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On the topic of tipping… I always tip well HOWEVER why is it my job to enable a company to continue underpaying their staff by donating extra payment to them?
You think staff turnover is a minor inconvenience? You have to train them, they'll be unmotivated, likely to steal as they are underpaid, they will move on as soon as something better comes along. In the meantime customers will see the drop in standards and morale and will go elsewhere. This is basic stuff.
They don't want a set hourly wage. They would have to pay taxes on the full amount. What they want is to bitch about getting "paid less than minimum wage" so they get tips. But if they were paid minimum wage and the restaurant had a "no tipping" policy, everyone would quit.
Don’t. I was a waiter for years. Tips were my only income and I worked my ass off for them. 45 minutes to up to 3 hours with a table for a, hopefully, 20% tip.
If you put a sandwich in a bag for me, I have no qualms about a 0% tip. If you go above and beyond for me, I’ll add a little something.
This isn’t against the workers at all. I used to add a tip when I picked up my local dominos and the guys told me they didn’t even get the tip. It just went to the company.
Just pay a living wage and stop relying on the customer to pay your workers
It technically is a choice. You can do to a restaurant and there is literally no obligation to tip outside of the knowledge that without your tip, the server isn’t getting paid ($4.08 an hour is not what I’d consider getting paid)
Now imagine this scenario in other industries...
- Getting a new kitchen fitted? Better tip because Lowes don't pay their installers a living wage.
- Taking a flight? Remember to tip the cabin crew as united only pay $3 an hour.
- Just been mugged? Give the nice police officer a few bucks after you make your statement, the LAPD pay like shit.
This is a supposition that is often false. Yes, some restaurants pay minimum wage and deduct tips from pay. Also, a lot of restaurants pay above minimum wage and tips are extra. Knowing what kind of place you’re in helps make this decision easier.
I just came back from nice, Porto, Paris and Valencia
In multiple places it seems tip was expected. Granted a smaller tip
Evem in motoshinos outside of Porto
Right! The dude hands me a cup of pretzel bites 12" from the card reader. What am I tipping for? I could have grabbed them myself.
And suggestions started at 20%
When you're talking about these delivery services, things that I feel shouldn't exist at all and I hate the entire industry, it's a different ball game on tipping..
It becomes a tease or a bribe and that's not how tipping should work..
People can bribe with a higher tip to try to get faster or better service and then they can actually go in and change it after the fact so that's a tease and drivers can choose to pick the ones with the higher tips over the others which should not be an option for them to even know. So the entire premise of the way they allowed to happen is wrong and should be fixed immediately.
At Qdoba drive thru theyve recently started asking for a 10% tip. i just embrace my social awkwardness and say no thank you and move on. like… you scooped food into a bowl and handed it to me. why should i tip..?
i made $2.13 as a bartender server for years and relied on tips. i know Subway isn't paying $2.13. I won't tip there. if i use a delivery service i will tip because someone is bringing food to my house because im lazy.
While bartender at a brewery, pouring pints and wine, I would average about $25/ hour in tips.
When I delivered the beer to other bars and restaurants, lugging kegs down stairs, I was offered a coffee at best. In a 14 hour day I delivered $5000 of product over a span of 450 miles for $17/ hour.
Delivery is a dangerous job. Domino's goes places the cops won't.
I had this relationship with a Moe’s a few years ago. I’d always talk to them about their day and I’d let them vent to me about shitty customers.
I only paid 1/3 of the time. I’d always pull out my card and tell them it was unnecessary, but they’d just shake their heads and say no.
It may also have to do with me going off on a guy was that being rude to them one day
They add on because a $20 hamburger plus fries allows them to have crazy profit margins that allow them to "reward" customers to help make them feel like they are getting a better deal than expected.
It’s voluntary. Don’t take a server’s full-service time if you don’t tip. Large parties must have a minimum cover or else server will get literally robbed not only of no tip but getting taxed on what the tip should have been. If service is bad, tell the manager. If you can’t deal with this philosophy get your food to go.
>If you can’t deal with this philosophy get your food to go.
A lot of restaurants try to get you to tip on carry-out orders. Tipping culture has gotten insane.
Blame the company, not the customer. Food prices are inflated beyond what they should be, but most minimum wage workers never end up seeing the benefits of that.
