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Comment on "If you can't afford to tip 40%, then don't eat out"

40% is an obvious strawman, but it’s a shitpost so that’s ok.

No one likes tipping culture. But regardless of what we want to happen, the reality is in the US there are jobs that depend significantly on tips for living wage. It is a well-understood social convention, and by making a purchase you are implicitly accepting the expectations associated with the customer. By taking the worker’s time and refusing to pay that part of their wage, you are underpaying them. Your protest against tips in no way inconveniences their shitty employer or otherwise incentivises them to do better. The only one worse off is the service worker you stiffed, and nothing improves.

If you do want to actually change things, you can become politically involved to try to improve their wage so they aren’t actually dependent on tips. Or you can boycott them by taking your business to places that don’t rely on tips. That way the shitty employer actually loses business to places with better practices. But don’t be a dick to an underpaid worker while pretending to have the moral high ground.

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chunes@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Servers themselves are opposed to change because of how embarrassingly overpaid they are

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- jve@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Wonder how much of this is due to the high class restaurants where servers do make a great wage (low six figures depending on the restaurant) and the lesser paid servers thinking they’ll get those jobs, some day.
  
  To think that most servers are “embarrassingly overpaid” is pure fantasy.
  
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  - AA5B@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    That’s one of my objections for sure. I’ve gotten better service at neighborhood diners than some high end restaurants, yet 100% tips at a diner is less than the basic 15% at the high end restaurants. That diner server should have the opportunity to earn the same as that server at the high end place, yet it never happens
    
    And yes tipping is sexist. A hot young server in a short skirt out-earns every time, regardless of service.
    
    If you’re going to claim tipping is for good service, then a good server should be able to out-earn regardless of the restaurant and regardless of whether they’re are “hot”. That doesn’t happen
    
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- TootTootComingThru@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  This. We had it on the ballot in Massachusetts and it got voted down in big part because a lot of tipped staff thought they would make less money from tips and they get brought up to the regular minimum wage if they don’t make enough anyway.
  
  That’s fine, we’re a democracy I guess. Meanwhile I basically stopped eating in and tipping and it’s saving me loadsa money. Win win.
  
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cley_faye@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

you are underpaying them

I’m not their employer, so I’m ok with that.

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charokol@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
This is the real answer and the only way to actually end tipping culture in the US but people here don’t want to hear it. They’d rather just act superior and smug about how they stiff service workers

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- TootTootComingThru@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  No, I’m not the fucking business owner. I’m not stiffing their employees, they are. Take it up with them.
  
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  - charokol@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    By patronizing restaurants that make their employees rely on tips you’re only helping the owners stiff their employees
    
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Johnmannesca@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
I’d still probably try and tip the people being paid more, since I’m from the Midwest US we’re trained from an early age to calculate tip percentages and still make sure to give extra. We just can’t compute “No sir/ma’am, we don’t accept tips.” without a bit of persistence, and if there’s internal systems like ratings and reviews we will opt to give them better reputation whenever available too.

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