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Does anybody else find this non stop begging for tips out of control? I live in California. The least an employee can be paid is the state minimum wage of $12 an hour.
On January 1, 2020 it goes up to $13 an hour. Yet every where I go there's a tip jar. I begrudgingly tip waitresses 15%, but that's it. It's not rocket science.
I refuse to tip anybody else. If you don't like your job, get a different one. If you don't like your wages, talk to your employer, not me. If you made a bad career choice, I'm sorry.
Tipping is how waitstaff make their living. Withholding or scrimping on a tip because employees “made a bad career choice” sounds like an excuse to be cheap. If you can’t afford to eat out, don’t. That includes a healthy tip for those who have to pay the same bills you do.
Why is it on society, companies and laborers to fix something you don't like or that you can't afford?
How is it any of their faults that you are on a fixed income that didn't account for inflation or standard of living?
Look I don't like it either, but I live in Seattle and I will tell living on $13, $14, $15 an hour won't get you far. It's probably as much as or less than your fixed income. And unlike you those young people need to work towards their future whether it's getting a promotion, going to school, supporting a spouse, maybe an elderly relative or a younger one. Speaks nothing about preparing for future like children or their own retirement.
You know how I deal with it?
I eat out less. It's a special treat not regular occurrence.
Look I don't like it either, but I live in Seattle and I will tell living on $13, $14, $15 an hour won't get you far. It's probably as much as or less than your fixed income.
.
Not my problem, not my fault
Quote:
Originally Posted by flyingsaucermom
And unlike you those young people need to work towards their future whether it's getting a promotion, going to school, supporting a spouse, maybe an elderly relative or a younger one. Speaks nothing about preparing for future like children or their own retirement.
Maybe I'm misinterpreting the OP but I understood the complaint to be about tipping for EVERY service, not just in food establishments.
I've never had an issue with tipping waitstaff the 18%-20% which has always been more or less the norm in my area (metro/suburban NYC.) "Double the tax and round it up to the next dollar" is the rule some people go by, because our sales tax here is either 8.625% (Long Island) or 8.875% (NYC) and so it works out. My mom used to be a waitress in her younger days and so I have sympathy for anyone who waits tables, for sure.
I also tip the person who cuts my hair at least 25% (because a good haircut is priceless) and the shampoo girl gets a few dollars also. That hasn't changed in retirement either.
Because of medical issues I don't eat in restaurants etc any more but if I did I would still tip at the same rate.
What I object to is the expectation to keep tipping delivery people (even if the delivery takes 10 minutes or less); landscape workers even though I've had to pay their boss big bucks for the job already; construction crew workers ditto; garbage truck drivers who work for the Town and get way better benefits and salary than I've ever gotten in my life, not to mention job security; and so on.
And IMHO those tip jars are ridiculous. Yes the person behind the counter handing out Starbucks and taking payment is on their feet all day but so is the sales clerk in the dress department at Macy's or the guy who works at the Ace Hardware store, and we're not expected to leave tips for those employees when we pay for our items, are we? Nope.
I notice other countries food service workers seem to survive without tips?
In quite a few other countries there is a gratuity automatically added to the bottom line of your restaurant bill. It's been that way for decades. I remember being surprised by it the first time I went to Europe in the early 1970s. At that time the standard percentage was 18%. Don't know if it's more than that nowadays.
Menus there have a line in small print somewhere on the bottom warning customers that the (whatever percentage) gratuity will be added to the bill. Often it includes a request to not tip the service person separately because of this, probably because the concept of having it added to the bill whether you want to tip or not is totally foreign to American tourists.
I tip at least 20% in sit down restaurants and will continue to do so when I retire, but I may not be able to eat out as much in retirement as I do now.
What does bother me is fast food places that have an option to give a tip when you pay at the register. I don't expect to tip at fast food restaurants, although I have done it. I always tip at Starbucks. I'm not sure why that seems different to me than a fast food restaurant, but it does. I guess because it's more of a specialty service, just like I would tip when my car is vacuumed and cleaned or my hotel room is cleaned or my luggage is carried.
Seems like a lot of stores collect for charity now and ask if you want to add X amount to your total to go to charity. I don't particularly like being asked everywhere I go if I want to donate. A lot of money collected for charity goes to administration so if there is a charity I want to donate to directly, I will, but I don't usually donate at the cash register.
I guess because it's more of a specialty service, just like I would tip when my car is vacuumed and cleaned or my hotel room is cleaned or my luggage is carried.
Funny how our generation grew up with the "tip the bellboy" habit from seeing our parents and grandparents do it. Room service person got a small tip too. I wonder if the Millenials and Gen X'ers do it, or whether carrying your own luggage is now the default.
And the rule of thumb I was taught used to be that you'd leave something for the hotel maid at the end of your stay, not on a daily basis. Although my dad's theory was that it only applied if you stayed more than one night. I confess that I never was crazy about the hotel-maid-tipping thing, probably because IMHO with what hotels charge per night there's no need to add more. Well, unless you accidentally left the room a gawdawful mess -- which I/we never did.
A custom that my mom taught me that apparently died out after the 1940s was that if you were dissatisfied with the waitress service you would still leave a small tip and add one penny to it. The penny meant "You're lucky you're getting any tip at all, because your service really didn't deserve it." If you were REALLY irked but didn't want to get the person in trouble (or fired) by complaining to the management, you'd leave just a penny. That got the message across loud and clear.
When the staffers work two jobs to make ends meets, you know the wages are low enough that tipping is important.
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