Tipping Culture
Tipping views vary greatly from 'should it even be a thing' to 'how much is appropriate and on what', to 'what type of establishment should tip and which should not'.
In my lifetime (I am 52) I have seen a dramatic evolution in tipping.
This was pretty much the norm:
- tipping used to be almost solely limited to restaurant table service
- the expected calculation used to be 10%-15% applied after you removed the tax and liquor costs from bill
- of course bars focused on liquor got tipped (and usually generously) on that service alone or primarily
- food delivery service like pizza delivery used to get the coins or maybe a buck or two
Today what do I see:
- tipping has evolved past the restaurant, and in the next wave became common place in all/most service locations from grabbing a to go coffee from a shop or picking up your dry cleaning.
- tipping amount expectations have bumped up from 15% - 25% often pre-loaded on debit/credit machine as the expectation and requiring you manually change it if you want to do other.
- this tipping amount is on the full bill total including Tax and Liquor making it actually much more as compared to the past
- food delivery service now almost by default on the Apps include a standard 15% tip on the bill total. Meaning you see your 'Total', if you buy %60 of food as $69 with a $9 tip built in when you accept unless you go in and manually change it
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What are your views on tipping in these areas or others:
- Restaurant, Coffee shop, Food Delivery, Dry Cleaning P/U, other
- percentage? Pretax? Post Tax? Liquor in or out?
- delivery service
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Dispelling this myth before we start since it often pops up in this discussion.
- 'tipping is wrong, period. I should not be forced to pay the servers wage, the restaurant owner should pay that. That is why I refuse to tip.'
This argument is false. There is only one consumer and they pay the restaurant portion and the server portion regardless. If tip is removed the restaurant does eat that amount and simply pay his server more. Instead they build it in to the service costs, including tip portion, into the bill. So you end up paying the same or more as you now tip a set percent on every bill, built in as a service charge. It 'socializes' a payment (equal for all) as opposed to keeping it merit based (you the diner have discretion based on quality).
FreeRiders love to make that argument above but most are simply cheapskates and using that rationale as cover.
So lets stay away from the fallacious argument that it should be the restaurant owner and not you who should pay. YOU will always pay. The discussion is do you want 'discretion based on merit' or do you prefer 'no discretion, pay all servers the same via requirement'.
9 Replies
some drive through donut shops are asking for tips now
I'm getting tip options on B2B contractor invoices. Asking me for a 15% tip on a $38,000 invoice is the height of absurdity.
These guys aren't sophisticated enough to do this on their own, so I assume it's just baked into a lot of sales software nowadays and you'd have to actively turn it off if you don't want it.
I tipped for an in-store food pickup for the first time in my life over the weekend. My youngest graduated high school and had some of her friends come over afterward. Toppers was running a ridiculous deal for carryout where they give you three large pizzas, two orders of Topperstix, and a trio of Coke 2-liters for 40 bucks. On any random Friday that's probably a $90 order. I went to go get it and there was ONE guy in there. The topping station looked like a tornado had gone through.
He forgot the sodas initially, but when he came back I handed the dude an extra 20. Good for you, random kid working Toppers solo on a Friday night.
I'm getting tip options on B2B contractor invoices. Asking me for a 15% tip on a $38,000 invoice is the height of absurdity.
These guys aren't sophisticated enough to do this on their own, so I assume it's just baked into a lot of sales software nowadays and you'd have to actively turn it off if you don't want it.
I tipped for an in-store food pickup for the first time in my life over the weekend. My youngest graduated high school and had some of her friends come over afterward. Toppers was r
Nice!
Good.
Seen left (people shouldn't rely on tips) and right (i don't like to tip) complain about this, but it's great.
Most ordinary people do not want those who serve them to live in poverty.
We live in the US. These people will never get a safety net, higher wages, etc as in other countries. It's off the table.
Expecting the employer to pay better is problematic. He could raise prices and pass on the $ but how would the consumer know this is what's happening? Also many employers dgaf.
Best thing is to just pay your server directly. You know they get the $. You don't need to wait for government intervention. Hopefully, their taxable income is underreported.
If you think of service jobs where you can make a good living, it's mostly tipped. If you think of working poor jobs, it's often untipped service jobs. I.e. it works.
Also cool to know that when most people deal directly with someone, they will pay them a fair, living wage voluntarily.
I still tip the same people I would have tipped 30 years ago, more or less. But I'm not tipping at a stupid drive-thru. I had their back when they wanted the state minimum wage raised to $15, and yep I'll pay more for the food too. And those wages can go higher still with cost increases but it's a cop out to say it can never be fixed, if we learned anything from the Covid era and since it's how essential these people are, and despite all the moaning we're now seeing, employers and customers CAN bear higher costs and make margins, if they're forced to in order to stay staffed. Yeah, sure your Big Mac meal isn't dirt cheap but it really never should have been.
Besides that it's such a capricious way to address the problem, since there are a zillion undervalued positions that make $0 in tips. A sensible minimum wage works, employers and society had their chance already, some backwards folks need only to get on the ball and make it happen and stop trying to solve the problem in reverse. The fact that in half the country you can legally pay someone $7.25 an hour in 2024 is atrocious.
Also: contractor invoice with a tipping option would be laughed at.
Don't forget to tip your landlord!
As another kind of poker professional, it always offends me the dealers and cocktail waitresses are tipped all the time, butt no one ever tips me when I beat them in a pot.
