- cross-posted to:
- world@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- world@lemmy.world
Many international fans visiting the US for the World Cup have become frustrated by the culture of tipping servers, telling the BBC that tipping fatigue has set in.
England supporter Geoff Pryor said he understood tipping for good service, but he found it “weird” when buying a bottle of water and “they try to get a tip for doing nothing”.
In the US, staff at some restaurants and bars are paid just over $2 (£1.50) an hour, and they expect customers to tip about 20% of the total cost of the bill so they can earn a living.
Frustrations have also been shared by hospitality staff, with one bar owner telling the BBC that many World Cup tourists have been bad tippers.
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Fuck this is a difficult one.
Tipping culture is a throwback to slavery times and is very typical of the predatory nature that exists within employment in the US. The position that customers need to pay a tip because the server needs a liveable wage that isn’t covered by employers and built into law is essentially being held hostage due to an unfair system.
That said, waitstaff depend on this for a liveable wage and by not paying the tip, you’re denying that worker fair income. It’s not their fault directly, it’s the system they are under.
Looking from the outside, it comes back to the same thing; the reluctance of Americans to engage in building a decent society by collectively voting to build that, rather than voting or even not voting at all to take care of themselves. Again, it’s another case of ‘you get out what you put in’. A 60% voter turnout reflects the quality of what’s been elected and makes it easy for bad actors to get what they want, especially when their base does turn out.
To get those things, they need to at least vote and vote for people who will give them the things they want like legislated, decent wages. Sometimes it also means some hardship or compromise. Here, that means wait staff would be giving up the potential of big tips for the benefit of decent wages and perhaps healthcare.
Personally? Of course I’d tip them; I’m in Rome so I’d do as the Romans do and I’m aware that’s their income. I’d also feel like I was held hostage by a shithouse, predatory system brought about by Americans lack of care for their own people though.
Welcome to the wage slave states of America! Hopefully you get out before you find out how much I.C.E. costs here. Ha!
Seriously don’t come here if you value your safety or your possessions.
It is completely out of control. I have been asked to tip at self operated vending machines. WTF?
That’s because vending machines aren’t actually paid at all and rely entirely on tips. Little known fact.
Damn. What a heartless bastard I am.
Genius.
My favorite thing I saw recently in relation to tipping - was this sign at a restaurant about what the minimum wage was and encouraging tipping.
I’m assuming that sign was put up or at least tacitly endorsed by the management.
It’s almost as if they don’t have any agency over what they pay their own workers and they are then shaming customers into making up the difference? WTF?
Of course it was. Tipping is a scam by business owners to have customers pay wages so they don’t have to.
You think that’s bad? We have ads on our gas pump handles and a ‘donation’ question everytime we use a pos
It’s been known for some time that many of those from outside the US are unfamiliar with our tipping culture. I was a waiter in a nice restaurant in '96 when the Olympics were in Atlanta. We had lots of large parties that we added a 20% gratuity to, and clearly indicated on the check and no one complained. But normally the only place you encountered tipping then was in a sit-down restaurant with waiters. Now there’s a thousand and one places where you’re encouraged to tip. Even places where it’s only counter service and you’re supposed to put money in a tip jar when you pay the cashier. It’s all over the place and it’s completely ridiculous and out of hand. Americans hate it. It’s no wonder our guests are confused and pissed off.
There are a few restaurants I have been to in the US that actually pay living wages and say tipping is optional. When the service is really good and you insist you want to tip they are generally over the moon.
I’m so torn about tipping culture, on the one hand it’s bosses not paying workers as much as they deserve, on the other hand it’s one job where workers can earn better than the cost of living doing a low skilled job. I also fully believe that anywhere there is a tip jar that gets pooled between workers there’s someone in management skimming off the top.
It’s also got a lot to do with the fact that we’re talking about selfish dipshits who are willing to give business to FIFA and American businesses when our country has a fascist administration, of course douchebags like that are going to whine about everything
Tipping culture is obnoxious and needs to be dealt with at some point, but fuck these jerk ass tourist morons. Absolutely no solidarity to em.
I don’t know if that really does make up the majority of who we’re talking about here. There are many football fans who are in it for the love of the game and are there to support their country with friends and family in what may be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Not all of us are as clued-in as you are.
If you need to pay, it’s posted on the menu and appears on the bill. If not, too bad.
Let’s fix this headline.
American’s Confused By Fair Wage Practices of Civilized Countries
Ci… Civ… Civ-il… Civil-i? Civil-iz? Civil rights? CIVIL RIGHTS COUNTRIES?! Does your country’s ICE know about this???
