Yeah, it's optional but if you don't tip everybody loses their minds. I've experienced this once abroad, I was with a group of exchange students that didn't want to pay the tip because students are always broke, and the cashier was mad to the point of being aggressive.
In Brazil we have 10% tip which you can opt out, and we usually do it when there is a problem with the service, but I wouldn't think twice to ask for the tip to be excluded if I was undergoing financial hardships, and I'm sure nobody would bat an eye.
I think it's not just the tip culture that is toxic. I feel like the entire American culture is plagued by toxic masculinity, the gun culture and hyper individuality.
I don’t disagree with your diagnosis of American culture, but the tip thing is just shifting wages from employer to customer. It’s no different from VAT versus sales tax: same result, different math.
Opting not to tip when it is part of the economic transaction is no different from walking out with the silverware; not expressly forbidden, just a breach of social contract.
It's absolutely different because a customer is not legally required to tip, and if a customer decides not to, that is directly impacting a worker's take-home pay.
And walking out with silverware is theft, I genuinely have no idea where you pulled that from as a similar example.
Plenty of customs don’t make logical sense, and plenty of words have dramatically changed meaning over time. Don’t read too much into the word. A “fine” used to mean a voluntary settlement.
You are right, I wasn't really thinking about how customs evolve organically. Outrage kinda blinded me because that experience was such a culture clash that clouded my understanding. Thanks. I mean, I still feel like using the word "tip" for something that is culturally not optional, even though you can opt out, is unnecessarily confusing and hostile, but that's what respecting foreign culture is all about.
Well, shit, if I made it part of the economic transaction, you'd have a point. What you're saying is that the employers are not holding up their end of the transaction.
In America, at least in restaurants, employers are allowed to pay a lower minimum wage to tipped employees. So tips are an essential part of a servers compensation and should not be considered optional.
Let me put it another way for my foreign friends - if you are dining at a restaurant in America with table service, you need to consider (at least) a 15% tip as part of the base cost. If you can't afford that, then you can't afford to eat out, choose a different option.
Then why call it a tip? The cynicism is just unbearable. If it's a tip people are going to have the option of opting out, disregarding any unwritten social norm that contradicts the actual word used.
Because what was once an active decision became a default, what was a default became an expectation, what was an expectation became an effective-requirement.
And lo, norms are made, the ratchet turns, culture solidifies, a new line written to the social contract. And tip-dependent workers have non-optional tipping.
If you really want a logic to follow strictly — any worker class whose wages are depressed by expected tipping should be tipped
I love that we're just like "so FYI we decided this particular class of worker is okay to pay less than a living wage but to compensate if they do really good at their job, we're going to make it a social norm that people pay more than their bill costs and they keep the difference."
Wouldn't it make far more sense to just pay them a living wage and charge what that costs and be done? It's genuinely the only part of eating out that annoys me is it ends with a math quiz.
> In America, at least in restaurants, employers are allowed to pay a lower minimum wage to tipped employees. So tips are an essential part of a servers compensation and should not be considered optional.
This actually varies state by state. In Alaska, California, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington the minimum wage does not change tipped vs non-tipped. Also in other states if the pay after tips do not meet the state minimum wage the employer is required to make up this difference.
If you actually look at the data tipped employees make significantly more vs median income in countries with tipping than without.
> If you can't afford that, then you can't afford to eat out, choose a different option.
I think this works if we're talking about a full restaurant, If we're talking about a mostly empty restaurant then even a 5% tip is money that the server would have not otherwise had, pretty certain they'd choose more money over less.
My understanding is if an employee who gets paid largely in tips isnt making more than min wage, that employee is almost always let go or quits. Employment layers dont love trying to prove a case that is pretty unlikely to be provable.
They can always find a reason, such as "so and so customer complained about your level of service and I can't have any complaints as a business owner" which on its face is a legitimate reason to fire someone.
This comment is very disconnected from the reality of service industry wage theft. Employment lawyers rarely bother with a case where the potential payout is a few thousand dollars.
In theory the federal or state department of labor could do something without the worker needing a lawyer. The federal DoL is useless in such cases and most state DoLs don't seem to do much either.
I don't understand how it's the customer's fault if managers are blatantly stealing wages. That sounds like someone else's problem to solve. If servers make it public, I'll stop going to that place, but preemptively tipping to avoid illegal labor practices feels like a bad solution.
> you need to consider (at least) a 15% tip as part of the base cost
No, I don't need to do anything. Restaurants are free to charge a service fee and state that plainly on the menu, as many already do. Otherwise it's optional and I will treat it as such.
Nah. 10% is standard, 15% is they did something good besides what's expected, 20% is amazing.
But I personally have chosen a different option because it's just exploitive all the way around. The business trying to exploit it's employees, the employees exploiting customers (10% being pushed up to 15%).
Explain to me how a society with minimal well care, where people would rather die of a heart attack than get taken to a hospital, where you need to save your entire life to afford a mediocre education for your children... How is that a collectivist society?
In Italy tips are never required as are a part of what you pay for. You leave a tip for outstanding service if you want, but it’s neither mandated nor customary.
