Service has gotten worse at many places.The servers are still great, but quite a few places have adopted the model of having you scan a QR code, you order online, pay with your credit card plus tip, they have you pick it up at a window, you eat, and at the end you bus your own table. Then they have options like 18, 25 and 30% to guilt you into the middle one. It’s like, damn I haven’t even talked to anyone yet, you’re jumping to the end first
Comment on Tipping culture npcs
zeppo@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I don’t really get why the expected percentage went up. 15% was the standard for a LONG time. 20% meant you thought they were great. Now 15 is considered shitty, like an insult, and we’re supposed to do 18 or 25 or 30. Meanwhile prices also went up. Why am I supposed to tip 25% now? Service hasn’t changed.
normalexit@lemmy.world 8 months ago
jaemo@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
15% is standard, great even. It’s this one weird trick I do. See: how this works is I’m the one with the money which means I’m also the owner of the yardstick that measures average, good and great.
I’m baffled by comments like this. One ought to be empowered to decide if someone has met or exceeded your standards, and to what degree. Letting social pressure dictate that is nonsensical.
Aermis@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I thought 10% was standard.
JargonWagon@lemmy.world 8 months ago
It was, and I still tip 10% unless the service was truly exceptional.
iknowitwheniseeit@lemmynsfw.com 8 months ago
It was in the 1970s.
SkippingRelax@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Non American so bear with me.why the % would go up? Prives have gone up considerably, 10% now should be like or better than 10% then or am I missing something? Is there a point in the future where someone says 113% was okay in the 2040s but not now?
iknowitwheniseeit@lemmynsfw.com 8 months ago
It’s basically an artifact of how pay is set. The USA has a system where pay for certain professions is adjusted only by a new law. Since in capitalism the capital class has power over policy and the working class does not, the tendency is to resist increasing salary.
Now for most workers this would simply be untenable, but for jobs that get part of their income through tips the workers can make up the difference by increasing the portion of their income they receive through tips.
So over time the tip rate has increased. It’s actually an interesting proxy for how fucked capitalism has become in the USA. The higher the percentage of cost that workers need to receive semi-formally through tipping, the more the imbalance between capital and labor.
NoIWontPickaName@kbin.social 8 months ago
So at what point do we stop increasing the percentage? 50%, 75%, 100%?
pyrflie@lemm.ee 8 months ago
[deleted]Skates@feddit.nl 8 months ago
If you can’t afford to live on 2.35 an hour, don’t work for 2.35 an hour. Asshole.
pyrflie@lemm.ee 8 months ago
[deleted]SkippingRelax@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Hopefully your employer will introduce a new salary framework where you get paid what customers think you should be paid for your engineering services, or not. you seem to have good people skills so that shouldn’t be an issue.
BirdyBoogleBop@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
So bribes then. You are happy bribing people.
zeppo@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I do too well, thanks, but that’s irrelevant. I don’t get what your point is. None of that is anything new. When I worked at a restaurant in the 90s servers made $2.17 an hour plus tips, and it was okay to do 15%. 10% was for below average service, but 20 was if you loved them. 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s, always 15%. 25% was considered a really generous tip for great service. Now people expect to 25% though nothing has changed about the business or what waitstaff do.
BreadstickNinja@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Cost of living has risen far more than minimum wage, which doesn’t keep up with inflation, and business owners are shifting the burden to their customers in the form of tips rather than set menu prices that reflect real costs and pay servers the real wage value of their services. That trend started in the 80s but especially since the recession has become far more pronounced.
jj4211@lemmy.world 8 months ago
But menu prices have been increasing, at least matching inflation (from my experience, eating out seems to have even outpaced inflation in other areas).
A place that 5 years ago was $20 for a couple of people to eat was $40 when I went recently, ignoring tip. So a 15% tip went from $3.00 to $6.00, but the register suggested that we should be tipping 20%, $8.00. Also, they no longer let you order at the table, you order at the counter. They no longer bring the food out, they call out your number to come get your stuff. They no longer came out to provide refills, you had to go and ask for them yourself. About the only thing they did ‘above and beyond’ was bus the table after you left. I wouldn’t have even minded all the ‘self-service’, but it was maddening when combined with a suggested tip that was way higher than when it wasn’t self-service.
SkippingRelax@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Yes but a restaurant bill has risen more or less EXACTLY at the cost of inflation so if 15%of the bill was okay in the previous decades, it should be okay now.
In fact this system makes hospitality workers among the few that have (the tip part) of their income adjusted to inflation. Everyone else salaried except for CEOs probably only got a 1-4% increase the past few years, not enough to keep up with the increase in cost of blrent, groceries and, well restaurant bills.
dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
You’ve been downvoted by people that clearly have never worked in a restaurant. People aren’t entitled to a night out. It’s a luxury. And your slave that brought you all these nice things to your table can’t pay their bills. If they hate it they should quit right? That’s sustainable.
hark@lemmy.world 8 months ago
People also aren’t entitled to tips. Regardless, I’d happily forego the “service” of bringing over a tray of food for a 15-25% discount, especially when “good service” is considered interrupting your meal to ask how it’s going or refilling your water (again, something I can do myself and it’s not like I’m drinking gallons of water).
I typically tip around 20% when I have to go for an occasion, but otherwise I don’t go to restaurants.
JayDee@lemmy.ml 8 months ago
Because minimum wage for servers stayed dirt cheap while inflation skyrocketed, and now businesses are fighting to keep servers employed (but still aren’t willing to pay a living wage).
It’s all fueled by cyclical logic where the business refuses to accept that they’re immoral for requiring tipping. Might be legal- it’s still a concious failure of responsibility to short your staff and expect someone else to make up that difference.
Rediphile@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
They went up because customers (on average) agreed to them and approved the higher suggested tip. It’s not anymore complex than that.
If every place that raised those default options instead received lower tips as a result, it would stop. It’s not rocket surgery.
So ya, why do you tip 25% now? Great question. That seems fucking crazy to me.
vamp07@lemm.ee 8 months ago
Yup. The effect for me has been that I simply go out much less often.
WaxiestSteam69@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I’ve always tipped 20% for good service and 15% for average or below. I usually don’t tip less that 15% unless it’s just abysmal or I’m picking up a to go order in which case I usually do 8-10%. Several of the restaurants around me have changed from 15% / 20% on the suggested tip to 20% / 25% and a few have even added 30%. And I’ve also noticed the suggested tips are calculated on the after tax amount, and some restaurants that charge a credit card processing fee calculate the suggested tip on that amount. I tip on pretax and pre-fee totals and cap at 20%. If it get worse, my eating at restaurants will start becoming less and less.
Kongar@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
Why on gods green earth would you tip when you’re picking up a to-go order? Insanity! Stay strong - don’t do it!
dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
It didn’t. You’re just online too much. There is no “expected” amount. Anything you’ve heard to the contrary is just people bitching online.
zeppo@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Why would you assume I got this impression from talking to people online?
SaltyIceteaMaker@iusearchlinux.fyi 8 months ago
Tipping in general should be for a good service or out of convenience. It shouldn’t be expected
pyrflie@lemm.ee 8 months ago
Rediphile@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
This is the most made up nonsensical pretend number I’ve seen in a while. 35 cents per menu item? Where did you even get that haha wtf?
SaltyIceteaMaker@iusearchlinux.fyi 8 months ago
A tip is a bonus for exceptional service. Not something that you have to give. Why should i pay more than the menu lists if i don’t gain any benefit from that? I mean i regularly tip but i will definitely not tip like 20% unless the service was exceptional (i.e. delivering pizza while it’s ≥30°C outside)