tipping

Xxp surcharges on card transactions are illegal (at least in my state)

Until about a decade ago, I used to hate using a card for anything less than $10, even at the pharmacy or grocery store. I got over that, but I still have a lingering feeling that paying for a single beer with a card is an asshole move.

I'd love a pre-tip living wage.

And so say all of us. We would all like that! But unless and until it gets there, I will continue to try to compensate for my society's failure to take care of people.

In the interim, I keep seeing onliney people saying stuff like "fuck that, I won't pay" [this or that surcharge for health care or whatever].

Waw, such brave, many justice. Great job being so principled that you screw over precisely the wrong people.

Refusing to tip in this environment, or refusing to pay additional money that might get to the real humans who bring you food? That only punishes the people who bring you food. Not the real villains (the people who decide how much to pay people who make food and/or bring it to you).

My response to those people as a tipped worker is get your own food and make your own good time at home then. Don’t wanna pay? Don’t avail yourself of the service.Why are you posting about how you’re not going to pay? Stay home.

When it comes to that impulse to compare how the US handles tipping and how it’s done elsewhere, I truly would like to know what the point of that is. First, this place is not that place. Second: Do you have a better idea? If not, why are you bringing this up? Idgi. This is the world I live in, so…who cares??

Finally, a lol:
a European (idk from where) four top asked me to add egg to their pizza. We don’t offer egg as a pizza topping. He tried to negotiate with me and I humored him by asking the kitchen. Sorry but no. I can’t magically make eggs happen.
At the bottom of his cc receipt he wrote in all caps NO EGG NO TIP

I took a pic of it, shared w the group chat and we all laughed at this jerk. No egg no tip has become my contribution to the arsenal of coworker in jokes. It’s funny but also this is just a portion of what we have to deal with. I could go on.

Still think about a family that didn't tip me because the wife ordered a filet well-done and I had the temerity to ask if she wanted it butterflied (the steakhouse's standard question so that those diners didn't get hockey pucks). Guess I was puttin on airs.

A filet well done request? You should've called the NSA.

i don’t know about others’ experiences, but it’s always the nicest people who don’t tip— as if by smiling and being friendly they make up for not tipping me when I am making them their fucking $10 cocktail. or like the $1 tip on a $28 bill— please, fuck off and die, shithead motherfucker.


lol sorry , had some real “customers” last night

When it comes to that impulse to compare how the US handles tipping and how it’s done elsewhere, I truly would like to know what the point of that is. First, this place is not that place. Second: Do you have a better idea? If not, why are you bringing this up?
God forbid pointing out that your precious country is pretty fucked up when it comes to tipping. What a relief living in Asia where they just add 10-15% automatically to every bill and you don’t have to worry about it anymore.
Apparently this needs to be pointed out again and again, but the US is not the world, so don’t act surprised that non US people find it fucked up having to tip 40%.

Don’t get upset — iirc the op in the revive was about tipping in the USA so I thought it was not relevant to suddenly begin talking about how it’s done elsewhere. I may work for tips but I’m not dumb or overly USA-centric.

Also who tips 40%%??

Sorry I was out of line. Talking to Americans about this topic enrages me.

Well, American servers and bartenders are enraged too, but for different reasons. We're not the adversary.

There should be more tips jars in more retail establishments

worldwide

Also who tips 40%%??

Doesn't really count but I used to regularly tip 40-50% at lunch and bars - kind of felt like as a 1-top eating a $10.99 crawfish platter I should tip $5 to justify taking up the spot.

(Used to because I never eat lunch at a sit down place anymore and don't drink.)

La Lechera otm.

Yes we are aware that America is not the world. If you are trying to navigate consuming goods and services here (as a lot of us are) it is a salient topic.

Health care is also complicated here, and we are allowed to talk about it! Amazing how this works, if you are not interested in something being discussed here you can scroll past it without being harmed. I have no interest in, say, Daft Punk, but it doesn't bother me that such chat exists.

I bet one guy in Daft Punk is a great tipper but not the other one.
Which genre artists do you think tip the most? I'd say ska, but only by quantity since there's 20 of them at a time.

