashier though.
 

Slayer-33

Liverpool-2
A cabbie (yellow) asked me "no tip?" for taking me 10 blocks @ $5.80 after all taxes etc, I did put in a 25% tip but for some reason it didn't register only noticed when I asked for the receipt.. Guy seemed to have been appalled by the no tip.
 
I once had subpar service at Applebees. So I did the impossible, ripped a dollar in half, then placed it in the check folder or whatever they hand you in a way that looked like I was tipping $2. It was worth it.
 

Timeaisis

Member
They're getting craftier, too. "Support your local business: leave a tip!"

I'm cool tipping a place that offers me great service. But this just seems presumptuous. "We're so great at what we do, don't you think? You should leave a 50% tip."

Hah. Don't fall for it people.
 
Yeah I had my first experience with a pre-service tip recently. I'm fine with paying a tip after the service, but being pressured to give a 20%-30% tip before my drink/food has been served to me was uncomfortable. The spirit of tipping is to reward the server for good service, but overtime the tip became expected no matter how bad or good the service. Now that they are asking for tips before the service, its as if they have completely given up on the facade that tips reward good service. All it is, is an added tax.

And if you don't pay this tax pre-service, you may get some free saliva in your coffee complements of your barista.
 

hwateber

Member
I waited tables through college so I know it can be a shit job. This idea lately that now everyone should be tipped is asinine.

A few months ago a buddy and me went to a diner here in NY. The service was meh bordering on shitty, but we left $3 on a $20 bill. The guy had the balls to come out after us with the $3 in hand and ask if the service wasn't good enough because we had tipped so low.

I said "Oh sorry, give me that and let me see what else I can do", took the three dollars, put it in my wallet, put the wallet back in my pocket and the two of us walked away while he said some very bad words to us. Fuck that. I don't tip just because you showed up for your fucking job, I expect you to actually do it.
Amazing. I'm stealing this if the situation ever comes up
 

Lonely1

Unconfirmed Member
People, the real question should be why tipping is restricted to such small subset of services! We all know the arguments for tipping: Incentives better service, helps low wage-server providers and empowers the costumers, so is only logical that tipping should be extended further.

The following is a (by no means exhaustive) list of service based industries are in dire need of the good ol' American tipping.


College Professors.

Did you know that more than 75% of College professors are low-paid adjuncts? And if they aren't chances are that they are paid by for their publications/research, not giving you classes. Did you ever had a professor that didn't gave a s**t? The reason is clear, no enough incentive. A tipping culture in academia is sure to give power back to the students.

Just imagine, a group of 50+ students, each tipping $5-25 per lecture is not chump change even for a tenured researcher. My suggested rate is $5 for a bad lecture and $25 for an outstanding one. Of course, another option is tipping based on a percentage of your tuition, with 20% as base.

Also, tipping shouldn't be anonymous, that's crazy talk, how else will the professor know who to give a better service?

Physicians and Hospitals.

Now, I know that doctors aren't exactly lowly payed, but have you ever waited long hours on an emergency room? Inflexible consultation hours? When you have a medical emergency, or you have a limited number of insurance-covered practitioners, you don't have much choice anyway. Tipping will give power back to you, the consumer. My suggested rate is 10% for a bad service and 30% for an outstanding one.

Telecom companies.

We all know that telecom companies got us by the balls, but when they charge us a flat rate, what incentive do they have to give us good service? Ever had to deal with lackluster costumer service? John at the other end of the technical assistant line is getting minimum wage if he's lucky. Again, the answer is obvious: tipping. My suggested rate is the same as above.
 
The whole point of UPS is to deliver you packages. They don't deserve a tip just because they do what their company is based around doing and nothing more. A tip is there for added service, and a UPS guy delivering your package gives you no extra services from their company. The whole point of a pizza place is to make pizza.

The delivery option is just that, an option. An added service for convenience that you can choose to take or not take. Choosing the option of delivery leads to an assumed tip because bringing the pizza to your house is an added service. If you don't want to take that option and don't want to pay a tip, you can still walk into the pizza place and pick it up yourself with no tip assumed.

It's not the same thing. It's like asking why people should pay more for first class on an airplane. It costs more because they provide you more services then in coach. If you don't want to pay the extra costs, don't buy a first class ticket. If you don't want to pay a tip for your pizza, stop complaining that people ask for extra money for bringing the food across town to you and get in your car and pick it up yourself.

First class on an airplane is a (relatively) clearly defined charge up front, not something the flight attendant springs on you after you've already gotten on the plane.

