Hey Folks!
I’ve been living abroad for over half my life in a country where tipping is not the norm. At most you would round up. 19€ bill? Here’s a 20, keep this change.
Going to the US soon to visit family and the whole idea of tipping makes me nervous. It seems there’s a lot of discussion about getting rid of tipping, but I don’t know how much has changed in this regard.
The system seems ridiculously unfair, and that extra expense in a country where everything is already so expensive really makes a difference.
So will AITA if I don’t tip? Is it really my personal responsibility to make sure my server is paid enough?
Nothing has changed, and it never will, as it concerns poor and “therefore” “deserving” people. Americans’ talk is cheap.
Agreed. So when you go to a restaurant and you have a maximum amount you can spend, divide the amount of money you have by (100% + local sales tax), then divide by (100% + the menu price), and subtract any surcharges added by the restaurant (assume $5.00 if you cannot look it up), often masquerading as a tip. I know it’s a lot of math, but you have a computer in your pocket. You’ll manage.
In my view, the US is a fractal scam. At every level, everything is an attempt to extract money from ill-informed “suckers”, from the running of the government, to the prices of supermarket groceries, to the tipping culture at restaurants, to even finding a place to put your car [1]. Every single thing is someone’s grift. In order to function in America, you need to be willing to be suckered to some extent. There’s no way around it. Unfairness is baked into every transaction, and increasingly more social interactions.
Everything in America is ridiculously unfair. We wear this on our sleeves, and for many Americans this fact defines their personality. Unfortunately, you will have to deal with it in the short term at least.
Now if you would like to be the one to lead the charge against the tipping culture and the foisting of responsibility for servers’ compensation onto the customer, then be my guest. Refuse to tip and make a big scene about it. Make plans for how to take the inertia of your big struggle and turn it into a mass movement. I would thrilled to join you. However, I somehow doubt that you’re ready to go that far; none of the customers who stiffed me ever went on to start anti-tipping movements.
Yes. You are expected by all members of the public here to tip. That is our culture, something we’re proud of for some reason, and our expectation. For some servers, tips are the primary source of income at work.
No, it is the responsibility of the employer. However, when no employer takes their responsibility and you sit yourself down at a restaurant, the logical conclusion is that either you pay that part of the server’s wages, or they get stiffed. You know that this is the conclusion. (Or if not, now you do.)
If you want to participate in our unique restaurant scam, you gotta accept that you’re going to get suckered into paying the server’s wages. Otherwise, don’t go to restaurants. When you go to a restaurant, you waste the employees’ finite time on this planet doing tedious, physically and mentally demanding bullshit that no sane person would choose to engage with, if not faced with the threats of homelessness and starvation. [2] At least make it worth their while.
Sorry if I come off as having a chip on my shoulder, but that’s only because I totally do. So many customers used to concern-troll me as a pizza delivery person and give me shit like “sorry, couldn’t afford to tip, they should really pay you more.” Yeah, they should, but you absolutely could have tipped; all you had to do was order one less topping. I’d love to see some actual solidarity with food service employees, but that would require challenging deep-rooted assumptions about our culture and we’re too shit-for-brains to do that. Americans are so compassionate and empathetic until the moment they actually have to lift a finger.
So when someone brings up “unfairness” or “it’s X’s responsibility to pay the workers” in response to tipping, I just kinda die a little inside from all the times those sentiments have been used against me and my colleagues.
[1] And don’t even get me started on the process of buying a car, or how the public was scammed into accepting a car-centric infrastructure.
[2] This is really a special case of the logic behind the antiwork movement: nobody actually wants to go to work. We only go to work under the threats of starvation and homelessness imposed by capitalism.
Solid rant. No, really, I enjoyed it til the end. Spot on!
What a quote. I will add that “we” also like to believe we have the most fair system. And in many ways, the “gotchas” are much more hidden and systemic than other countries. For example, you might be scammed haggling with someone in Southeast Asia, but we get scammed everyday by credit card companies making bank on every single transactions.
Such a fantastic statement. I agree wholeheartedly on all fronts and really admired reading the thought process summarized so clearly. You obviously had lots of time to drive and rumenate after getting stiffed but it’s appreciated here.
I’ve never been to the US, and this just sounds totally absurd to me. How am I responsible for your pay? I am not your employer, it doesn’t concern me. How are you entitled to part of my food? It’s not meant as personal offence, more of a general statement.
It is absurd, but that’s how it is. America is an absurd place based on absurd ideas held together by an absurdly oppressive government that simultaneously masquerades as absurdly free. I don’t recommend coming here for any reason other than to see family, although we do have some incredible natural wonders that are probably worth seeing.
When you order a pizza with toppings, you are usually charged a surcharge per topping. If you have a fixed amount of money to spend, a common scenario is that you could either spend $3-5 on toppings, or give that $3-5 to the driver as a tip.
Because you decided to come to my restaurant and waste my time. Any time spent at the restaurant is time I will never get back and therefore a waste; at least make it worth my while.
Yes, the employer should be the one to compensate employees. However, this is never the case. Now you know that, if you walk into an American restaurant, you are wasting my time and that the company will not pay me for it. You know this now. I have told you, you can look up the phenomenon on the internet, you can go into any restaurant and ask any tipped employee; I dare you to show me that this isn’t the case.
If you do not pay the server, they will not be paid justly for their work. If you let go of an apple, gravity will bring it down to the ground. These facts should be on equal ground. In reality, the former is stronger; we can put a table below the apple, but Americans are not interested enough in the fate of their servers to make any changes to benefit servers.
The simple and frankly preferred solution is that if tipping is really so odious to you that you cannot factor it in your price, do not go to restaurants, particularly mine [1]. This allows me to concentrate on customers who do tip. If no one shows up, I can get my work done early and possibly use my phone, read, talk to coworkers, or do literally anything else, particularly those activities a reasonable human would actually like to do.
I get it, but I do feel like I need to be stern here. People don’t really consider restaurant employees because for those who have never worked in one, it’s just a happy place associated with good memories, and those who speak ill of their work experience at a restaurant are just trying to attack a “good thing”. The sad truth of the matter is that a restaurant is, in addition to being a social place where memories are made, a workplace where people waste their time and live real lives.
IMO, because comfortable life under capitalism is contingent on a worker’s productive output above all else, places that have a dual work/social purpose should be understood as workplaces above all else. It makes for a miserable analysis where all facets of life are merely instrument of profit generation, where the human experience is a side effect of particular methods of making money. However, America is a miserable place and has well earned such a dressing-down.
[1] At the moment, this is hypothetical as I don’t work in food service anymore (and never will; I would literally rather die or die horribly), but this was the answer I would have given (and did give) during the time I worked as a pizza delivery driver. (At least where I worked, delivery drivers cooked fried food, did prep in the back of house, sliced finished pizzas, and took orders when in the store; basically anything but building pizzas, which requires extra training to the company’s spec.)