Also the US exports its culture—so its practice of tipping becomes a world issue.

In Australia, which is anti-tipping country, tipping is on the rise. Not because of some explicit imitation, but because the various payment systems include a tipping page or step as part its process. We're now prompted to tip and have to consciously reject it.

I'm not sure tipping is on the rise in Australia. I'd say most people would tip for dinner in a relatively expensive restaurant, but in all other circumstances it's perfectly acceptable not to tip - and it would be downright weird to tip in a pub/bar as is de rigueur in the US.

Cash is rare enough at my bar that I worked five slammed hours last night and my cash tips were $11.50. Plastic ubiquity works out to my advantage in one way

if cash is so rare and it's good for you that ppl use plastic why the $1.45 transaction surcharge? seems kinda arbitrary and squirrely

Agreed that American tipping practices being fucked up is not an excuse not to tip in the US, seems self-evident to me.

Dunno if I've ever lived in a country that is straight up "anti tipping" tbf, in both Germany and Portugal tipping is a common practice for a job well done and a meal well made, it's just it's a "compliments to the chef" type thing, not an obligatory move that if you don't do it the waitstaff get into financial trouble. I know in Japan and South Korea tipping is frowned upon, which I think is a shame because those are also countries where you are very likely to get amazing food and service. Just let me give you extra money!

Here in London almost every restaurant now has a service charge included, which is pretty handy I admit and I need to get better at inspecting the tab to see if it's there or not because lately I've just been assuming.

I always carry some cash with me for tipping cos I don’t trust that card tips get to where they should.

i don’t know about others’ experiences, but it’s always the nicest people who don’t tip— as if by smiling and being friendly they make up for not tipping me when I am making them their fucking $10 cocktail.

do you get the impression that the same thing happens in reverse, like people who think that by tipping a large amount they're buying their way out of any obligation to be polite to the wait staff?

I've never worked in a bar or restaurant but I used to take inbound calls in a call-centre here in the UK, and I got the impression from the occasional Americans I spoke to that you have wildly different ideas about customer service in the US. It was jarring because the American callers were simultaneously weirdly nice (using the your first name a lot, asking about how your day was going, generally talking to you like you were old pals) and weirdly rude (unselfconsciously barking orders at you, general air of 'do this now' directness that most British callers would shy away from). I think in the UK people find both serving someone and being served by someone an embarrassing experience, so there's an attempt to make it impersonal, both of you implicitly acknowledge that you're not two people having a 'real' conversation, you're playing the roles of customer and employee, and holding back allows your real self to maintain some dignity

$10 cocktail.

in which city are you mixing these very cheap cocktails?

Philadelphia.

And most of them are 9-13$, i was just spitballing

I'd need a liver airlifted to me.

if cash is so rare and it's good for you that ppl use plastic why the $1.45 transaction surcharge? seems kinda arbitrary and squirrely

CC tips benefit me personally, not the business. If everyone magically started using cash, the owners would probably love it. They're passing along fees from their CC processor to the customers.

do you get the impression that the same thing happens in reverse, like people who think that by tipping a large amount they're buying their way out of any obligation to be polite to the wait staff?

They're passing along fees from their CC processor to the customers.

this. same reason that some convenience stores do it (or avoid it by saying "credit card transactions minimum $5 transaction")

In the US if you deposit too much cash in the banks, they will charge you a fee. Probably not near as much as CC processors but coupled with theft/robbery/grossness of handling bills risk and customer tendency to overspend on a card, there's a lot of incentives to go cashless.

Yes. I have no doubt about this. The most contemptuous customers pay extra if they can treat you like shit. This has happened to me since I started doing this sort of work at 16. Age doesn’t matter either, it still happens. I can smell it. It always starts with asking my name and then repeating it until the sound of my own name makes my stomach turn.
― Piggy Lepton (La Lechera), Monday, July 17, 2023 8:37 AM

OTM. Disheartening on a "good" day, infuriating otherwise.

Yes. I have no doubt about this. The most contemptuous customers pay extra if they can treat you like shit. This has happened to me since I started doing this sort of work at 16. Age doesn’t matter either, it still happens. I can smell it. It always starts with asking my name and then repeating it until the sound of my own name makes my stomach turn.