Frustrations have also been shared by hospitality staff, with one bar owner telling the BBC that many World Cup tourists have been bad tippers.
Should read:
Frustrations have also been shared by hospitality staff, with one bar owner telling the BBC that many World Cup tourists have been making staff aware that I and other businesses are bad employers.
Yeah, why’s the bar owner being quoted in a paragraph about the frustrations of hospitality staff? He’s the one not paying them a fair wage and expecting the customers to subsidize his payroll!
Im an American and I tip because it’s how servers get paid in the US.
I’ve also been to other countries where restaurants just, ya know, pay their employees.
It’s not complicated. Just give your employees money in exchange for their labor. Somehow other countries just pay their employees and amazingly they still have restaurants and bars.
That’s how they get paid but that’s also how they are extorted on every service and that’s another way to evade taxes.
Because of that US tiping isn’t culture, is a crime. At least in the EU.
Outlaw tipping? Make it socially embarrassing and shameful to accept a tip? Make tipping in America like tipping in Japan?
Top do that you’d need to guarantee tip earning workers a minimum wage and raise the minimum wage so someone can actually survive with it.
Just remember, tipping is optional. Don’t feel like you need to be guilted into doing it.
In the US you’re not breaking any laws by not tipping servers at a restaurant/bar, you’re just being a dick.
In this capitalist hellscape, the minimum wage laws do not apply to restaurant/bar servers. Since these laws do not apply, it has become industry standard to not pay them based on their hourly wage, but on their predicted amount of tips. In most cases, this means paying them below minimum wage and their tips make up the difference. Not tipping does not affect the business and the people who control the business will not give a fuck. The only person you’re harming or sending a message to is the worker, the wage slave.
This is supremely fucked up and there should be legislation to prevent it. It’s difficult for fair business owners to compensate for this issue on their own because it means increasing menu prices by 20% and having clear messaging that explains why their prices are higher and that you should not tip. This is an extreme oddity and I (as someone who lives in a major city and eats out most meals) have only encountered it twice.
Are companies breaking the law by paying below minimum wage or are the laws useless? In both cases people that are not tipping are not the problem.
In most of the US, there is a separate, much lower minimum wage for tipped workers.
And there you have the problem.
So, just like a general strike, if people stopped tipping in masses it would have a profound downstream effect that would force change. But instead the owner class keeps the people fighting and subsidizing each other.
Yes. If people stopped tipping in masses, it would have a profound effect. In order to do that, you need to build up a movement large enough to gain attention. That’s going to take time. All of the time that it takes to do so, you’re actively harming people who usually have skills that are difficult to transfer to another industry. You have to convince a lot of other people to do harm with you in order to make a difference. It’s a tough ask. This method, if successful, has an eventual benefit, but the cost of that benefit is difficult to justify, especially considering that success is both not guaranteed and requires participation on an unprecedented scale.
In the US servers cannot make anywhere near a living wage without it. It’s a catch 22 and either legislation or businesses adopting policies is the only way to break it. One off opt outs are just futile protests at the expense of workers.
Maybe business owners can pay full wages, advertise full prices, and pay full taxes, but you and I know that’s not going to happen in USA.
Agree it’s really unlikely. We are dug in very deep with this. As these businesses start to get more aggressive with hidden fees and tip inflation I do think more people are getting fed up with it though. There may be some opportunity for political attention and legislative change. But yeah, it’s pretty damn silly to be optimistic about much of anything in a shit hole country like the US.
We’re all making less than we should. Why is it my job to fix that for the dude that brought me a cheeseburger but not for the dude that fixed the curb in front of my house? One of those was way more useful to me than the other.
Why should it be? It shouldn’t.
Why is it? Because the dude who brought you a cheeseburger makes a fraction of the hourly wage of the curb dude, and you chose to participate in the broken system by going to that restaurant.
Did I also choose to participate in the curb fixing business by having one outside my home, or is that a fact of the world outside my control?
Exactly. Also its not like you’re going to run into those people again. Pay the price on the receipt, that’s the only requirement.
Well if you travel to the US for the World Cup you’re either ignorant as fuck or you like the direction they’re going and want to sponsor it.
You chose to go. Stay and suffer or leave and get better.
Or maybe they like football?
You can like football and not support america and FIFA’s blatant corruption.
I like cocaine but I’m not going to hang out in rural Colombia anytime soon.
We don’t pay our workers, lol. That’s on you!
Don’t worry American citizens are also confused by the expensive tipping culture in the US. I still maintain 15% for a good job, 10% for a mediocre job, 5% for anything below. Giving above 15% is just subsidizing the pay the employer should be giving. It’s a symptom of the fact that wages have stagnated for over 50 years. The pay that once supported someone and even a child is now far below the poverty line for even an individual. So instead of increasing pay to match what it once was many businesses have turned to aggressive tipping over just increasing the prices of their service / products.