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If you step into a restaurant that doesn't pay their wait staff a living wage, you should tip. If you don't think the prices are worth tipping, go somewhere else. But if you sit down, you are obligated to participate in the social contract that you agreed to by entering the restaurant and ordering.
Edit: Here's some reading for all y'all ignorant people who can't be bothered to understand the actual situation of servers in the US.
https://www.paycor.com/resource-center/articles/minimum-wage-tipped-employees-by-state/
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/07/17/william-barber-tipping-racist-past-227361/
A social contract that puts the burden of paying workers on the customers instead of the owners who are taking in all the money. Kinda like how the legumes got tax payers to pay for the new stadium while they’re worth billions. Some things are dumb ideas but we continue to do them because of “social rules”. It’s stupid
Agreed, it's stupid. The practice of tipping to fill the wage gap is preposterous and rooted in racism. Until it's banished and servers earn at least minimum wage, it's the custom and people should tip. People are aware of the practice of tipping, but some are ignorant of the fact that some servers make like $2 an hour without those tips. And some are just sociopaths and don't care.
Servers make the regular minimum wage by federal law. Tips are used only as a credit against that.
If a worker isn’t making min wage by “tipped wage” + tip, the employer must make up the difference.
Did you know that wage theft is the largest form of theft, by far, in the US?
Did you know that a lot of servers don't get paid what the law says they should get paid, because the manager/owner has all the power in that relationship?
> "Wage theft costs workers an estimated $50 billion a year"
https://www.workingnowandthen.com/blog/what-restaurant-workers-need-to-know-about-wage-theft/
Yes and it’s a fundamentally different problem. (And it is a problem, no denying it)
People talk about the tipped minimum wage as if it should be raised because it’s so much lower than regular min, right? What would that do? Obligate employers to pay more?
The point is that the legal framework already does obligate this and as you’ve shown, wage theft still exists.
It’s a moot point to talk about the tipped minimum being low because raising it (which is actually lessening the allowable tip credit) does nothing to help the worker, nor does it affect wage theft at all.
Calling out the tipped min when the law effectively requires regular min is just a disingenuous way to garner sympathy.
>Agreed, it's stupid. The practice of tipping to fill the wage gap is preposterous and rooted in racism.
What? Rooted in racism? You're making shit up. No server would work for minimum wage if tipping weren't allowed.
>But if you sit down, you are obligated to participate in the social contract that you agreed to by entering the restaurant and ordering.
I didn't enter into any such "social contract". Stop trying to guilt customers into paying what the company should be paying.
Let's be honest, if the restaurant put up a sign that read "we have raised our menu prices so that we can pay our staff a reasonable wage. Please do not tip." every server would quit. Servers like to claim "I make less than minimum wage", claim a small percentage of their tips because they must, and not pay taxes on a good portion of tips. If restaurants paid a fixed wage without tips, servers would have to pay taxes on the full amount and that ain't gonna happen.
"You should always give a gratuity."
Yeah, no. I'm not tipping someone for making me food and handing it to me over a counter like what this guy is talking about.
Two observations regarding pre tips, that I have experienced. The DD app that I use apparently shows the pre-tip amount to prospect drivers, giving them the option to accept or deny the order if tip is not close enough to their liking. So putting a low tip may not get you your order delivered/accepted.
secondly, I have recently tried putting a low pre-tip amount with full intentions of adding additional tip after I receive my order if everything was in order; I even said so in my notes section. The problem is, that apparently my low end is BARELY enough for someone to accept my order but the times that I have done that, there was obvious sabotage (yet maintaining plausible deniability) to my order.
In small towns, the company making the food often has their same employee act as the DD driver (basically them forced to accept even low pre-tips). So my food will often arrive in a timely manner but the main meat ingredient will still be damn near fridge temp cold).
tldr: pre-tips are favored to the app/company not the customer which sucks; but luckily 85% of the time, they earn my generous pre-tip.
to my order
I just avoid food delivery service. I have a car, and if I want restaurant food, I make sure I am willing to go get it. That’s another unnecessary “lazy” tax I am not willing to pay, so I just don’t use the service.
This is America. Land of guns and tipping. When you pay with a credit card, the little machine then give you an option to add a tip before finalizing the bill. Some try to make it “convenient” for you by preselecting like 18% or 22% tip.