The thing people seem to misunderstand in these threads is that people don't have problems with paying for clearly defined, extra services. What people have problems with are confusion and arbitrary charges that depend on vague, undefined things like "tradition", or where you happen to have been raised. If it takes $5 to cover the cost of delivering a pizza, then just charge $5 extra for delivering a pizza, and mention that at the time the service is requested. Don't charge a $2 "delivery fee", and then get pissed off at the customer for not knowing that a delivery fee isn't actually a fee for delivery.
 

ILoveBish

Member
This makes me feel even better about making every meal at home and never eating out. What people spend in tips, I eat for a few days. Crazy.
 

Future

Member
The delivery driver is not given that delivery fee, and chances are he's using his own car and his own gas, as I understand it.

Seems someone already mentioned this, but it's really a shitty thing. It essentially means the employer is placing his job onto the customers.

He's getting a salary though which I assume has to be possible due to the delivery fees.

Tipping for restaurants is a thing because waiters get paid BELOW minimum due to the ability to get tips. Tipping the delivery guy, or coffee guy, or whoever else that gets paid a normal wage ... Are we doing it because we feel bad? We feel guilty that they actually have this type of job so we pay them extra? All these automatic tipping machines just take advantage of how blurry that line is by passively pressuring tips, and subtly implying shitty service if you don't

I bet people tip more than give that "dollar to fight cancer" addition to your grocery bill just cuz of the implied tip pressure. Absolutely ridiculous
 
Meanwhile, in Alternate Earth Dimension #45-B Neogaf:

Flubyren D'muhalik said:
I always tip my McRonalds counter-tender. If you slip them 1 woolong for every mictriple borgor they'll be sure to make it EXTRA-competently, and you get your borgor extra hot and really quick. Heck, sometimes the free German Fries and Orange Pies they throw in actually make my tip money back! Plus I like how much they pay attention to me and talk to me when I give them woolongs
 

Cptkrush

Member
He's getting a salary though which I assume has to be possible due to the delivery fees.

Tipping for restaurants is a thing because waiters get paid BELOW minimum due to the ability to get tips. Tipping the delivery guy, or coffee guy, or whoever else that gets paid a normal wage ... Are we doing it because we feel bad? We feel guilty that they actually have this type of job so we pay them extra? All these automatic tipping machines just take advantage of how blurry that line is by passively pressuring tips, and subtly implying shitty service if you don't

I bet people tip more than give that "dollar to fight cancer" addition to your grocery bill just cuz of the implied tip pressure. Absolutely ridiculous
Pizza delivery drivers in America don't get "salary." We get hourly and its only 4 bucks an hour, half of minimum wage. The coffee guy probably gets 8-12 bucks an hour depending on the area, and that's why we tip delivery drivers and not coffee shop workers.
 
Where I work we just have this tiny plastic cube set out with stamps all over it, not overtly in front of the customer's face but visible. If they feel like tipping for a two-dollar coffee, cool. If not, no skin off my ass. It's not the greatest paying job in the world, but tips are in no way a necessity for me. Hell, since I started there I just use the extra cash as spending/weed money.
 

Flintty

Member
UK Gaffer here. I visited the US for a work training course in May 2012 and was forewarned about the tipping expectations. I was advised that 10% was fair. In honesty, the idea of being expects to tip is obscene, no matter how you spin it. I stuck with 10% because it was easy to calculate quickly but I only did it when I thought it was deserved.

The worst one was when I went sight seeing in DC. As soon as I got out of the Metro I was accosted by a man with a map who kindly gave me it and kept trying to tell me where to go, despite me trying to get away from him to explore freely. He then asked me for some cash, of which I had none at the time and he proper guilted me! Fuck paying for a map I could have picked up for free. His tone totally changed when I told him I had no shrapnel "You gotta get yourself some dough, man!". I thought he was gonna stab me.
 
“DipJar, when we heard about it, we thought, ‘This is a godsend,’ ” said Leo Kremer, a co-founder of Dos Toros Taqueria, a small chain of counter-service Mexican restaurants in New York. The company recently removed the tip line from credit card receipts on transactions below $20 out of concern that “some customers found it presumptuous.” DipJar, he said, “can generate more tips in a way that’s not intrusive.”

This actually seems pretty reasonable?

And as for the rest. These cashiers can give me whatever look they want. They're not getting a tip approaching anywhere near what is in the OP. lol.... get the fuck out of here.
 
I'm in my mid 30s and never had a problem in my life. I tip servers who bring beer to my table, but I don't tip if I have to actually walk to the bar.

So you walking to the bar negates tipping the bartender? You're going to have to come up with better reasoning than that. Do you also penalize the server because a hostess made you take too many steps to get to your table?

Are you saying if going out to bars and clubs and overpaying for alcohol isn't a critical part of your life, then you don't like dates or going out with friends?

You can have a completely functional and enjoyable life not going out to clubs or to bars. But you should tip your bartender or server when you do go out. They're working on a terrible wage and the tips offset that.
 
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