Over here in the UK we don’t tip as a rule, unless we’ve been directly served by someone, and even then it’s mostly just to leave whatever change there may be.
But it’s become very fucking common for chain shops to ask if we want to round up to the nearest £ and donate that money to whichever charity they’re working with.
And my answer is always, always, no.
Why not if it is a charity? I’m guessing you’re not trusting them?
Because it just doesn’t feel right to me. And I know that it’s kinda churlish, but there’s a part of me that doesn’t want huge supermarket chains who keep posting record profits while paying the bare minimum they legally have to, to take the credit for me donating a few quid a month in rounding up my bill. Many of the charities wouldn’t be needed as much if these companies actually paid adequate wages.
I might be wrong but don’t they use these charities to get tax reductions?
I don’t think they do, but I’ve seen them announce things like " company name teamed up with x charity and we managed $200,000 !"
Conveniently forgetting to mention that they donated little to nothing themselves.
Do what you want, but that’s not how that works. Businesses aren’t “using” or “taking” your donation or claiming them as their own. They’re basically just serving as a collection point for whatever charity indicated. If you choose not to claim it yourself, that’s your choice, but the donation is “from” you “to” the charity. The supermarket or whatever just provides visibility for the charity and the collections logistics. It saves those charities having to find people to stand outside and ring a bell and hope you have change in your pocket.
If you’re not contributing to a charity in lieu of not participating in these “round up donations” programs, then you’re simply choosing to not donate to charity. Which is fine, as far as that goes.
Oh aye, I know they’re not claiming tax or anything like that, and I get that it’s essentially just a digital version of having a change pot on the counter, but it still feels like Tesco getting to crow about how much their customers have helped raise, while they’re paying as little as they can legally get away with, y’know?
But ultimately it’s not really rational response, and I know that.
I get you. I basically swing back and forth between how you feel, “hell with this corporate public image campaign” and going “well, what the hell, it’s .12 for a good cause.”
That way I’m being irrational in all directions.
Charity donations are tax deductible (usually) so what you’re doing is giving the business a means to bring down their contributions for the year. It’d really be best if you just donated directly.
No. That’s not how that works.
Deductible means they don’t pay taxes on the money they donated
It does nothing to reduce the tax burden on their profits, if the money they’re donating wouldn’t have been profit in the first place
This is really hard for me but I have had to put my foot down in recent times. It still makes me uncomfortable but I just can’t support this anymore. If I’m sitting down at a restaurant with a server I tip 20 - 25% but I’m tired of tipping for takeout and I absolutely refuse to give extra when checking out at a store.
What about at a coffee shop or something similar?
I don’t go to coffee shops but I wouldn’t tip there either. I don’t think I should be responsible for paying employees a living wage. Charge me appropriately for the item and pay your fucking employees.
I agree that’s how it should be, but how things should be doesn’t pay the bills. Don’t take your anger out on the employees. Those are the only people you’re hurting.
And don’t put the blame on the customer. Demand better wages. I’m not taking it out on anyone.
You not tipping is not at all the same thing as demanding better wages and you know it.
First of all, I don’t go to coffee shops which is what we were talking about so the point is moot. Second, the fact that you seem to think it is the customer in the wrong and not the employers shows just how brain washed you are by corporations. People have been unionizing and striking across the country for living wages and that is the answer, not shaming the customer. Wake up.
Jesus fucking christ my dude. Not going to coffee shops is a valid option, but since you apparently haven’t noticed there are not yet living wages in most of the country. Either don’t use the services or tip until there are. Have some goddamn class solidarity and don’t force people to work for your benefit for poverty wages until things get better. Don’t pretend your greed is socialism.
This is very occasionally popping up in restaurants in Australia. Whether you live here or travelling. Do not tip unless they did something incredible. I’m talking the fish brought your grandma back to life and the chef reconnected you with your long lost father. We don’t want to encourage tipping culture. We want to increase minimum wage. It’s like $23 now and we need that to keep growing with the economy.
Fight it.
It’s bled into Canada like that as well and now it’s an expected thing in food service.