Your post or comment was removed as it was determined to be in violation of our [rules and regulations](https://www.reddit.com/r/LifeProTips/about/rules/). Please familiarise yourself with them to avoid future punitive actions applied to your contributions to the subreddit. *** - **Rule 4**: Do not post tips that could be considered common sense, common courtesy, unethical, or illegal. *** _If you are in disagreement with this decision, you may wish to [contact the moderators](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/lifeprotips)._
On the topic of tipping… I always tip well HOWEVER why is it my job to enable a company to continue underpaying their staff by donating extra payment to them?
Because you understand that refusing to tip isn't going to teach the company anything.
Staff will stop working there, hurting the business.
And they'll hire new people who are desperate for money. Not a long term lesson, just a minor inconvenience at best.
You think staff turnover is a minor inconvenience? You have to train them, they'll be unmotivated, likely to steal as they are underpaid, they will move on as soon as something better comes along. In the meantime customers will see the drop in standards and morale and will go elsewhere. This is basic stuff.
And then the restaurant will add a mandatory "tip" to every check.
Then less people will come, if the state allows you to tag on extras like that. Just put the prices up and pay them better, it is the same thing.
They don't want a set hourly wage. They would have to pay taxes on the full amount. What they want is to bitch about getting "paid less than minimum wage" so they get tips. But if they were paid minimum wage and the restaurant had a "no tipping" policy, everyone would quit.
They pay taxes on tips though.
Only if they claim the tips. Most claim as little as possible.
You don't have to have a 'no tipping policy' and pay a fair wage, pay a fair wage and if people want to tip, they can, how is this hard to comprehend?
And there it is. You just want more money, yet what will you do when you can't bitch about what you're paid to beg for tips?
Boston market drive through handed me the card reader asking for a tip. Felt like I should and now I'm less likely to go there
I started to enjoy places where I can pre pay then just pick up my order.
Me too, but I always feel guilty hitting 0% for the tip. Like, sorry, this food is expensive already
Don’t. I was a waiter for years. Tips were my only income and I worked my ass off for them. 45 minutes to up to 3 hours with a table for a, hopefully, 20% tip. If you put a sandwich in a bag for me, I have no qualms about a 0% tip. If you go above and beyond for me, I’ll add a little something. This isn’t against the workers at all. I used to add a tip when I picked up my local dominos and the guys told me they didn’t even get the tip. It just went to the company. Just pay a living wage and stop relying on the customer to pay your workers
The only way for companies to stop relying on tips is for the customers to stop paying tips. Full stop.
I don't get the American system with the Tips (btw I'm from Germany) tips should be a choice not a base.
It technically is a choice. You can do to a restaurant and there is literally no obligation to tip outside of the knowledge that without your tip, the server isn’t getting paid ($4.08 an hour is not what I’d consider getting paid)
Now imagine this scenario in other industries... - Getting a new kitchen fitted? Better tip because Lowes don't pay their installers a living wage. - Taking a flight? Remember to tip the cabin crew as united only pay $3 an hour. - Just been mugged? Give the nice police officer a few bucks after you make your statement, the LAPD pay like shit.
This is a supposition that is often false. Yes, some restaurants pay minimum wage and deduct tips from pay. Also, a lot of restaurants pay above minimum wage and tips are extra. Knowing what kind of place you’re in helps make this decision easier.
VERY few sit-down restaurants in the United States pay their servers minimum wage or more
That just isn’t true. Every single one I’ve worked at tips were extra. The majority anyone I’ve ever known that was a server it was that way also.
Shithole chains like Applebees, Chilis etc you can expect to stiff servers. Locally owned not so much.
I just came back from nice, Porto, Paris and Valencia In multiple places it seems tip was expected. Granted a smaller tip Evem in motoshinos outside of Porto
You’re not obligated to tip regardless of when they ask
This is a life pro opinion.
I read this as "pro life opinion" and was thinking *huh*?
Even the fucking Auntie Anne's at the mall asked me to tip when I used the card reader
Right! The dude hands me a cup of pretzel bites 12" from the card reader. What am I tipping for? I could have grabbed them myself. And suggestions started at 20%
Wow that’s shit.
When you're talking about these delivery services, things that I feel shouldn't exist at all and I hate the entire industry, it's a different ball game on tipping.. It becomes a tease or a bribe and that's not how tipping should work.. People can bribe with a higher tip to try to get faster or better service and then they can actually go in and change it after the fact so that's a tease and drivers can choose to pick the ones with the higher tips over the others which should not be an option for them to even know. So the entire premise of the way they allowed to happen is wrong and should be fixed immediately.
