Blame the payment processors. If you are a store and you buy a point of sale machine, it comes preconfigured to 18%/20%/25% or whatever tips, and it is not well documented how to change it. Most small business owners give up and stop bothering.
Why do the payment companies do this? Because they get ~1% of the tip.
And they put the highest tip button right over the "No tip" button. My hand once slipped and I gave a 40% tip to a barista who handed me a sandwich when I meant to give 0.
I hate tipping so much, I want to start a "no tipping" movement. Then hopefully the industry will figure out how to pay their people a living wage without making paying a game of social pressure for me.
There is pretty much one way to stop this: stop patronizing carry-out and counter service establishments that throw a tip question into the checkout process. It's not enough to just elect zero tip. Stop giving them your money, period.
No problem tipping for good sit-down table service, or a good bartender at a bar. But at carry-out and self-service places, there's no service provided so nothing to earn a tip.
Maybe I am a chud but if I am driving to pick up my food and the cashier is just ringing me up, nobody's getting tipped and I have no problem hitting no tip.
This what I do. I learnt this from one of the HackerNews comments months ago.
Tip the person if they do a direct service to you, which may involve touching your body. Barbers, massage therapists (all kinds, you know!), Facials, nails etc.
Also (as per another comment in this thread), no tip if we pay before we use the service (or food).
If it isn't any of the above, say "Thank you, I enjoyed your great service. But at this time, I don't have money to spare. How do I get past this screen?"
Everyone -- including Fox -- seems to have missed the tax-avoidance game: Tips are deductible, wages are not. So one of the few employee and management mutual interests lies in short-circuiting a share of revenue directly from customer to employee, with no filtering through the IRS.
I just wanna know how everyone thinks is acceptable to tip for a product that you did not even receive yet. How do I know if it’s even good? Can I take my tip back if it’s not?
I don't think it's acceptable, and I don't tip if I pay before I eat. Ironically, I also don't adjust the amount I tip at sit-down restaurants based on how the service was. I refuse to allow tipping to expand beyond where it was customary when I was growing up. There should be less tipping, not more. It should be outlawed entirely.
In my state, and I suppose other areas of the US, it is a win-win for a business to institute tips-plus wages.
Firstly, the business is permitted to pay below minimum wage and play accounting games with "tip credits" and having the employees pool/share their tips in common. So, the business contributes less to those wages overall, and therefore can hire/keep more staff than it would, ordinarily, and run on a slimmer margin, when food service is generally not very profitable.
Second, the business can advertise lower prices! If tipping pays wages, and tips don't need inclusion in the menu prices, then your $5 hamburger isn't going to cost $5 at checkout, but if you're the owner, you still get to print $5 on the menus and put $5 burgers on your website.
At this point, customers are being shamed and goaded into tipping, because if we don't, we're the bad guy: we're the wage thieves; we're the rude customers who can't afford to eat but do it anyway.
It is a valid strategy to boycott/avoid businesses that mandate tipping unjustly, but ultimately, that seems to be another way you're hurting the workers trying to make a living, where that includes being forced to accept a job in a "mandatory tipping" industry.
My thought is that this doesn't shift the burden to those that can afford to pay (and choose to tip) it shifts the burden to many of those who (for a lack of a better way to put it) don't have the money but feel bad if they don't tip. Also I fully understand why businesses do this but it creates a negative feeling at the point of purchase in terms of rejecting and not tipping.
It's getting increasingly common in Germany as well, especially at bakeries and the like.
I recently had one at one of the big coffee chains where it offered 10%, 15%, 20% and an unlabeled fourth option. The fourth option went into a submenu with 5%, 10%, 15% and this time a labeled none option, which sent you to a another yes/no screen.
I don't avoid the business but I do not feel bad at all not tipping when there is no service involved. And, no, the 3 second interaction of handing me out goods from behind the counter doesn't count. When there is service involved it usually is already included in the price and rounding up is a courtesy but not required.
Every time there is an initiative to require paying living wages, food and bar service representatives fight to get it killed because they make _more_ money from tips than they would from regular wages. Tip-earning workers in America are well represented.
Could ban tipping by law. Businesses where employees are caught accepting tips get fined. The price on the menu or shelf must be the final price at payment (including sales taxes and other fees).
Except the actual workers don't: very very few consistently earn a higher wage, instead on a "good night" they count the win and ignore the losses when it's not.
Even with reliable good nights the off nights eat away at that margin.
Few talk about the Skinnerian mechanics behind tipping. It's the addictive element which keeps gamers gaming, microtransactors microtransacting, pattern day traders day trading, and gig drivers gigging. The excitement of the gamble. The irrational belief that the next customer may be George Soros and they'll leave $10K on the table.
Why do the payment companies do this? Because they get ~1% of the tip.
I hate tipping so much, I want to start a "no tipping" movement. Then hopefully the industry will figure out how to pay their people a living wage without making paying a game of social pressure for me.
No problem tipping for good sit-down table service, or a good bartender at a bar. But at carry-out and self-service places, there's no service provided so nothing to earn a tip.
Tip the person if they do a direct service to you, which may involve touching your body. Barbers, massage therapists (all kinds, you know!), Facials, nails etc.
Also (as per another comment in this thread), no tip if we pay before we use the service (or food).
If it isn't any of the above, say "Thank you, I enjoyed your great service. But at this time, I don't have money to spare. How do I get past this screen?"
Are you saying you wouldn't reward someone like that with a few extra bucks?
Firstly, the business is permitted to pay below minimum wage and play accounting games with "tip credits" and having the employees pool/share their tips in common. So, the business contributes less to those wages overall, and therefore can hire/keep more staff than it would, ordinarily, and run on a slimmer margin, when food service is generally not very profitable.
Second, the business can advertise lower prices! If tipping pays wages, and tips don't need inclusion in the menu prices, then your $5 hamburger isn't going to cost $5 at checkout, but if you're the owner, you still get to print $5 on the menus and put $5 burgers on your website.
At this point, customers are being shamed and goaded into tipping, because if we don't, we're the bad guy: we're the wage thieves; we're the rude customers who can't afford to eat but do it anyway.
It is a valid strategy to boycott/avoid businesses that mandate tipping unjustly, but ultimately, that seems to be another way you're hurting the workers trying to make a living, where that includes being forced to accept a job in a "mandatory tipping" industry.
I recently had one at one of the big coffee chains where it offered 10%, 15%, 20% and an unlabeled fourth option. The fourth option went into a submenu with 5%, 10%, 15% and this time a labeled none option, which sent you to a another yes/no screen.
I don't avoid the business but I do not feel bad at all not tipping when there is no service involved. And, no, the 3 second interaction of handing me out goods from behind the counter doesn't count. When there is service involved it usually is already included in the price and rounding up is a courtesy but not required.
But have you thought about the poor shareholders? /s
Even with reliable good nights the off nights eat away at that margin.
It's a false economy.
It's the same as looking at an American engineer's bonus that's 3x a foreign engineer's whole pay and calling them a beggar.