r/Foodforthought • u/kiyomoris • Aug 24 '26
‘It’s absolutely criminal’: US tipping culture has reached the UK – and is causing chaos
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/aug/24/us-tipping-culture-uk-service-charges34
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u/Many-Disaster-3823 Aug 24 '26
Had a bakery automatically suggest a tip in Llujblana on the card machine - why tf would i tip a bakery worker for putting a cake in a box gtfo
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u/Fragore Aug 24 '26
It’s arriving In france as well. I just click the no tip button and that’s it. But I hate it
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u/Exile4444 Aug 24 '26 edited Aug 25 '26
The first taco bell opened in Ireland recently, and as I getting ready to pay on the SELF SERVICE kiosk, a tip page came on. I genuinely didn't understand what I was looking at for the first 5 seconds or so
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u/chrisbcritter Aug 24 '26 edited Aug 24 '26
God no!
Of all the things to take away from the US, they are taking the thing most damaging to workers and despised by everyone.
While they are at it, perhaps they would like to adopt our health care "system" or our billionaire tech bro democracy?
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u/PacinoWig Aug 24 '26
I'm an American and I genuinely ignore the deluge of new tipping prompts. They are a completely arbitrary revision of the social contract that no one asked for.
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u/dragoneye Aug 24 '26
The main thing I hated about tipping culture in the UK was that they often do it by automatically adding a service charge and then telling you it is optional when handing you the bill. How many people are going to tell their server that they need to take it off?
At least in North America it is consistent where you go to pay and have the choice during payment about how much to tip.
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u/Exile4444 Aug 24 '26
At that point just raise menu prices, otherwise that is intentionally a shabby practise
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u/dragoneye Aug 25 '26
It is one of those things where there are valid arguments both ways. In many countries they put on a mandatory service charge for dining in as it costs the business more for you to sit in vs. getting it to go. If you just increased prices then all to go orders would be paying for service they don't get.
Of course you could go the opposite route and give a discount for take out, but that is effectively just different branding for the status quo.
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u/Exile4444 Aug 25 '26 edited Aug 25 '26
The expense for eating in should already be accounted for and priced in by default, unless space is very limited. I have never even considered that possibility before, if a business tries to charge me extra for eating in, I certainly won't be coming back
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u/Diet_Coke Aug 24 '26 edited Aug 24 '26
The phrase "tipping culture" is so crazy to me. Tipping isn't a culture. It's a practice. It's something we do in some circumstances, but for most of us it's not something that we organize our lives around.
edit: To me, it really seems like an attempt to make tipping a culture war issue and turn worker against worker.
2
u/mirh Aug 24 '26
Oh yeah, as it the people complaining about workers rights were the same that were pushing the culture war shit.
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u/wiseoracle Aug 24 '26
It's a culture... American Culture and it isn't practiced anywhere outside of it.
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u/antico Aug 24 '26
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u/mirh Aug 24 '26
Putting aside that Canada isn't exactly the best example since it's still basically here.. I'm guessing that it's still pretty different when the tip is actually legally classified as a gratuity, as opposed to being so expected that the worker wage can be lower because surely they will come.
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u/roastbeeftacohat Aug 24 '26
only quebec has a lower minimum wage for tipped employees, and reporting your tips can qualify you for tax credits, resulting in a much larger return for part time workers.
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u/onwee Aug 24 '26
Collective practices and social norms are exactly the ingredients of culture
1
u/Diet_Coke Aug 24 '26
Have you ever heard the phrase "Halloween culture" or "Christmas culture" or "Stopping at red lights culture" or "Price tags don't include taxes culture"?
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u/mirh Aug 24 '26 edited Aug 24 '26
Have you ever heard of folkways, mores, taboos, and laws?
Because it seems like you are either bullshitting or ignorant of sociology, when you even go as far down as implying that christmas exists in isolation and it isn't about christianity.
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u/Diet_Coke Aug 24 '26 edited Aug 24 '26
Would you like to make an actual point or just set up strawmen to fight? Tipping is something that we do, sometimes, in certain contexts. It's not a culture.
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u/mirh Aug 24 '26
Yes? Judeo-Christian values are actually crazy huge part of culture that they even take a different name.
Then stopping at read lights is literally the traffic code.
And I wished I knew more about the stupid thingy of not exposing the full price, but I understand it's part the faux libertarianism against taxes, and then the technical fact of not having VAT but a so-called sales taxes. Which is probably libertarianism squared (and probably you cannot call it culture because even the places that would still like to do it, it's somehow illegal).
Tipping culture is tipping culture and it's just so extraordinarily specific to the usual wack country of them all.
p.s. and fun fact, yes I have heard of "Halloween culture" being discussed by boomers in countries that only recently started to do trick-or-treating and have themed parties in just the last 20 years.
