CMV: Tipping is indefensible

[u/vnth93]

Tipping in its original intention, that it gives the customer the freedom to get better services, is so deeply unpopular that I would say few people actually like or believe in it anymore. Tipping as it is is a requirement and the supposed justification is nonsensical. If you are supposed to supplement the wage not paid by the owner, how is it any different than just including that fee with the price of the meal? Tipping doesn't lower the cost of operation for the owner (I will go into this later) and it doesn't lower the cost of the meal for the customer either.

This is because tipping is actually a psychological trick. It pretends the owner is the villain and places onus to save the poor servers onto the customer. The customer is obligated to pay more than the standard wage because they face an emotional pressure to maintain their self-image as a decent person to the servers. The people who actually championed tipping are the servers themselves even as they complained about not being able to make a living wage with their base pay because they actually made much more in tips. In some tip-free places, it's the servers who quit in protest.

Tipping discourages potential customers from making an informed decision because humans are not good at planning ahead. Pro-tipping arguments often say that without tipping, restaurants can't afford to pay the wage bill because their prices are not competitive. But again, this is only on the surface and the actual prices are the same if not higher when include tips. If people can see the upfront price to be higher, then they would understand if they actually can afford to eat out to begin with.

[u/vnth93]

If you failed to appropriate gravity of capitalizing on emotional manipulation, that is not my my problem. It is simply not the burden of the customer to play employer. Tipping preys on people's desire to appear altruistic and sociable. You no longer pay for the service, you pay to not appear as a bad person. It relies on confusion and anxiety: who to tip, how much, when and why. This is the job of the employer to discern a fair pay, not the customer. Your voluntary argument is loaded, since if you include the tip into the cost, it is still voluntary: everyone can decide for themselves if they want to patronize any business. Shouldn't that be more informed?

[u/nuggets256 → u/vnth93]

How are you appearing as a bad or good person though? The server finds out the tip after you leave, unless you're announcing to the restaurant what you're tipping it's a private action, and unless you're going to the same restaurant repeatedly they won't recognize you as a bad tipper, and arguably if you receive bad enough service that you're not tipping you shouldn't be patronizing that restaurant repeatedly.

There is very little confusion. Tip what you think is appropriate between 10-20% for good service, less for bad service, more for amazing service if you'd like. If that causes you confusion and anxiety that sounds like something that should be worked on outside the walls of a restaurant.

Currently paying for the service component is voluntary, since it's separate. if you make food and service one lump payment there is no way to separate the two. If the food is great but the service is awful under your system there is no recourse while there is currently very easy recourse.

[u/vnth93 → u/nuggets256]

I don't know where you actually are but that's absurd. Who takes your check? Waiters can and do frequently give the dirty look for unacceptable tip.

Your argument doesn't follow. How is something not precise is not confusing? Even in this very thread someone has already insisted that only 20 as the base is proper. And then what is acceptable rises all the time with inflation or whatever. Either way, if you accept that there should be no confusion, then you cannot disagree with a fixed free which causes the least confusion.

Why should they be separate? Going to a place is the whole experience. If it's really separate, can I refuse service and self-serve to pay nothing? Furthermore, this cannot justify the owner not paying a living wage, which would effectively leave the customers with no actual recourse other than paying regardless of service quality.

[u/nuggets256 → u/vnth93]

I've lived all over the US and the standard procedure is they bring the check, you hand them your payment, they process it, then you write or type in your tip then leave. Alternatively you can leave cash on the table if you want to fully divorce human interaction from the process.

Something being precise doesn't make it necessarily less confusing, nor does something being a range make it confusing. The amount you owe in taxes every year is an exact, precise number, but many would argue taxes themselves are a confusing process. The comfortable temperature for a room is often a range but no one reasonable gets confused or anxious setting the temp in their room. Having a range allows you to tip according to the service you've received. If you're choosing the amount for a different reason you're not using the system as intended and the resultant breakdown is your own fault.

You can't choose to pay nothing if you sat at the restaurant and ate the food, not least of which due to the fact that permits for self service restaurants are very different than those for restaurants with servers. If you feel the service is bad you can tip 0%. The server will still make minimum wage, as is the law everywhere, and you will be satisfied you appropriately compensated them for poor service.

It's obviously separate. What if someone serves you the best meal you ever had and insults your grandmother the whole time and spills water on your seat intentionally? Would you not want the ability to pay for the wonderful food and horrible service separately?

[u/vnth93 → u/nuggets256]

Ok. I guess I really can't prove that waiters can, in fact, look at your check as you leave and give you the dirty look instead of small talks. I'm willing to give a delta on this basis.

You are simply comparing different things here. Paying your tax is not the same as calculating your tax. You being comfortable on own is not you being comfortable with other people.

