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tipflation, tip creep, and tip fatigue

#81
ElectroVibe said:
Tipping at Sonic is kind of a tradition.
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The wife & I were just saying we were glad they added the tip option at the stalls because we are almost paperless & rarely have cash on hand. Honestly I usually hit the $2 option rather than a percentage . I agree we shouldn’t be expected to tip on fast food but SONIC has mostly high schoolers & they are at least providing a little extra service bringing your order to you.

I agree with most posts here. The pizza pickup is a good one. I always pick ours up & debate tip or no tip for handing me the box.

It’s just a matter of time before all the fast food places have the option or tip jars by the counter. The implied guilt trip is BS.
 
#89
friskinator said:
Agreed, but it seems many are proud of not tipping and/or being super cheap about it. I'm guessing it makes them feel better than the people that are serving them. Which they aren't.
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OK, that could be. Some people are cheap because the don’t understand why things cost what they do and are pushing back against being “ripped off”, and others may do it out of meanness, and I don’t know what to say to them. But I, and many others still alive, can remember when a good tip was 10%, and if my assumption isn’t wrong, restaurant food prices have kept up with inflation. So it seems to me that someone might be double dipping.
 
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#90
Mike N said:
That's all fine, but I'd bet that a good server at a low base rate + tips makes more than a server at a set minimum wage.
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This would need to be borne out with data. Also, a "good" server is a matter of definition.

In my state, servers do make the minimum wage. They only pocket the tips that they receive above the state minimum, which means the employer gets the first $5/h of their tips.

Why did auto repair shops switch to fixed pricing? To make less money?
 
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#91
It'd be really easy to get into the weeds with this topic, and it would definitely tread into territory that isn't allowed here. But considering we collectively aren't interested in paying the service industry a living wage (with insurance), and we aren't interested in gratuity automatically included in the final tab or rolled into the food pricing, tipping is here to stay.

If you're still committed to tipping under 20% no matter what, do the industry a favor and eat/drink at home.
 
#92
bassGtar said:
But I, and many others still alive, can remember when a good tip was 10%,
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That might be a good tip for some things. When I was driving Uber, I was lucky to get even that much in tips. Delivery drivers aren't getting enormous tips from me because their trip is pretty much the same regardless of what I spend, especially since I help them unload the groceries when they get here and they never have all that many bags. But I do know that I always appreciated getting more than a couple of bucks tossed at me as a driver, because my pay wasn't very high, so I try to do what I think is fair for the distance they travel.

But there's never been a time in my memory that 10% was an acceptable tip for restaurant service. It's always been 15% for acceptable service and 20% for excellent service. A 10% tip has always been an insult that suggests your service was adequate but sub-par. Any worse and you'd have been stiffed.

Those of us who have done that work tend to do 20% across the board unless the service is really bad, because we know how hard that work can be. FWIW my memory of such things goes back to the 70's, because I am old, so that's a pretty long memory.
 
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#93
LBS-bass said:
But there's never been a time in my memory that 10% was an acceptable tip for restaurant service. It's always been 15% for acceptable service and 20% for excellent service. A 10% tip has always been an insult that suggests your service was adequate but sub-par. Any worse and you'd have been stiffed.

Those of us who have done that work tend to do 20% across the board unless the service is really bad, because we know how hard that work can be. FWIW my memory of such things goes back to the 70's, because I am old, so that's a pretty long memory.
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My earliest memories were as a child in the sixties. I googled, and the results indicated that the standard tip rose from 10% to 15% in the 1970s.
 
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#94
upload_2023-5-17_17-26-0.jpeg

Stolen from @GregC who clearly stole it from someone else. :)
 
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#95
bassGtar said:
My earliest memories were as a child in the sixties. I googled, and the results indicated that the standard tip rose from 10% to 15% in the 1970s.
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That might have been around the time I started paying for my own food in restaurants, so it makes sense. But I think the more salient point is that it's been static for a very long time.
 
#96
fdeck said:
This would need to be borne out with data. Also, a "good" server is a matter of definition.

In my state, servers do make the minimum wage. They only pocket the tips that they receive above the state minimum, which means the employer gets the first $5/h of their tips.

Why did auto repair shops switch to fixed pricing? To make less money?
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So the house gets a portion of the server's tips?? That's BS, imo..... I'm tipping the server and not the establishment.

I'm lost on the repair shop fixed pricing comment..... care to elaborate??
 
#97
LBS-bass said:
That might have been around the time I started paying for my own food in restaurants, so it makes sense. But I think the more salient point is that it's been static for a very long time.
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But people have long memories. And you say it is stable and I say it doubled. And that is on top of the food cost inflation. The CPI for food away from home has gone from ~40 in 1970 to 347 this year (February). I think this means the food has gone up about 9 times and the tip about 18 times the 1970 cost.
Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers: Food Away from Home in U.S. City Average

An internet calculator tells me that an 18x increase over 50 years is roughly a 6% increase per year.
 
#98
bassGtar said:
And you say it is stable and I say it doubled.
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According to both of us, it apparently doubled between 1960 and 1970 and has been stable for 50 years. Do you really want to fight about this trifling detail? Because I'm not in the mood to be gentle this week with people who just want to fight me.

I started off basically agreeing with you while adding my own perspective. It might be a good idea to let it go.
 
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#99
Mike N said:
So the house gets a portion of the server's tips?? That's BS, imo..... I'm tipping the server and not the establishment.

I'm lost on the repair shop fixed pricing comment..... care to elaborate??
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In Wisconsin, the minimum wage for a tipped employee is $2.30/h, but if they don't make enough in tips to clear the state minimum of $7.25/h, the restaurant has to make up the difference. Effectively, the first $4.95/h of tips go to the restaurant.

About the repair shop, it's not "price fixing" in the illegal sense, but when I take my car for a repair, the shop quotes a price that's out of a pricing book, rather than charging by hour, and that's the price I pay. There's no further negotiation, and I pay the same price whether I was happy with the service or not. I've been going to the same mechanic for more than a decade, and am very happy with his shop. He's not cheap, but gets things right, and has never tried to rip me off.
 

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