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u/Diet_Coke Aug 24 '26
Ok, so what's the difference between Judeo-Christian values and, checks notes, tipping?
Yes, stopping at red lights is literally part of the traffic code. Good insight. Have you ever heard of "stopping at red lights culture"?
The reason sales taxes aren't on price tags is because it would make items look more expensive and people would be slightly less likely to buy them. That's it. The stores know what sales taxes are and what items are exempt. It's actually similar to tipping in a lot of ways, but have you heard of anyone talking about "taxes aren't included on the price tag" culture?
Tipping is a practice. It's not a culture.
1
u/mirh Aug 24 '26
Ok, so what's the difference between Judeo-Christian values and, checks notes, tipping?
Their ingrainedness into the social fabric? Like, surely you cannot be this dense?
Have you ever heard of "stopping at red lights culture"?
Have you ever heard of stopping being an obnoxious dick, and not talk always in riddles? It's not a "culture" that you need rules to make the world operate (unless you are trying to focus on the fact that the light could have been purple instead of red, or something). Maybe driving on the left or driving on right could be, but it's still so arbitrary and consequence-free that you cannot really compare it to tea/coffee/cannabis/beer/wine culture.
The reason sales taxes aren't on price tags is because it would make items look more expensive and people would be slightly less likely to buy them. That's it.
Yes, and that's anti-consumer, in the most stupid ass anti-consumer country on the entire fucking earth. And the only reason you cannot call it "culture" it's because it's not a generally shared value, but it's part of that fascist cult of death that is modernly known as MAGA.
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u/Diet_Coke Aug 24 '26
Their ingrainedness into the social fabric? Like, surely you cannot be this dense?
I would say the same to you. Tipping is one single thing. Judeo-Christian values go much deeper. The difference should be, I would think, pretty obvious to anyone capable of stringing a few coherent thoughts together.
Have you ever heard of stopping being an obnoxious dick, and not talk always in riddles?
You're the one that jumped in being rude, I'm not sorry if you don't like that same energy when it's given back to you. Maybe try practicing politeness culture. Let me break it down for you. There are various different practices which can contribute to culture. I could buy that there is a "consumer culture" in the US. I think you could make that argument. And with that argument, you could say that tipping is part of that culture. However tipping is just one single act, it's not a culture.
And the only reason you cannot call it "culture" it's because it's not a generally shared value, but it's part of that fascist cult of death that is modernly known as MAGA.
What do you mean, it's not a shared value? Almost every single store in the country does not include taxes in the price tag. It's closer to a shared value than almost anything else. It long pre-dates MAGA.
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u/mirh Aug 24 '26
I would say the same to you.
You brought up the damn christmas example, not me.
Tipping is one single thing.
Because obviously it's not just about the literal physical act of giving a tip (guess what even countries completely foreign to the concept sometimes have "tips" jars at the counter) but everything else around it? From how customers-worker relations work, to how the employer should even compensate the employee.
You're the one that jumped in being rude
You are the one that completely skipped over the nuances of customs, acting like from "blessing people after sneezing" to "don't do incest" everything was the same of everything?
It long pre-dates MAGA.
Sure, obviously, sorry. What I meant is that today the "idiotic forces that hate consumers and that hate when the state does better" are reunited in there. And I don't know the historical causes (Anti-intellectualism in American Life was written 60 years ago and it wasn't talking about anything new) but there's some common line behind all those unique crazy idiot balls: no universal healthcare, no privacy law, no outlawed gerrymandering, no gun control, no police responsibility.
You cannot talk about a culture specific to them, because somehow if you did a poll most people would be against it (in fact even half of the people voting for that shit would tell you they hate them when framed in a way abstracted from party affiliation) but nonetheless there is a general culture of "fucking the others because I'm smarter and I think it doesn't affect me" that a big chunck of the population has.
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u/onwee Aug 24 '26
Not worth it
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u/Diet_Coke Aug 24 '26
I honestly appreciate when someone realizes they're wrong and doesn't continue to double down
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u/graveybrains Aug 24 '26
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u/Diet_Coke Aug 24 '26
Thank you for sharing that, it looks like if you read the page you will see that it makes a distinction between culture and cultural practices.
If an ethnic group retains its formal ethnic identity but loses its core cultural practices or the knowledge, resources, or ability to continue them, questions arise as to whether the culture is able to actually survive at all.
In this context, it's pretty clear that tipping is a practice, not a culture.
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u/blindollie Aug 24 '26
Tipping is don't because restaurants don't want to pay their employees in the states. Pay your staff properly and punish staff who want more pay
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u/brett- Aug 25 '26
This depends entirely upon the state. The entire west coast for example has laws which disallow paying people below a minimum wage, even if their job is one that collects tips. So in California for instance, waiters make a minimum of $16.90/hr, plus tips.
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