Cabs ask for tip here now. We have Pizza Delight out here with mandatory 15% tip after tax on thier buffet.
mandatory
Y’all ain’t got any hidden charges laws?
One more reason I would hate to live in America. In Britain we don’t give tips.
There’s a street food hall place in Manchester where you can only order via an app and some food businessess force you to pay a “tip” while ordering your food. Can pay 5, 10 or 15%.
Who the fuck do they think is going to willingly pay more than they have to? It’s blatantly a service charge, you don’t give tips before you’ve even ordered your food.
laughs in American
You don’t give tips you mean, plenty of people I know do.
Tipping culture is capitalists telling workers it’s their fault for not making enough money. It’s true though, because workers don’t organize nearly enough to change the culture. People should stick up for themselves and their fellow employees and demand a better wage and benefits.
Why is there never a button for just the tip?
I don’t tip, but that’s achieved by never doing anything where tipping is expected.
I pre-ordered a pair of shoes online and the website asked for a tip.
In Australia.
name and shame mate
Jennens, they’re platform shoes to give me a few extra inches in height.
Guess “name and shame” might be particularly accurate here
bruh didn’t meant to put you on the spot. no shame though, get those lifts - the boots look nice.
still incredibly fucked for a web retailer of any kind to even have a tipping option, let alone for clothing. like what am I paying extra for? the privilege of browsing your fucking stock?
Just wait until you get a tip prompt on a self-checkout kiosk.
That’s when you tip yourself for your diligent work bagging groceries by not scanning a thing or two.
You mean robotip?
Pretty much, but I have no idea who the tip is going to in that case. Last time it happened to me, there was no button to not leave a tip. The options were 20%, 25%, 30%, and Custom, with 25% as the default. I had to hit Custom and type 0.00.
That tip won’t go to the person serving you anyway
This is why I almost never tip on my card and almost always tip in cash.
Oml yes it does. Some always gets taken which is super fucked up but they make up part of the wage. 60% of my income is tips and that’s how most American service workers are. Please tip. It’s a shitty system but it’s the system. You’re not rebelling by hitting no tip.
You should bring this up with your boss, not the customers. Remember it’s your boss who is responsible for paying you.
Just another example of working class people being blamed for a problem created by the owning class.
I’m not giving a tip to a robot.
If I give a tip, I’ll give it in cash to the person that served me. Never through a medium that your boss can control.
Honestly I do tip but I realize that tipping is a scam. The only way to stop it is to stop tipping as a whole. Also note that you have to get at least minimum wage even if your tips don’t get you there. Depending on where you are, they have to still fully pay your hourly wage. Additionally taking any percentage of your tips is illegal in some places as well.
We need to stand up and all stop tipping.
The employer doesn’t care if you don’t tip. All you’re doing is shafting the workers.
Employers have to pay the employees if the tips don’t make at least minimum wage.
It’s getting ridiculous though like even gas stations are starting to ask. Like sorry why should I leave a tip to get a Snickers and bottle of water rung up?
if u are in :amerikkka: and u have the means please tip people whenever and wherever you can, if leaving a tip is an option it is likely because the person you’re interacting with is being crushed under pitiful wages and astronomical expenses
We all are, hiding it doesn’t help.
Jesus, there’s a lot of hate for workers in this thread… 😬
Edit: I understand why employers do this, but the fact is they DO do it, and denying tips isn’t going to make employers pay their workers more money. They only understand money, not sympathy, and all you’re doing is taking away the employees’ money, not theirs. If it’s not hurting them, they’re not going to raise wages because they simply don’t care.
So while one stands there refusing to tip out of a (not entirely incorrect) philosophical viewpoint, those workers reliant on tips will be starving because without said tips they can’t afford rent let alone food.
In other words, I agree with the general logic behind the conclusion but not the specific logic.
TL;DR:
Making the employers pay the employees more money? Great!
Attempting to do it by hurting the employees but not the employer? Not so great!
I worked in food service and retail for a long time, not tipped. The idea that I have to leave a tip for putting my stuff in a bag and handing it to me is ludicrous to me. Employers can pay less because they can tell new hires they get tips.
Business owners need to pay their damn employees and stop using the registers to beg customers for more money.
Tips are an unnecessary evil.