Tipping has a powerful advantage: it aligns the incentives of customers and servers almost perfectly. Because tips aren’t capped, waiters are motivated to go above and beyond to satisfy each guest. Without tipping, the server’s motivation often drops to providing only adequate service—more in line with the restaurant’s interests than with each individual diner’s needs.
You can see this difference in customer experience worldwide. Nowhere delivers consistently attentive service quite like the US. By contrast, many European countries, especially those where tipping is uncommon (such as the Netherlands), often provide service that feels efficient but impersonal.
That might make sense... until they ask you to tip before you receive the service! When I order a coffee at a small shop, and the card terminal asks me to select a tip (displaying the default choice of 20% centered and in bold), how am I supposed to know whether the coffee will be good or not? As a regular customer, sure, you'll have an idea of what the general level of service at this place is like. But the expectation these days is to always tip, even if I've never been there before and I have no way of accurately judging the quality.
I never tip before receiving the service. Always hit zero. It feels a bit weird to begin with but you get used to it and i've not been treated any differently. A tip is generally not required for coffee or to-go/counter service.
That's anectdotal.
There is literally zero alignment or correlation between tipping and good service.
You want to have a stress free experience the waiters tries to upsell you at every corner.
If you mistake upselling for attention then you're part of the tipping complex already.
Good service comes from good training and experience not the assumed money left over in your wallet.
That's the businesses goal of not leaving any money on the table. So the alignment is between the business owner and the employee if anything, not between employee and customer.
I would make an exception for bars, but that's about it.
>That's anectdotal. There is literally zero alignment or correlation between tipping and good service.
The correlation is simple. The better the perceived service from the customer, the bigger the tip is.
>You want to have a stress free experience the waiters tries to upsell you at every corner.
In the vast majority of restaurants the server has little interest in upselling you. The exception is, perhaps, at a place with an expensive wine list (and regardless of tipping, businesses will be looking to upsell that wine list).
>Good service comes from good training and experience not the assumed money left over in your wallet.
Speaking as someone with industry experience, this is honestly just funny to read.
Training? For a server? Lol!
These are by and large scrappy people (and I say this lovingly). Lots of cursing, dubious substances, people working hella long hours in other jobs, people who are just planning on working for a few weeks and then leaving, etc. Yet when a big table comes in, they button up and act perfectly, despite cursing about the customers in the back, and the incentive is not "up selling" (servers care about seat count and nothing else - that's how the hierarchy of the seating pecking order is structured) it's about tip money.
Good service doesn't come from experience either. The newest servers will basically give the best service (they're nice to everyone), while often the most experienced servers are the most jaded and cranky. It's a rough job to be part of long term and it breaks you down a bit.
Also, regulars who tip well are truly appreciated by the service staff, and the staff really does go out of their way to make sure they get good service. This is because of the steady, predictable income stream. I don't know what to tell you other than, yes, the tip money absolutely does play a large part in the customer experience, and there is a correlation.
> Nowhere delivers consistently attentive service quite like the US.
I have found this to be true in pretty much all interactions (on average), regardless of whether the person is on a tipped wage.
Americans value salesmanship and customer service in ways that few other countries I've been to do. They market better, they sell better, they make customers feel better, in pretty much all types of businesses.
Source: someone who's lived in three major US metropolitan areas, and two in the EU.
> Because tips aren’t capped, waiters are motivated to go above and beyond to satisfy each guest. Without tipping, the server’s motivation often drops to providing only adequate service—more in line with the restaurant’s interests than with each individual diner’s needs.
Do people tip their accountants? Their nurses and doctors? Their dentist? Their mechanic? The cashier at the grocery store? The clerk at the shoe store who fetches the shoe in the size/colour I want?
Perhaps people should just do their jobs properly because that is what they're paid to do. And if they're not doing their jobs such that the restaurant/business suffers in its reputable they get fired and replaced by someone who will. (Kind of like how I have to do the job I'm paid to in IT or the company will act accordingly if I do not.)
Here the other thing - sometimes I don't want extra service, I just want my food and that's it. But the waiter will try really hard to impress me with something I don't want.
Then I'm the bad guy for refusing to pay for something I didn't want in the first place.
It's getting harder to get the drivers to accept rides in some situations. Recently, I watched some Uber driver accept my ride and then drag their heels to pick me up in the hope that I would cancel. They didn't like my destination.
This reminds me of the old Soviet union where the rates were fixed by some central committee. In order to get a cab to pick you up, you would hold up fingers that represented how much extra you would tip. The more fingers, the more likely the drivers would actually stop.
What you’re describing is how it _should_ work. Instead every server feels entitled to 20% regardless of how bad their service is and it is frequently atrocious.
Besides, I’d rather have efficient and impersonal than (at best) fake nice.
Living in rural Spain service is chill. Am used to it by now. Went to an upmarket restaurant in France other day and it took me ages to realise the waiter was vibing me the whole meal for a tip. Such a weird transactional space. Person literally smiling and being agreeable for money. Insane.
I personally _hate_ American service with passion.
I prefer to be left alone most of the time in restaurants or not being talked to like the best friend I haven’t seen from the high school.
I also have an expectation that the waiter is not in a desperate position to rely on a tip for their living and is fairly compensated by their base salary.