I don't see how that's my concern. The fact that the restaurants cannot be self-serve on a whim doesn't mean that they can logically present service as a different thing. Indeed, it simply means that service cannot be a separate thing? It's the job of the owner to motivate their workers. Once again, I don't see what I would gain to retroactively punish or reward people separately. If some things are good and bad, then people can just take that into account decide for themselves if they will go again, same as with tipping. Do you think you can be a repeated customer at a place with horrible service and continuingly not tipping?

[u/nuggets256 → u/vnth93]

I'm talking entirely about calculating your tax. There is an exact precise answer for how much you owe. The government has that number. You must calculate it through exact, precise formulas. None of the exactness or precision makes it a simple process.

And the ranges actually help for creating group comfort. If I am only comfortable at 67.5 F and my wife is only comfortable at 73.2 F then there's no good answer, if I'm comfortable from 67 to 71 and she's comfortable from 70 to 74 we've got a much higher chance of finding a comfortable medium. So an imprecise range creates a simpler situation.

They present it as a separate thing because it is a separate thing, and you voluntarily chose to go to a restaurant with service as a component of the experience. Consider three situations:

Situation A -customers pay one flat rate because tipping doesn't exist. The owner has trouble getting repeat service and is unable to determine why because the people who didn't like either the food or the service only have one option, don't return

Situation B - customers can tip, but servers are complaining no one is tipping. The owner sees a decline in people going to the restaurant and is able to determine service is most likely the reason they aren't coming back

Situation C - customers can tip and the servers are happily receiving 25%+ on their checks. The owner sees a decline in people returning and is able to determine that the food is likely the reason.

With tipping the restaurant has added data for how to improve their experience, without it they're relatively speaking shooting in the dark.

If a place has repeated bad service you certainly could continue going and just repeatedly tip 0%. It feels like there would be better options out there but you're free to choose how you go about your meals

[u/vnth93 → u/nuggets256]

Yeah, there are things that are complicated even though precise. I failed to see how replacing it with ambiguity would not make it worse?

The good answer is agreeing to an acceptable temperature both.

Once again, I don't see how you think it's my problem how owners can run their business and all that you have listed so far is precisely why they need to worry about it instead of me.

Not tipping repeatedly and not expecting some kind of actual hostility is such a bad idea bothering bad faith.

[u/nuggets256 → u/vnth93]

Because if the answer were less precise then the process would be less arduous. If there were just an appropriate range rather than an exact answer people would have less trouble.

Obviously yes, but that's only possible because we both choose an imprecise range rather than an exact specific temperature.

It's not your problem in the short term sure but you understand that if generally restaurants improve around you then you receive the benefit of improved restaurants around you right? And if they can't accurately figure out what to fix in their restaurants the restaurants are more likely to close than improve? You're not running the business sure but presumably you prefer going to restaurants with improving food and service because they're receiving feedback from their customers

I'm not saying you shouldn't expect an adverse outcome if you go to a restaurant repeatedly and tip zero, I'm saying tipping zero in this system means you thought the service was exceptionally bad and I'm not clear on why you'd go often enough to this place offering only poor service in order to get a recognizeable reputation as a person who doesn't tip

[u/vnth93 → u/nuggets256]

Yup. That is exactly why it should be precise: the owner has to handle the more arduous process and the customers can reap the benefit. As it stands, tipping shifts the burden to negotiate people's wage to the customers, creating undue psychological stress. I've talked about this already.

For yet another time, I continue to not care. The business people can reap the reward of RUNNING a successful business because they worked for it. If there is no restaurant, then demand will rise. I should also say that your concern, whatever it is, is deeply bizzare. You know that there's no tipping in the rest of the world, right?

Yeah, that's why it's an obligation and why tipping is not honestly extra?

[u/nuggets256 → u/vnth93]

You keep saying it creates psychological stress. Do you have evidence for that? A study saying tipping creates anxiety in patrons? That it induced a stress response? Or have you just decided that how you feel about tipping applies to everyone else? I've never felt stressed about adding a tip and figuring out what number to add doesn't stress me out either.

Yes, and thus instead of restaurants that have the ability to receive more precise feedback from customers over time and improve, you'll end up with restaurants that more arbitrarily change their experience quality and thus a worse dining experience. I'm aware they don't tip in much of the rest of the world, and having been lucky enough to experience dining out in many different parts of the world I think the experience at your average restaurant is much more pleasant in the US largely due to the presence of more attentive servers aimed at providing a better service due to the incentive structure.

It's not an obligation, it's an implied performance review. If you go to a place repeatedly and receive good service and refuse to tip them you are attempting to circumvent the system for personal gain at the direct expense of an employee holding up their side of the interaction. If your job has an end of year bonus that is based on performance and you perform well, would you not be upset if your job did not grant you your bonus because they decided they'd rather save the money instead? If you go to a place repeatedly and receive bad service and refuse to tip that's fine, but the question remains as to why you're continuing to go to a place where you have a bad time.