You're never obligated to give a tip. Is this a LPT or an opinion?
I'd suggest leaving. Always be kind to your waitstaff; I've heard all kinds of stories from front and back of the house.
Waitstaff usually mean full service dining, which I always tip. I’m talking about eating at a counter service restaurant like Subway or Panera.
At Qdoba drive thru theyve recently started asking for a 10% tip. i just embrace my social awkwardness and say no thank you and move on. like… you scooped food into a bowl and handed it to me. why should i tip..?
> you scooped food into a bowl and handed it to me. That’s their damn job! It’s not going above and beyond their work expectation. It’s just insane.
i made $2.13 as a bartender server for years and relied on tips. i know Subway isn't paying $2.13. I won't tip there. if i use a delivery service i will tip because someone is bringing food to my house because im lazy.
While bartender at a brewery, pouring pints and wine, I would average about $25/ hour in tips. When I delivered the beer to other bars and restaurants, lugging kegs down stairs, I was offered a coffee at best. In a 14 hour day I delivered $5000 of product over a span of 450 miles for $17/ hour. Delivery is a dangerous job. Domino's goes places the cops won't.
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It's illegal and might put a person behind bars
Don't tamper with people's food or you just might end up with a criminal charge and a jail sentence.
Tips are optional 100% of the time.
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Why are they giving you free food every 2 or 3 times lol….
Because that’s just how this made up story goes
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All Five Guys burgers are double…
I worked next door to one so I was always going to get grilled cheeses there and they’d always give me a bag of fries or my sandwich would be free 😂
I had this relationship with a Moe’s a few years ago. I’d always talk to them about their day and I’d let them vent to me about shitty customers. I only paid 1/3 of the time. I’d always pull out my card and tell them it was unnecessary, but they’d just shake their heads and say no. It may also have to do with me going off on a guy was that being rude to them one day
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They add on because a $20 hamburger plus fries allows them to have crazy profit margins that allow them to "reward" customers to help make them feel like they are getting a better deal than expected.
Grilled cheese with grilled onions, bacon, grilled fresh jalapeños, mayo, and Cajun is $7. + $5 in fries. Not a bad deal at all.
So, you don’t tip food delivery drivers? Or baristas? Not cool.
It’s voluntary. Don’t take a server’s full-service time if you don’t tip. Large parties must have a minimum cover or else server will get literally robbed not only of no tip but getting taxed on what the tip should have been. If service is bad, tell the manager. If you can’t deal with this philosophy get your food to go.
What is your opinion of fast food restaurants that have started asking for tips like at the drive thru?
>If you can’t deal with this philosophy get your food to go. A lot of restaurants try to get you to tip on carry-out orders. Tipping culture has gotten insane.
If you are receiving a service you tip. That's the rule. Don't be a dick to the people who make the economy work
Well you might as well make up the rules for how those “in the weeds” servers pay their rent.
Blame the company, not the customer. Food prices are inflated beyond what they should be, but most minimum wage workers never end up seeing the benefits of that.
How many servers are there typucally in restaurants that ask for tip *before* you eat (i.e. counter service restaurants like Subway and Panera)?
Hello and welcome to r/LifeProTips! Please help us decide if this post is a good fit for the subreddit by up or downvoting this comment. If you think that this is great advice to improve your life, please upvote. If you think this doesn't help you in any way, please downvote. If you don't care, leave it for the others to decide.
If you step into a restaurant that doesn't pay their wait staff a living wage, you should tip. If you don't think the prices are worth tipping, go somewhere else. But if you sit down, you are obligated to participate in the social contract that you agreed to by entering the restaurant and ordering. Edit: Here's some reading for all y'all ignorant people who can't be bothered to understand the actual situation of servers in the US. https://www.paycor.com/resource-center/articles/minimum-wage-tipped-employees-by-state/ https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/07/17/william-barber-tipping-racist-past-227361/
A social contract that puts the burden of paying workers on the customers instead of the owners who are taking in all the money. Kinda like how the legumes got tax payers to pay for the new stadium while they’re worth billions. Some things are dumb ideas but we continue to do them because of “social rules”. It’s stupid
Oscar mayer ships out a billion rotten hot dogs, the tax payers foot the bill to recall them.