It gets easier the more you do it. Don’t feel bad for not giving away the money you own.
You could try feeling bad for your server who can’t pay their rent or buy groceries because you decided they don’t deserve money for their work. Whether you like it or not, that’s the reality, and it’s as real as anything can ever be when you work all day and don’t make enough money to buy yourself a meal.
It seems fairly presumptuous of you to assume that your server can’t pay their rent or buy groceries, especially when the servers make more off of tips than most people make with their hourly wage. And I’m not sure where you think it’s my decision whether they deserve money for their work, I’m not their employer. It seems to me like you think customers should not only pay for something but should also pay the employees serving it to them. Where does the responsibility come in for the employer? Also, at some point personal responsibility comes into play, you can’t expect everyone to give you handouts all the time.
I worked in fine dining for 10 years. So no, it’s not presumptuous of me because I am speaking from personal experience based on my own life as well as many, many people I have known. I’d say that I’m one of the least presumptuous people in this thread when it comes to this topic.
It would be great if employers would pay servers a living wage, but that simply isn’t the way things actually work in restaurants.
Personal responsibility? Handouts??! Tell you what, how about you go to work for 8 hours every day and then have your business’s clients decide whether or not you deserve any money at all for the work you do. Would you say you’re just asking for a handout, or would you say that you deserve to be paid for the work you did?
The thing is, it’s your BUSINESS’s clients, not yours. You said so yourself just now. You work for the business, which sells services to the clients. At no point the clients should pay you directly.
Using my profession as a software developer (and putting aside the salary of a developer because I know it’s not comparable in terms of salaries, but bear with me for the sake of the example) - sometimes clients pay money for new features that they want our service to have. I do all the work of researching it, understanding the requirements, I design the feature, write code for it, do automation tests for it, deploy it, and enable it - all for my client. It took me 3 months.
But hey, I did all that and the client never paid me. They paid the place I work for. How come? I would love to get 15% of the money the customer paid. But it’s just not happening. I do not get a tip.
But that’s fine. Because this is how it works in almost all industries. A client pays the business. The business hires workers and pays them. The workers keep the place running by doing their jobs which ends up in sales.
We (as a society) don’t pay tips to a doctor doing a physical exam on us. We don’t pay tips to a city worker approving our registrations. We don’t pay tips to a university professor teaching us a course. Those all examples of professions that include some kind of a frontal service to clients, yet they never expect it either, because they get properly paid by the workplace.
Now, it is not the same for waiters and bartenders. They expect tips. You are a jerk and rude if you don’t tip, and we don’t want you here. Don’t you dare give our business money if you aren’t going to give some of it to us as well.
So why is this so different from the other professions? I would wager the main issue stems from the terrible minimum wages, forcing waiters so look for alternatives. The alternatives ended up being very good for the employers, so they reinforced it and made it the standard. The more they can convince everyone to tip, the more they shift the “pay the worker” part of the business to the client. Suddenly the client is paying for both the service they bought AND the worker. The business is very happy that they get to keep more money to themselves and the responsibility is now the client’s.
It has now became so normalized in USA that people will fight to keep this new normal. Instead people should strive to make those businesses work just like any other business by giving them fair wages.
I basically agree with your point of view, but the fact of the matter is that the way servers are paid is an exception to the rule. It’s unlike other businesses, and even on a federal level the wage laws are different specifically for servers.
It’s an issue that’s a lot more complex to solve than just stiffing your server and saying, “I’ve done my part to fix things!”
Oh, for sure. It’s not something you, I, or just any group of people can change. It needs to change from upside down.
The issue is that changes like that don’t happen unless they are almost forced to by really big groups demanding it.
I would be questioning why I expect my clients to pay me when that’s what my employer does.
Why am I not surprised with your total lack of empathy?
If you don’t like tipping and actually believe that people should be paid for the work they do, then don’t eat at restaurants. Show those restaurant owners why they should pay people, and be the change you want to see in the world. Otherwise, you’re just an asshole.
I certainly have empathy, it’s just located in a different spot than yours. We both want the same thing, servers to get what they deserve. You though think that I customer should pay the wages of an employee which makes absolutely no sense to me. To me the employer, the one that actually making money, should be the one to pay their employee. I’m just trying to figure out why you think the way you do.
