With inflation happening across the economy, businesses have been dealing with rising costs for years. At the same time, there’s a lot of pressure to keep prices low for increasingly price-conscious customers.
Yup, pretty much.
A business is there to make money. Obviously, businesses that pay employees better have lower turnover and higher employee satisfaction. But what do you do if the price of keeping the lights on goes up? You can either increase prices, which will see fewer customers, but keep in mind that customers will just go to a coffee shop that’s cheaper. So the better option is to keep the prices the same and lower employee wages.
Business are feeling the pressure of our failing economy. Are some being jerks about it? You bet. I even worked for some. But I believe in a truly wealth-equal economy people are so well off jerk employers are just ignored.
But most people currently don’t have that choice. Quit an employer and you have a 50/50 chance of getting a job within a few weeks or ending up on the streets.
But I believe we can get to a more sustainable economy. It might take a lot of effort, but I believe we can get there!
I had a discussion last week about how Beto O'Rourke is never coming back from his "hell yeah, we're coming for your guns" comment a few years ago. Never.
So why doesn't he take all his political savvy and be a consultant for the DNC to put up fresh blood in Texas? Beto is really great at connecting with voters at town Halls, he keeps it real and is willing to step up to speak truth to power enough that he keeps it spicy and stays in the headlines, and he's good at traditional political action like fundraising and phone banking. Use all those skills to help someone else up, brother Beto.
No it’s because customers are happier this way and the service staff makes more than they would otherwise, in a way that responds to inflationary pressures.
I disagree that customers are happier. People constantly complain about tipping. Those people are clearly not happy. Much of the world doesn’t do the tipping model, so it doesn’t seem like it is worthwhile for quality of service.
I do agree that staff are happier because they on average would make more (at least more than the paltry minimum wage most states have). But it comes at the cost of taking advantage of customers (basically trying to guilt trip them into paying more). I don’t support such business practices. Not to mention it’s not actually fair pay. You’re not actually being paid for quality of service. You’re paid for how much they like you, which leads to racial and gender pay disparities.
And the real winner? The business that gets to pay pennies to wait staff. They could incorporate the average tip into their prices and maintain the same pay. But they don’t want to. They want to advertise low prices so that they can get the full value from low tippers. They often even outright push mandatory tipping with auto gratuities, which is peak sleazeball behavior.
I am very, very excited for Ann Patchett’s Tom Lake. I don’t even know how to explain it but her novels are like some sort of mix of hypnosis and dopamine to my brain.
I read Bel Canto earlier this year and it was fantastic. I was hooked immediately and engrossed the whole way through! I’ll definitely have to pick up her new one!
That was a very good one. I also loved her last novel Dutch House. I read it when it came out and then listened to the audio read by Tom Hanks a couple times during the early days of the pandemic when all I could really do was go for long walks. It’s not exactly a cheerful book, but I found it very comforting.
I think I’ll add The Archive Undying by Emma Mieko Candon to my stack of to-be-read books. I think it was Michael Silverblatt (Host of Bookworm on NPR until 2022) who said,“There are so many great books. What is more rare is great readers.” I used to consider myself a great reader. Or at least good. I received a BA in English Lit from a top tier University and loved reading and analyzing heavy, dense, beautiful prose and stories. It seems the past half decade or so, I only want to read lighter stuff for pure entertainment and escape. Not Marvel movie levels of vapidness, but still. I’m not sure how I feel about this state of being.
I can relate to that. I’m pretty firmly in the “read what you want” camp, and I mostly try to adhere to that for myself. I try to strike a balance between escapist, light books, and books that are more challenging (and I enjoy both!). But it’s hard to shake that feeling of “I ought to be reading XYZ book instead of this,” no matter what I’m reading.
True but other than sit down restaurants where do you tip after the service is rendered? I agree that it is just an added fee and we are just subsidizing capitalists.
I don’t know how to fix it though. Not tipping does nothing but hurt the workers.
At some point the responsibility falls on the workers to unionize. I'm aware that is painful. It is also the only true answer because if we wait on the corporate overlords to benevolently raise wages to an acceptable living standard and disband tipping, we'll be waiting forever.
When I was well off I’d try to tip everyone who did even a half-decent job. Gas station attendants, grocery store workers, doesn’t matter…unless they refused as part of their work rules (some are like that) I would try to tip them.
A business which can’t afford to pay their workers a livable wage doesn’t deserve to exist. If people stopped paying tips then that work no longer provides a livable wage and it becomes difficult for employers to find employees.
In the end they may even decide to pay their employees a livable wage. Some businesses have already done so.
They’re called tips because tips have certain legal protections, while fees are up to the discretion of the business to give to their employees. Trust me. That delivery fee that you pay Papa Johns goes toward liability insurance, software fees, and other incidentals. None of it goes to the driver. And always pre tip more than 5 dollars if you don’t want to be the last delivery of 3.
As is your right, still makes you an asshole though. Yeah, it’s fucked up workers aren’t paid enough but that IS the reality of the situation. Tipping at this point is like flushing the toilet - technically optional but not doing it is pretty shitty.
That’s not true. I’ve heard accounts of early servers who only made money off of tips and were expected to pay the restaurant a portion of their tips for the privilege of serving there. In fact the only way to get service was to tip them beforehand and how much you tipped determined the level of service you received. This tip for good service is just a myth that is an excuse to avoid tipping.
As someone who used to live on tips that’s short sighted. The customer will always get the short end of the stick in this type of fight. If everyone refuses to give the employee 20% of the ticket then the business will charge the customer 40% of the ticket and give the employee 15%.
Blaming the customer for not tipping is the short sighted take. A business which can’t afford to pay its employees a livable wage doesn’t deserve to exist.
Yes but the argument here seems to be that these businesses that shouldn’t exist still have patrons in this thread refusing to tip. Refusing to tip in an institution where it’s already the system AND using their services IS the customer giving a big middle-finger to the service staff. If you don’t agree with tipping in general don’t use those services where people’s livelihoods are already tied to the expectation of a tip. Otherwise you are the asshole.
People in the comments seem to think the barista likes supports tipping culture and resents customers who don’t tip, but that’s not the impression I get. He sympathizes with the awkwardness of the position and the tighter budgets people have, but nonetheless relies on tips for the meager amount they provide.
I hate tips as much as the next guy, but you should not protest by refusing to tip/undertipping in situations where there is a reasonable expectation of a tip. The only one who suffers in such a case is a low-wage worker. Rather, take your business somewhere without tips.
A better way to protect would be to not use those services. It sucks for the employee but the only way to hurry the business is too not use it. Other is advocating for the minimum wage to go up but with our current Congress that’s important.
I think some of the issues people are having is that it’s not clear where there is a reasonable expectation to tip. Sit down restaurant, yes. Hair dresser, yes. Dunkin donuts? They just turned around and gave me something that was already made. Do I need to tip on that? A pickup order? It seems like yes, but when I get Uber eats, I’m only tipping the driver, and that’s still a pickup order. The convenience store where I bring everything I want up to the counter? Because the tipping prompt comes up there. I’m not sure where there is a reasonable expectation anymore and it’s making me feel less financially able to be generous overall.
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