Eating out is already so expensive, every menu item is like at least $17 dollars nowadays (live in the city).
I’d rather give money to a homeless guy. The psychological warfare and the bullshit socioeconomic arguments for tipping are unconvincing for me. Leave me alone. Thank you.
It used to be simple. You set the price, we pay it for services and food. Now there’s a social expectation to give more? Fuck off. Fuck right off, don’t give me bullshit like “oh they don’t make a profit” well that’s their fucking problem. I paid, I paid no less than what was necessary, I shouldn’t feel bad about myself.
Sorry about the rant. I love eating out. But I hate feeling like a tightwad asshole for not tipping. Don’t get me wrong, I mostly tip like 99% of the time. I just didn’t tip today. The food took a long time to come out, they didn’t give us hot sauce, I had to go to the front to pay instead of the server handing me the bill.
I hate this, I hate what the tipping economy has become. It should’ve been simple.
The guy that served us was also at the register next to the cashier after I tapped 0% in the tipping screen. It was a mid-sized vietnamese place and I can’t help but feel that they were talking shit behind my back. I know they probably weren’t. I felt like I stole from them even after I payed in full.
Edit: I’m also neurodivergent and tipping just feels like extortion with extra steps. I know there’s a social dick measuring contest of “oh i only tip AT LEAST 70%” that people with looser wallets and more disposable income engage in. I have no such luxury, and tipping for me feels, well, more money i just have to pay. For no reason. I don’t even know where it goes in the end, if i tip through credit card (I make it a point to only tip in cash and hide it under my plate).
Fuck tipping. Fuck societal expectations of tipping. It should be something you do for exceptional service, not something you need to do because you’ll be shamed for not doing it.
This also hurts the worker…
The better option is don’t tip, force restaurants to pay more or lose employees.
This does not force them to pay more. They will simply not pay the employee a greater wage. The employer loses nothing by the employee getting less money here. They only lose if they pay more.
If everyone just stopped tipping all that would happen is that the workers now have a lower pay. The employers have lost no money, and have no reason to change anything.
Yes, not paying the fast food joint at all does hurt the worker, but if you’re already ok with doing that why not hurt the employer? They’ll lose money by not paying a reasonable price this way. Unlike with not tipping where nothing is lost.
Your method hurts only the worker. My method hurts the buisness as well. Only one gives the buisness a reason to change. The buisness does not care about the living situation of an employee
No, a portion of the workers are going to say “I can make more at -insert literally any other job here-” and they are going to leave. Then the business has to either fix the problem or shut down. These service industry workers aren’t beholden to their employers, when the pay stops being decent, they’ll dip.
Leave to where? What other job? We’re in a job deficit and non fast food places can only hold so many. Currently, when a fast food joint loses workers, they just pile the new work on employees who can’t just leave.
This idea of “just leave 5-head lol :P” is rather short sighted. They need to eat, they need to pay rent, they can’t just leave.
Why haven’t they left already with already abysmal wages even including tips? We have a shortage of jobs right now If they all left, or a large enough portion left, then they’ll need new jobs. No other industry has those jobs available currently. They’d lose wages, and have to go back.
Again, not tipping only hurts the worker, not the employer. Even in your situation the end goal is to hurt the employee so much they leave. Why not hurt the employer instead of only the employee? The only benefit is not paying that 10-15% on your mushroom parmesean chickenburger meal with deluxe fries.
If the end goal is the same, less workers in the industry which hurts the employer forcing better conditions, you not tipping does little to help while only hurting the employee
All you accomplish is a cheaper price on your luxary meal. A discount taken solely from the worker with no negative to the employer save for this idea that one day, the employee will walk out to another job that treats them better. A job that, sadly, does not exist
To the same place they would go if everyone collectively boycotted that business like you are calling for. If there’s no customers, the businesses aren’t just going to keep paying them. They’ll end up getting fired or hours cut until they starve or leave. What’s the difference?
Edit: I’d like to thank you for the kind conversation none-the-less. Even if we disagree, you seem like a chill person
Right, but other businesses will have gotten the money you would have spent, thus the greater capacity. They will have more business and require more workers.
Even if they didn’t have this capacity or didn’t increase it, the difference is clear. In both situations the worker is hurt, but in one the employer is hurt too. Why only hurt the employee? Why continue to support the employer by giving them the same amount of money if your objection is moral?
If you’re still going to support the system, the only benefit to not tipping is a discount taken only from the employee, not the employer.
Lastly, I call for nothing like that. What I’ve been saying is clear. If you’re going to support fast food, you should be tipping. No moral consumption and all that, I understand we can’t be perfect and support every cause, but my argument is that one should still tip to use this luxery good. Not tipping only hurts the worker. If you don’t tip though, you should understand what you’re doing.
If you’re reason for not tipping is moral objection to the system, you shouldn’t think you’re doing good by not tipping or that you’re not supporting the system of tipping. You are, the employer who has caused this system to exist is not hurt, you’re just taking money from a worker. That’s all.
Lastly boycotts rarely work. If we want this to change the best way is through local politics. Get involved, get informed, get things changed. Why do you think all the politicians are dissociative weirdos who do no good for the populace? They have to get a start somewhere, replace them.
You should still tip though, or minimize/cut out entirely your fast food consumption.
Really the only thing we disagree on is that not tipping does/doesn’t hurt the business. I’m with you on everything else.
I really don’t have a dog in the fight tho. I don’t work in food service nor do I participate much in the dine-in restaurant portion of it. I can count the number of times I’ve sat down and ate at a restaurant in the last 4 years on one hand. I’m also a hypocrite, I over tip for takeout/delivery and perpetuate the problem.
But I do believe if people collectively ditched tipping, the problem would sort itself out. Not that it wouldn’t be painful for the workers. And not that there aren’t better options (I’m 110% for minimum wage to be the same across the board).
Yeah I think we both want the same thing with a pretty minor disagreement on a supplementary topic.
I doubt we’ll see everyone stop either thing, and i’d argue if everyone stopped one thing, It should be giving money to these companies as a whole.
I’m glad to hear you tip though. My major issue has always been that individuals do very little by not tipping save for taking money from that employee.
We can at least agree the real solution is in legislation however. This will likely hurt no workers while ending the situation.
Tipping itself isn’t problematic, but when you structure an industry that expects customers to tip, literally have infrastructure like point of sale devices that have a tipping window, there’s a problem. And the problem is that the capitalists are putting the pressure on the customer to pay the servers a living wage, which also create a more volatile environment for the worker and harms them when chances are people don’t tip. There’s also problems like, where does your tip actually go, does your tip get shared with the entire staff or go directly to your server, does the establishment get a cut off your tip? Because it varies restaurant-by-restaurant. For all I know Im literally just giving the establishment free money.
Aside from those considerations, in a sense, you’re right. People not tipping will harm workers in the short term. But also, the bigger issue here is the infrastructure around tipping, and the societal expectations for people to tip, which allows capitalist to justify low wages
So, in a way, we have two options going forward:
Preserve the status quo, don’t eat out without tipping.
Smash the status quo, collectively do not tip. This harms the worker in the short term, but we can hope that they either find something better due to lower wages or force their bosses to increase their wages
I’m not saying 2 is a good solution. I personally advocate for (1) before someone can figure out a way to get us out of this mess without harming the worker.
Here in the USA, as we usually do, we dug ourselves into a hole.