VivoPerLei

I think that's a key point. This will not stop those people who insist upon tipping everybody everywhere, no matter what. Hopefully there are not enough of them to create a new tipping expectation that all the rest of us have to live with (5-10% even when tips are included!)...

A lifetime ago I worked a minimum wage job and was not allowed to take tips at the risk of being fired. Even that didn't stop people from persistently trying.

TrojanHorse

Uhmm NO!!!

uastarflyer

Within policy or agreed to by the supervisor, nothing. I am talking about a wait staff person unilaterally deciding on providing free booze or appetizer or ABC solely to garner a nicer tip.

shuigao

If you haven't, check out Jay Porter's fascinating read about moving to a tipless restaurant. Granted it's just ONE restaurant so hardly representative of the entire industry.

ou81two

I read it. The article noted that someone pointed out to the guy that "You sir, are a douche". That's applicable. The food industry isn't run by rocket scientists. The guy compares two of his restaurants and treats it as if that's a good sample. One gets better food out of the door. Apparently abolishing tipping is how you do this? Odd that so many excellent restaurants exist in the old model.

It's the start of the death spiral for good service in this country. The restaurants are stealing tips to pay for back of the house staff. That's all it is. Nobody will make more. The net effect is the sales people make less and everyone else makes the same though the employer pays people partly out of tips and you get no say in the compensation.

The guy made his wittle blog post and then turned the comments off.

Ber2dca

As a European I always found the U.S. tipping culture pretty asinine, especially as they randomly turned the 15% expectation into a 20% expectation a few years back for no good reason.

Service in the U.S. *generally* is better than in Europe at least in terms of 'soft skills' but this applies to store clerks, who don't get tipped, as much if not more so as it does to wait staff. I think it's more attributable to a greater cultural expectation of superficial niceness than tips.

The other American thing I struggle with is the tendency to list prices pre-tax rather than the total price to be paid. That just feels sneaky.

Pup7

It's cheaper to do that over labeling everything with the local tax rate - which can vary from county to county, between city and county, and always varies state to state. It's easy when there's a flat VAT, but not so easy over here, where the tax rate can change just by crossing the street (if that street's on the line between the county and the city in some places, for example, or on a county line).

What really annoys me is when they calculate a suggested tip and include the tax. Uhm, no, the restaurant doesn't earn the tax, I pay it to the state/locality, so I'm not tipping on it (not that I follow those suggestions anyway, but why bother?).

darthbimmer

Food service workers without tips will have the exact same incentives to do a good job as workers in nearly every other industry. A person with actual business experience who's thought about it for even 5 minutes might come up with a list such as:

1. The desire to do a good job
2. The desire to see your customers satisfied
3. The desire to develop marketable skills to increase your employability and the wage you can command
4. The desire to be seen favorably by the boss to advance your career through raises, promotions, and recommendations for future employment
5. Among bosses, the desire to protect the business by hiring, retaining and promoting staff who enhance profitability by satisfying customers and creating repeat business; and avoiding, retraining, or dismissing staff whose poor conduct materially harms the business by discouraging customers from returning.

dchristiva

Totally agree with TrojanHorse. Let's pay a living wage and eliminate tipping once and for all.

Kevin AA

Today I saw a sign in the Dunkin' Donuts drive-through window that said "no tipping"

GOOD! ^

Kevin AA

Labels aren't moved from one store to the other across the street

tmiw

20% does make the math slightly easier (double the total and divide by 10). The whole tipping thing does reek of trying to pay the staff as little as possible though.

Cat Man Do

I see 18-20% here on the US west coast, although there is no lower wage for tipped employees. ALL employees, tipped or not, are subject to the same state-wide minimum wage in Washington (9.47), Oregon (9.25), California (9.00), Alaska (8.75).

tmiw

Those wages are also not enough for anyone to really live on in those states, in their major metro areas anyway.

Kevin AA

Tough titties. You are not guaranteed a comfortable living working in a dead-end service job. How do the people who work at Taco Bell, making the same minimum wage but with no tips, survive? Take the bus and share an apartment with other people.