The Tipping System Is Immoral

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/24/opinion/tipping.html

by pseudolus • 7 years ago

19 20 7 years ago

nytimes.com

kick2• 7 years ago

https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1187523223673458690

jaytaylor• 7 years ago

Paywall bypass: http://archive.is/oyimo

war10253• 7 years ago

(You should still generally leave 30 percent)

Don't know where this guy goes out, but apparently too rich for my blood.

I dislike tipping because it's part of the "guilt" economy.

Just tell me what you think is a fair price and I'll decide whether or not I want to buy it. Don't undercut the price by 25% and then be offended when I don't pay the right amount.

kick2• 7 years ago

The problem with that is that the people benefiting from the tips don't have a say in it. Of course the owner of a restaurant will undercut his product significantly because he's legally allowed not to pay for labor fairly, what can the worker do?

hirundo2• 7 years ago

what can the worker do?

I used to work for tips. I quit that job when I found a better one. It feels like I had a say in that, and lots of choices.

munk-a4• 7 years ago

Just tell me what you think is a fair price and I'll decide whether or not I want to buy it. Don't undercut the price by 25% and then be offended when I don't pay the right amount.

The issue here is that you're not taking money out of the merchant's pockets, your price is either being (effectively) subsidized by either other patrons of the restaurant (assuming the total tips are low enough to trigger minimum wage repayment by the owner) or your meal is subsidized by the servers which, often, are very junior works or generally disadvantaged in terms of employee rights.

If you're cool with that then that's all fine, but the person being undercut is simply not the person who is setting the price.

war10253• 7 years ago

I mainly avoid the issue by just not going to places that expect you to tip.

munk-a4• 7 years ago

I hate tipping and I tip. However, I disagree with the idea that we should be scaling up our tips.

Single persons who refuse to tip because it is a terrible system are often just being asses and cheap, when they aren't I don't disagree with them but I think it's more productive to direct energy toward reforming labour laws to get rid of server/etc minimum wage exemptions.

But! I strongly object to this article advising a 30-50% tip, it has the potential to cause people to scale their tips up which will further deepen the hole that we're in if it becomes adopted by a significant population.

whiddershins2• 7 years ago

30%?

I can’t read the article because it is behind a paywall so maybe that is ironic.

30% is beyond excessive in most situations.

In NYC, which I think is one of the biggest loci of tip inflation, we used to do 15% pre-tax on a restaurant bill.

We used to do $1 every one or two drinks at the bar, but inflation has an upward pressure there, and the slow demise of buybacks has a downward pressure.

20% AFTER tax is what I usually leave on smaller checks, rounded down, and that is considered pretty generous by any person I’ve ever come across.

Big debates might occur about that $400 bottle of wine (“I’m not tipping $80 for someone to open a bottle.” — “ok buddy, if you can’t afford the tip don’t order it.” Blah blah blah) but these are edge cases. And overall arguing about tips is annoying and a huge waste of time, energy, and good will.

But 30%?

Give me a break.

We even have new minimum wage laws in New York that protect food delivery workers, the whole thing is Byzantine, but I’m pretty confident everyone is getting paid.

Edit: ok I bypassed the paywall and sure, tipping a higher percentage makes sense when your bill is tiny. I think basically everyone knows that.

But the rest of the article is absolute nonsense in every way, including random counter factual statements such as “people from the Midwest tip more” which no one I know actually thinks is true, and I don’t think it so strongly, it would take a lot more than one random study to make me reconsider.

jolesf• 7 years ago

Tip more than 20%: good server or small bill for sit down meal

Tip 15%: mediocre service at sit down meal

Tip less than 15%: bartender, order at counter meal

chousuke• 7 years ago

How did the US custom of tipping come to exist in the first place? I live in a country where tipping is practically nonexistent, and I think I would feel severely uncomfortable with prices that don't actually correspond to what I'm expected to pay, even if the mental arithmetic is easy.

I hear that tipping in the US is necessary because of low wages, but I can't help feeling like it's dishonest business to shift the responsibility of compensation from the employer directly to the customers.

munk-a4• 7 years ago

Tipping came about during the great depression where restaurant owners lobbied to have the statutory wages of servers reduced to (by their expression) allow them to continue to employ them. It's weird because instead of taking the same approach taken elsewhere with the WPA to subsidize existing positions or nationalize some entities within that market segment.

TheOperator• 7 years ago

The tipping system in practice artificially inflates the wages of service staff so I've never really understood the outrage around it. It's true that tipping drives away customers but that's because it artificially inflates the wages of service staff. It's still a net benefit to the service staff. It maybe is a negative to the restaurateurs and back of house but certainly not the service staff.

The article portrays tipping as sexist but the institution acts as a mechanism to redistribute wealth from men to women. It's true that white women, young women, and attractive women get tipped more and they will put up with mistreatment to get tipped more but it ultimately smacks of attacking a system for being imperfect more than because it's bad. The alternative model you see at fast food restaurants is hardly less demeaning for women and definitely less profitable. If one ever succeeded in stripping away tipping it would only serve to keep more money in men's pockets in an attempt to end the sexism of tipping.

I also strongly, STRONGLY dispute the idea that leaving 30-50 percent tips is the best way to redistribute wealth if charitably inclined. It seems more like a notion to make newspaper columnists seem woke and generous than something that actually is an efficient way to do good. The advantage to tipping is the social stigma essentially forces people to compensate service staff better than they normally would but you're never realistically going to pressure people into paying 50% or even 30% regularly.

On the more positive side I do agree with the authors notion that the racial bias in tipping is rather extreme and unjustified. A third smaller tips for black drivers is pretty hard to justify and simply being aware that it happens is good knowledge.

Simulacra• 7 years ago

Tipping is an anachronism founded in slavery. I hate it and it's mostly the reason why I don't go to places that expect them.

pepe56• 7 years ago

This. Not my problem that you start a job paying you 3$/hour leaving expectations up to me.

The Tipping System Is Immoral

Related Stories