I was never trying to justify the arrangement where the employer doesn’t pay the employee. However, the reality of the situation is that it doesn’t happen that way. In the U.S., at least, servers make their living almost exclusively by being tipped. Yeah, it’s shitty of employers not to offer a better wage, but it’s equally shitty for people to go to restaurants–fully aware that servers need tips to make ends meet–without tipping servers.
Not tomorrow either. Flashing that in front of me doesn’t mean I’m tipping you for grabbing a donut 6feet away from you and putting it in a bag. That’s literally your job. Charge me the amount it costs for the item and your labor don’t try to prey on my charitabilty. I use those feelings to distribute the limited extra I have to give to research for sick kids, educational charities, housing initiatives, and anti-gun lobbyists. Fuck if you’re anywhere near those categories donut slinger. Tell your boss to fuck himself for even putting that shit in front of customers.
You seem really mad at the person behind the counter, perhaps instead consider being mad at the millionaires and billionaires in charge that decided to make it this way.
Not mad at them, just not impressed enough to pay beyond the asking price. I don’t have a sense of guilt or obligation about it. When possible I would urge people to choose jobs that pay fairly and don’t support this awful system. I fully understand that’s easier said then done (I’ve been there myself). I don’t even really blame the millionaires. We all have at least a touch of greed in us, some more than others, and any system that allows this to get to crazy proportions will foster this kind of nonsense. The answer isn’t to just make Millionaires feel bad until they stop this - that’s not going to happen. The answer is legislation that recognizes that tip culture is wrong on so many levels, that most of the world manages to keep it in check and that in the US laws are needed to curb this insanity. In the meantime, people are able to swing culture shifts and it’s up to all of us to start saying enough is enough to tip culture and as much as possible spend our money at places that aren’t capitalizing on charity to pay their employees. Recognize the racism and sexism in this practice and treat it like the dirty thing it is.
As a weed smoker for something like 25 years who has spent his time doing a lot of studying of the science because I understand that it is not an inert substance, and I know its affecting my health long-term somehow…
I’ve seen the studies that have shown specific strains have more to do with different “highs” than whether it is indica or sativa (nevermind that there is no such thing as a true indica anymore.), do you have any idea how I feel when some fucking twentysomething starts telling me about the (bogus) differences between sativa and indica and expects me to give a shit when all I care about is potency.
Like sorry, you’re not getting a tip for knowing less than me, some bum off the street, about the stuff I’m putting in my body.
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Bullshit as somebody dating a server a couple groups stiffing her is the difference between if it was worth it to go to work or not.
If you can’t tip don’t go to a sit down restaurant. The servers there are making less than minimum wage if you don’t tip. If the server has to pay for childcare they can literally work all day and lose money if you’ve decided you’re not going to tip
Seriously, if you can’t afford to tip your servers at a sit-down restaurant (in places that pay below minimum wage for servers), then you can’t afford to eat there. It’s not some life hack, you’re just being a piece of shit and the only thing you are accomplishing is fucking over your fellow worker. If you don’t want to tip, don’t eat at places with table service.
Tipping culture is just a way that disproportionally affects workers in such a way that there should be a mathematical equation that compares titty size of the waitress to how much you will tip. Theres a reason why people think there is misandry in fields that require tipping. I try to not tip whenever I can unless I am friends with the people there. Why? Chances are, you get paid a minimum of 10+ an hour wage and you get pissy if I even think you didn’t deserve that cherry on top. No I dont want to pay you more than I make an hour for serving my food. Its not up to me to decide how much you deserve for your efforts. Yes Ill be bitter, i dont care, i fucking hate tipping culture. Ill fight anyone that thinks otherwise… in a videogame of course.
Edit: also I want to give a shout out to BJs for being the most toxic environments for tipping. They only allow electronic payments on some proprietary website and it auto adds 20% and they cross their fingers hopeing you didnt see. Then it asks if you would want to tip ON TOP of that. If you bring it up to staff they will actually announce that you arent tipping. Like fuck you guys
