No incentive to "upsell" there, eh? None at all :-) .

That NY guide is funny:
I thought the whole point of tipping in the US was that you DO get to decide how much they get paid, since , through the tipping system, the employer has delegated that obligation to you, the customer.

And the whole idea of tipping a percentage of the bill instead of a set amount encourages the idea that upmarket places get better tips - doesn't it? Except in bars, it seems. Do you still wonder why foreigners get confused and anxious?

How do you end it? By adopting the same system all non-tipping countries use.

Which would be what?

Remember that several states do not allow tip credits. In California and Washington, for example, minimum wage is the same whether you get tips or not. And yet, people keep tipping.

i went there, looking for the rationale behind the new 20% rule. i found none.

15% is the standard, and there is no reason to depart from it.

I remember when it was 10%. As the food prices rise and the tip percentage also rise, this results in a double increase.

I still don't see why it is up to ME to ensure a waitstaff (or other tippable person) gets a decent salary. I feel that the employer should do this, not me, but I will never win this argument.



DD

Want to end tipping, just don't tip,
The servers will quit, the owners will raise the prices, and pay better wages.

Ooh! Ooh! I know the rationale!

See, 15% was the standard. However, there have always been some jerks who fail to put in a tip when they're out with a group, which led to some servers getting stiffed when they did a perfectly acceptable job, so many places started adding a mandatory tip to the bill for "large" parties of 8 or more. It was called a "gratuity" or "large party surcharge" or a bunch of other names.

The mandatory large-party tip was calculated at 18% instead of the standard 15%; the "rationale" for the higher-than-standard percentage was that serving a group of 8 is somehow harder than serving two groups of 4, or a group of 5 and a group of 3, or four pair...

The 18% mandatory large-party tip, however, cause a lot of people to misinterpret and believe that 18%, not 15%, was the standard percentage for ALL tips. Hence, 18% became known as the standard.

But 18% is an odd number. People couldn't do the math in their heads, so they simply rounded up to 20%, which is much easier to calculate without your brain exploding. At the same time, since 18% became the new "standard" for regular tipping, many establishments began increasing the large party tip to 20%, again under the assumption that serving 8 people is somehow more difficult than serving 8 people. Um, yeah, because when they're all at ONE table it's a lot more tough than when they're spread out at TWO tables. Or something.

Also at the same time, many establishments re-defined the meaning of the word "large" to include groups of 6 or more, rather than groups of 8 or more. So today, you are assessed an automatic 18% or 20% mandatory tip for those LARGE groups of 6 people, because serving 6 people at one table is so much more difficult and demanding than serving a table of 5 and another table of 1.

And that's the rationale.

And in some places you will be verbally abused as you leave the premises...

I had a waitress in NYC run after me once as I had ONLY left 15%. Apparently that wasn't enough

...and in 2 short sentences we have the perfect anecdote that sums up just how screwed up tipping has got - harassed for not voluntarily tipping enough.

Or is it perhaps more of an anecdote about NYC?

I can reassure you that this wouldn't happen in many places in the U.S. or Canada.

So, if it's mandatory, is it included in the bill? Or are you being ironic?
It's weird really - elsewhere in the economy large groups get a discount, not a surcharge.

I presume now that 25% will be the norm, because there are always some "jerks" in a group who won't tip the full 20%, the 20% which came about because it's easier than 18%, the 18% which came about because some "jerks" don't pay the 15%, the 15% which came about because some "jerks" didn't pay the 10% .... I need to lie down now.

I'm sure there's a rationale behind it, but don't expect outsiders to understand it.

It wouldn't typically happen even in NYC, but it could potentially happen just about anywhere in the U.S. (I don't know about Canada.)

Last year two porters in the train station in Agra India demanded more money than I'd originally given them for carrying our bags, which I cheerfully handed over, having no list handy.

Back in the U.S.A, curb-side airport baggage checkers, e.g. LAS and cruise ship baggage handlers, e.g. MIA can be quite direct and, yes, obnoxiously pushy in this regard.

But a restaurant server running after a customer just about anywhere in the U.S. for leaving 15% rather than 20%?

Most anything could potentially happen just about anywhere in the U.S. or Canada. IMHO this scenario is unlikely. YMMV

I always thought that porters charged a set fee rather than working for tips, i.e., you should negotiate a price before handing over your bags if you aren't willing to accept whatever the going rate is.

Running after a customer is unlikely, but I have seen servers verbally demand a higher tip, sometimes quite abusively, several times the US, everywhere from small towns to large cities.