It’s gotten rather absurd. If my interaction is with a kiosk short of being handed something, it’s an insulting extra step. I’m already paying the price for my employer’s pay scale … I can’t take on someone else’s stinginess.
Next week, Las Vegas is hosting a Formula 1 race. First time since like the early 80s. Recently, the local government’s taxi authority has authorized a $15 surcharge for certain trips during that time. Why?
According to the Taxicab Authority Board, that surcharge is fully necessary “to encourage full workforce participation.” Apparently, there’s some worry that cab drivers will be less inclined to work on the busy event weekend. Not only is the city expecting an influx of European riders who don’t conform to the tipping customs of the U.S., but traffic is going to be abysmal with the main arteries of the city shut down to facilitate the race.
I have to believe that the majority of attendees will be Americans. Sure, there will be non-Americans from non-tipping cultures, but does that really mean that a $15 surcharge-in-lieu-of-tip is really needed on everyone? Especially as high as $15? For some of these flat-rate trips they range in price from $22-30. The surcharge means the “required tip” is 50-68%!
Insanity.
Vegas has a rich tradition of taking visitors for every dime they have. This absurd charge is no different than the “resort fee” they charge at hotels. And good luck trying to get tickets to a popular concert or sports event at anywhere close to face value.
As a local, all I can say is thank you for my lack of state income tax. :-D
You couldn’t get me to drive a cab in Vegas for a $20 tip with every ride.
I’ve definitely run into Europeans that are totally clueless about tipping and it sucks. I can absolutely see adding a gratuity during an event with a disproportionate number of Europeans attending.
If you don’t like it, you’re free to not take a cab.
I don’t appreciate being asked for a tip when I’m eating at a place that only offers counter service. If all you’re doing is sliding a tray of food across a counter, then no, you don’t deserve to be tipped like an actual waiter.
So think about it this way. If you were at a restaurant without table service (like a pizza place or deli) that had a tip jar on the counter, you probably wouldn’t get upset. You’d either tip or not tip and leave it at that, but unless you’re a very specific kind of classist you probably don’t mind the general concept of a tip jar quietly existing.
Square literally is just leaving the option of a tip jar. If they don’t prompt you to leave a tip, you can’t leave a tip if you want to. Either there’s a tip jar or there isn’t. If somebody decides to give a little extra help to the people they’re asking to help them, it gives them that option. It’s nice to have even if it doesn’t get used all the time, because someone who’s feeling generous can tip extra, which is great.
You should not feel like the existence of a Square POS immediately means you’re being pressured or obligated to tip. If you’re in a situation where you’d traditionally be expected to tip, like sitting in a restaurant or getting a ride in a taxi, then yes, obviously the social obligation remains. But if it’s not one of those situations? Simply being given the opportunity to do so doesn’t mean you have to. No more than you have to donate to St Jude.
Nah, tip jars don’t bother me. What I don’t like is that the person at the register can immediately see exactly how much I’m tipping. It’s impossible to be discreet. If I’m leaving a generous tip, I don’t like to feel as if I’m showing off.
With tip jars, I make a point of tipping when the person at the register isn’t looking (like when they’re relaying my order to the kitchen or something). Maybe I’ll toss some money in the jar on my way out the door. When I’m getting table service, whoever waited on me doesn’t see the tip until I’ve already left the room.
I don’t like the Square POS (or whatever) because it turns tipping from a spontaneous, pleasant surprise to a in-your-face formalized routine.
I can’t blame you if you find my response frustrating. I’m fully aware that I’m being irrational.
The tipping for Uber Eats/Door Dash drives me up a wall. If I’m getting one small bag of food, why would I pay the delivery driver a percentage of the cost of the food? Why should a delivery from Chez Snooty tip more than a delivery from McDonalds if they’re both the same amount of work for the delivery driver and they’re providing the exact same service?? Now the LOWEST option in the app that’s not custom is 18% and it defaults to 20%. WTF?? I already pay extra for the delivery!! You’re supposed to use that money to pay your employees. If you can’t, then your business model isn’t sustainable!