Talking about restaurant dining only… My baseline is 20%. Higher for breakfast and/or a great job. Shave some off for truly bad experiences.
I 100% agree that servers should be paid a full living wage before tips. But the truth is, they survive entirely on their tips. Not tipping over 15% isn’t sending a message to the employer or the industry. The only person that is impacting is your server who probably doesn’t even get to keep 100% of what you leave and makes an hourly rate that’s probably 50% or lower of the minimum wage.
My hometown has a lot of restaurants and a few years back had a measure on the ballot to ensure that servers were actually paid the full hourly minimum wage by their employer. Somehow, the servers were convinced that it would be a bad thing and were against it. The measure failed.
Somehow, the servers were convinced that it would be a bad thing and were against it. The measure failed.
Same reason some workers are against unions. They’ve been deluded by corporate propaganda.
I’ve heard “But i make so much money in tips!” so many times. Then don’t fucking complain whenever you get a slow day when you don’t even make enough to pay for the gas it took to get you there and back!
I have to put my money where my mouth is. Generally speaking i have decreased eating out and generally avoid dining in locations where tipping is customary. I absolutely avoid like the plague locations that automatically suggest the minimum tip should be 20%+. That said even the completely automated car wash down the way asks if I want to tip now so I have doubts that tips go to that individual worker or to the workers at all in every circumstance.
If everyone behaved the same then this culture of businesses offloading their employees income directly onto individuals would end very quickly. Tipping wasn’t always like this, the tip used to just be a little extra people gave sometimes and now it’s been weaponized by unscrupulous business owners.
Avoiding eating out is how you put your money where your mouth is. If your impact truly matters, that’s how the restaurant owners/investors will see it.
As much as I don’t like it, 20% is now the standard for tipping. Anything less than that you’re sending a message, but the only possible interpretation of that message is that you don’t like the service. There’s no method for delivering your individual feelings about tipping culture through tipping less than everyone around you. There’s no form on the receipt that gets collated and presented to decision makers.
In reality the only person you’re harming in tipping under 20% is the server. Either they’re taking home less money and nobody notices, or somebody is paying attention to how much each server is getting tipped and you just gave them a bad mark that management sees.
Society as a whole reducing or no longer tipping would make a big impact. My current State requires wait staff to be paid at the same standard state minimum all other positions have to. The employer has to make up wages to at least State minimum in one’s that don’t. Which is what the majority of the kitchen and bussers make. If servers are not getting Far better than minimum (at least at the dozens of chain restaurants I’ve worked at) they quit.
Boy though, would the transition (were it to occur) suuuuck for a lot of folks. So I don’t even pretend to know the best way to start.
Should servers make more on average than cooks (who are responsiblefor both the taste and cleanliness of your food)? Probably an entirely different discussion.
Should a restaurant pay all workers a fair wage or go out of business because they rely on patrons to make up for their shiity pay hierarchy? I say yes.
I will also say, there is a difference between a chain restaurant and a local owned establishment. (Insert chain restaurant here) wants me to tip their servers 20% for a subpar service, just because it’s expected? … they can go suck socks. They can much better afford to pay each server that extra 20% than I. Aunt Margie’s diner, who always has good food and what appears to be genuinely attentive and kind staff? Absofuckinglutely.
Side note. This is also why I always bring cash for tips, that way the server can opt to disclose what they wish. A real tip, in a fair world, imho, should be just for them. No taxes, no payroll accountancy.
…that got… long. Uhhh thanks for coming to my Ted talk?
Fair although I still think there’s a debate between 15% and 20% being the default. Also I can totally eat out and avoid this issue all together, just eat at places that don’t have tipping.
makes an hourly rate that’s probably 50% or lower of the minimum wage
Illegal everywhere in the USA. It is federal law that tipped wage workers must be paid the difference up to minimum wage if tips did not cover that gap.
And almost impossible to sue over and get paid not to mention servers don’t have the money for confronting their bosses but sure make excuses for the blatant exploitation.
I’m not making excuses for exploitation. Servers are absolutely exploited in the US and the laws are dumb as hell. Servers, and everyone, deserves a liveable wage.
You don’t need to sue. A couple people with paystubs can file a complaint with the state DoL and they’ll investigate.
Of course this varies by state and will take months, but it’s not like you have to pay to retain a lawyer.
Giving above 15% is just subsidizing the pay the employer should be giving.
Wait until you hear about the countries where they don’t even tip 15%! You’re sooo close.
