this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2023
243 points (96.9% liked)

Asklemmy

44149 readers
1902 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy ๐Ÿ”

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Hey Folks!

I've been living abroad for over half my life in a country where tipping is not the norm. At most you would round up. 19โ‚ฌ bill? Here's a 20, keep this change.

Going to the US soon to visit family and the whole idea of tipping makes me nervous. It seems there's a lot of discussion about getting rid of tipping, but I don't know how much has changed in this regard.

The system seems ridiculously unfair, and that extra expense in a country where everything is already so expensive really makes a difference.

So will AITA if I don't tip? Is it really my personal responsibility to make sure my server is paid enough?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago (2 children)

In some cases we're talking about people making $2.13 an hour in a country where you're easily paying $1,000 a month or even more for a studio apartment. I'd say if you don't tip you're the bad guy.

This type of change isn't going to come from people just deciding that waitstaff should starve and refusing to tip. If anything it will come from unionization of waitstaff or from legislation.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

No, the bad guy is still the employer, and the culture that exploits both employees and customers and pits them against one another.

Meals in the US are not cheaper than meals in other countries. The menu price is roughly the same. Meals plus tips in the US cost significantly more than meals in other countries.

However staff generally benefit from this arrangement. Places that have trialed better wages and no tips have found that staff make less than what they did if they got tips. So only the customer actually wants a fair deal out of it, and everyone else isn't willing to change.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

It's actually not necessarily the employer's fault- if they don't own the restaurant (and most don't) the commercial landlord can force them to hire at tipped wage because they likely have a revenue sharing agreement.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

I mean, in a lot of ways it already is. More and more people aren't taking theses jobs that pay shit, and yours constantly seeing places fold or be understaffed. It's also a little disingenuous to use the extreme as an example. The vast majority of tourist destinations (relevant because OP) are not paying below minimum+ tips. It would be helpful if OP Said where they were going but assuming it's a popular destination, they don't need to be heavy handed. It's also misleading to paint it as black and white "assume tipping 20%" everywhere is bad advice. There is no expectation to tip for over the counter service, take out, etc. That is a fairly recent evolution and one that is already backfiring. If OP isn't sitting down in a restaurant where they have a server waiting on them for 30-60 minutes, they are probably absolutely fine not tipping. 15% is also still acceptable, 20% is excessive unless the service was absolutely excellent.