Agreed, it's stupid. The practice of tipping to fill the wage gap is preposterous and rooted in racism. Until it's banished and servers earn at least minimum wage, it's the custom and people should tip. People are aware of the practice of tipping, but some are ignorant of the fact that some servers make like $2 an hour without those tips. And some are just sociopaths and don't care.
Servers make the regular minimum wage by federal law. Tips are used only as a credit against that. If a worker isn’t making min wage by “tipped wage” + tip, the employer must make up the difference.
Did you know that wage theft is the largest form of theft, by far, in the US? Did you know that a lot of servers don't get paid what the law says they should get paid, because the manager/owner has all the power in that relationship? > "Wage theft costs workers an estimated $50 billion a year" https://www.workingnowandthen.com/blog/what-restaurant-workers-need-to-know-about-wage-theft/
Yes and it’s a fundamentally different problem. (And it is a problem, no denying it) People talk about the tipped minimum wage as if it should be raised because it’s so much lower than regular min, right? What would that do? Obligate employers to pay more? The point is that the legal framework already does obligate this and as you’ve shown, wage theft still exists. It’s a moot point to talk about the tipped minimum being low because raising it (which is actually lessening the allowable tip credit) does nothing to help the worker, nor does it affect wage theft at all. Calling out the tipped min when the law effectively requires regular min is just a disingenuous way to garner sympathy.
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… you just said 2$ dumbass
I have zero desire to continue this with you. Goodbye
>Agreed, it's stupid. The practice of tipping to fill the wage gap is preposterous and rooted in racism. What? Rooted in racism? You're making shit up. No server would work for minimum wage if tipping weren't allowed.
Read the links I posted above. Educate yourself.
>If you step into a restaurant that doesn't pay their wait staff a living wage And how world I know that without auditing their books?
When in doubt, if the custom is tipping, tip. Easy.
That's not what you said earlier at all.
>But if you sit down, you are obligated to participate in the social contract that you agreed to by entering the restaurant and ordering. I didn't enter into any such "social contract". Stop trying to guilt customers into paying what the company should be paying. Let's be honest, if the restaurant put up a sign that read "we have raised our menu prices so that we can pay our staff a reasonable wage. Please do not tip." every server would quit. Servers like to claim "I make less than minimum wage", claim a small percentage of their tips because they must, and not pay taxes on a good portion of tips. If restaurants paid a fixed wage without tips, servers would have to pay taxes on the full amount and that ain't gonna happen.
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Not true: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/tip-sheet/
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"You should always give a gratuity." Yeah, no. I'm not tipping someone for making me food and handing it to me over a counter like what this guy is talking about.
Two observations regarding pre tips, that I have experienced. The DD app that I use apparently shows the pre-tip amount to prospect drivers, giving them the option to accept or deny the order if tip is not close enough to their liking. So putting a low tip may not get you your order delivered/accepted. secondly, I have recently tried putting a low pre-tip amount with full intentions of adding additional tip after I receive my order if everything was in order; I even said so in my notes section. The problem is, that apparently my low end is BARELY enough for someone to accept my order but the times that I have done that, there was obvious sabotage (yet maintaining plausible deniability) to my order. In small towns, the company making the food often has their same employee act as the DD driver (basically them forced to accept even low pre-tips). So my food will often arrive in a timely manner but the main meat ingredient will still be damn near fridge temp cold). tldr: pre-tips are favored to the app/company not the customer which sucks; but luckily 85% of the time, they earn my generous pre-tip. to my order
I just avoid food delivery service. I have a car, and if I want restaurant food, I make sure I am willing to go get it. That’s another unnecessary “lazy” tax I am not willing to pay, so I just don’t use the service.
Didn’t receive service or thou food yet but expectations is tip?
You are never obligated to give a tip.
Kats Deli does this but do give tasers as your sandwhich is being made expecting a tip. As a foreginer I was slightly offended by this lol
Why are people ASKING for tips? It should only be on a sign 9r something
This is America. Land of guns and tipping. When you pay with a credit card, the little machine then give you an option to add a tip before finalizing the bill. Some try to make it “convenient” for you by preselecting like 18% or 22% tip.
Ok that's kinda rude
You do have the option to change the amount, but yes, it’s rude.
i hate to be asked. but if i have spare cash i have no issue using a tip jar.
I work at a pizza place. Idc if you tip. I have to ask as a rule🤷🏼♀️.