The restaurant would be called Serves You Right.

Last time I went to this restaurant, they made us all stand up and played the national anthem.

The first entirely cashless business I encountered was a busy upscale cafe in downtown Chicago that I used to get coffee and lunch from when I worked nearby. This was maybe 5 or 6 years ago. It didn't make a difference to me to pay with a card, though I did feel weird that it necessarily excluded less well-to-do people who don't have cards.

as someone who has worked in retail and hospitality for most of their working life, I think it is wild that we leave the responsibility to make earnings reasonable in the hands of people who show themselves to be completely unreasonable

truth bomb

part of the reason I stopped working in restaurant industry is that I was barely scraping by and so I had to appease a bunch of entitled little shits nightly to ensure I could pay for my car that month.

well that and the fact that they laid me off

Going back to the tweet that started this revival.

Yes, it's crazy that the youngest drinkers are closing out each round. Keep in mind that they were quarantined for 12+ months. Do they know that they can safely leave their credit card in the secure hands of the bartender? It's crazy to assume that they'd think (1.) that's a thing to do and (2.) that the bartender would actually prefer to keep their card for them.

I'm trying hard to remember the first time I was asked if I wanted to "start a tab." I was likely using cash exclusively, so it was more a matter of trust on the bartender's part than me having to leave anything valuable with him/her as collateral. By the time I paid my first tab with a credit card, I was familiar with the process.

Imagine the look I'd get from someone born in the 21st Century if I told them that I used to keep my first bank debit card in good standing by making 10 individual purchases each month with it, sometimes by "catching up" at the end of the month with four separate purchases of gum or Lifesavers. Now tell them that they should leave their credit cards, secret three-pinnned security code on the back and everything, with that complete stranger on the other side of the bar.

the last time I was a restaurant employee, the receipts didn't even X out the full credit card number like 99.9% do today. the entire number sitting there on credit card receipts, copies of which were usually left about the restaurant as the customer didn't always take their copy.

at least one co-worker bragged about 'getting revenge' on a bad customer by keeping a receipt and using guy's credit card to send terrible crap to his house, but the probability that any of the shit that guy said being true is less than 1%.

also...my current company, when I started in 2005, was still having customers use their SSN as user IDs, which included saying it over the phone. and sending forms requiring you to write the whole thing on a form.

let me ask any bartenders in here - do you prefer the "keep your card and give back after closing out" method, or the "scan card and give back" method that many bars are gravitating towards? wasn't sure which was easier for bartenders.

I was gonna say, most bars don't hold on to your card these days.

I usually open a tab but I'm also a lightweight and will often close it out without ordering more. Is that considered bad form?

the number of times that i forgot to close out my tab because i was too drunk, and had to go back to the bar the next afternoon to get my card..,,, well one's too many but reader it happened quite a bit

Many bars these days print a copy of the receipt with what you've ordered up to that moment and put it in an empty glass.

yeah a lot around me do that

Scan and hand back is best for all concerned. And extra points if - upon settling up - you get the pleasant exchange of "leave it on the card?" "Yep!"

Not because I ever have reason to change payment methods. But because it just feels kinda nice that they ask.

Maybe there are people who use one card to open a tab but a different one to pay. Maybe some folks like to use a card to open a tab but then settle in cash. I am not one of the but it's nice of servers to provide options.

I take it like the same thing as a hotel asking you for a card but letting you pay with a different one at checkout - the initial card is to verify the person can pay for the goods, but probably legally have tp verify that they also want to use that card to settle up

the number of times that i forgot to close out my tab because i was too drunk, and had to go back to the bar the next afternoon to get my card..,,, well one's too many but reader it happened quite a bit

― Tracer Hand, Monday, July 17, 2023 11:45 AM (thirty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I did this at least a handful of times in law school and never before or since.

Going into that bar at 10:30 in the morning, not recognizing anyone. Taking that little plastic recipe box and thumbing through the cards for mine. "ah, look. Pete left his behind too!"