/deep breath
This is exactly why I just don’t use these services at all. It’s not good for me, it’s not good for their employee, it’s not good for the place that I’m buying the stuff from, it’s only good for GrubHub or Uber eats or whatever the fuck. It’s rent seeking behavior pure and simple.
If you can’t, then your business model isn’t sustainable!
It’s this. Without the tip (or a higher upcharge in delivery fee to earmark some for the driver) there’d be no incentive for drivers to take the job. If the company didn’t take the delivery fee, there’d be no structure, like apps or a unified company distributing tax papers, etc.
Beyond that, since drivers typically choose which individual jobs to pick up, there’d be no incentive to take larger or more distanced orders.
The problem is that the business model doesn’t work in the first place and is largely on life support being propped up by tipping culture.
Fwiw, tipping based on price is probably intended to be a heuristic for tipping based on volume or difficulty - someone who orders 4 meals from McDonald’s should tip more than someone who orders one.
If the person is walking or biking, sure. If they’re driving, then whether they get lucky with the lights should matter more for the tip cost than whether it was 1 small bag or 2 medium ones.
All I’m saying is the guy juggling 5 drinks deserves a bigger tip.
Noone should be tipped, but paid a living wage by their employer.
I have to wonder howuch the popularity of all the digital ways to pay is to blame for this. Way back people would leave a few actual bills on the table, it was presumed that the server would get them and all was well.
Now people routinely use debit cards, phones, telepathic toadstool fund deposits, etc to pay for everything. You can use a credit card to buy a soda from a vending machine FFS. As a result it’s simpler to just add it to a single transaction and so everyone wants their token.
I’m always wary of paying a tip at the till though, part of me suspects the staff will never see that, or the owner will claim a portion for just being a swell person, which is not the point of the tip.
I saw a tip option at a coffee shop the other day, but it’s very unclear who’s even getting that tip. The cashier? They’re not doing anything extra, so a tip doesn’t make sense. The barista? If I get a complicated drink a tip might make sense. But I genuinely wouldn’t doubt it if this ambiguity is taken advantage of and the business just pockets the tip and no one sees it.
was it new
The new part is every card payment system having a tip option, where as tips used to be a thing you gave a server in cash on the table, then a optional fee addended to a bill at a sit down restaurant to compensate the server (since they were getting payed below minimum wage), this is different though.
Even food providers where there are no servers have “tips” now. Often times establishments do not even choose to have them, they’re just the default on the payment system.
The tip system was always kind of scummy as it was putting the onus of preventing the server from getting kicked out of their home on the customer. Now though, rather than costumers being put on the hook for paying exploited workers, the companies are weaponizing that guilt based system to pad profits even further. Often times those “tips” don’t even end up going to the workers at the restaurant, they go straight in to the companies revenues, and pad the incomes of the payment service companies that get a 1-3% cut of every transaction.
What used to be conceptualized as a way to reward hard work is now just another avenue to scam people out of money. It’s another crack in the wall of a system that is mindlessly sabotaging it’s own justifications. Creating further contradictions.
A year ago is still new. It’s been a creeping problem since well before covid even. Edging back in to the early days of tablet and phone based card readers.
North of the border, the Canadians are also getting pissed off. My 72-year-old mother accidentally press the tip button on a self-service gas pump and tipped 20%. She was livid.
Over here in the EU we don’t do the tipping. It is proposed on things like Uber Eats and some of the riders certainly take their time if they don’t get a tip. Pardon my French, but when they roll up in a car or on a scooter, they can fuck right off. I tip cash when the deliverer is on a bike.
Genuinely wondering, who even gets the tip in that case? Or is it just a donation to the billion dollar multinational corporation?
Employees would need to trust their employers quite a bit in this case. And if you tip with your card, employers probably deduct a percentage and call it a “transaction fee” and pocket that too.
