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Tipping is Getting Ridiculous
Jul. 19th, 2023 11:00 amTipping is getting ridiculous.
If you follow news media at all that's probably not a new sentiment. In my newsfeed, at least, I've seen a handful of articles with that headlines like that over the past few months.
Tipping, which is already an archaic practice sadly enshrined in employment law in much of the US, grew during the Coronavirus pandemic. People were thankful for restaurants, bars, hair salons, etc. that reopened early, and for the generally poorly paid employees who risked their health to work there. Norms for tipping increased, both in size of tip given and which jobs were considered tippable.
As the pandemic has faded into the rearview mirror changes in tipping have not. Arguably they've accelerated. Things the articles talk about, and which many people have noticed when buying food at restaurants, is that point-of-sale (POS) terminals prompt for tips in more places now— and the prompted amounts are larger, too. What was once 10%-15%-18% became 15%-18%-20%, and now even prompts like 18%-20%-25% are not uncommon.
More frustratingly, these inflated tipping rates are for order at the counter service. Once upon a time— by which I mean, like, four years ago— tipping in restaurants was understood as being for table service. Now it's built into the payment process even for restaurants where you wait in line, order from the cashier, and then wait for your own food... oh, and clean your own table when you're done.
The most outrageous example of tipping prompts I've heard of is grocery stores adding them at self checkout machines. The staff is literally doing nothing to assist you. You've serving yourself... and you're supposed to tip someone else 25%?!
I haven't seen that self checkout tipping nonsense in person, but I did see encounter a tipping prompt a few days ago that was more annoying than usual. I was at a restaurant that has chosen to do away with even having staff take your order. The cash register is kind of blocked off, with a self-service kiosk in front of it. Signs instruct customers to order from the kiosks. The staff in the cooking area didn't even acknowledge my presence as a customer. I greeted them and they ignored me. Then, when the tipping prompt came in the POS system, "skip" or "no tip" wasn't even an option! I had to press the button for "custom tip" then enter zero. All for zero service! And of course the prompts were 18-20-25%. For a restaurant where the employees don't even stop chatting amongst themselves or reading their phones to say, "Hi! Thanks for coming in."
If you follow news media at all that's probably not a new sentiment. In my newsfeed, at least, I've seen a handful of articles with that headlines like that over the past few months.
Tipping, which is already an archaic practice sadly enshrined in employment law in much of the US, grew during the Coronavirus pandemic. People were thankful for restaurants, bars, hair salons, etc. that reopened early, and for the generally poorly paid employees who risked their health to work there. Norms for tipping increased, both in size of tip given and which jobs were considered tippable.
As the pandemic has faded into the rearview mirror changes in tipping have not. Arguably they've accelerated. Things the articles talk about, and which many people have noticed when buying food at restaurants, is that point-of-sale (POS) terminals prompt for tips in more places now— and the prompted amounts are larger, too. What was once 10%-15%-18% became 15%-18%-20%, and now even prompts like 18%-20%-25% are not uncommon.
More frustratingly, these inflated tipping rates are for order at the counter service. Once upon a time— by which I mean, like, four years ago— tipping in restaurants was understood as being for table service. Now it's built into the payment process even for restaurants where you wait in line, order from the cashier, and then wait for your own food... oh, and clean your own table when you're done.
The most outrageous example of tipping prompts I've heard of is grocery stores adding them at self checkout machines. The staff is literally doing nothing to assist you. You've serving yourself... and you're supposed to tip someone else 25%?!
I haven't seen that self checkout tipping nonsense in person, but I did see encounter a tipping prompt a few days ago that was more annoying than usual. I was at a restaurant that has chosen to do away with even having staff take your order. The cash register is kind of blocked off, with a self-service kiosk in front of it. Signs instruct customers to order from the kiosks. The staff in the cooking area didn't even acknowledge my presence as a customer. I greeted them and they ignored me. Then, when the tipping prompt came in the POS system, "skip" or "no tip" wasn't even an option! I had to press the button for "custom tip" then enter zero. All for zero service! And of course the prompts were 18-20-25%. For a restaurant where the employees don't even stop chatting amongst themselves or reading their phones to say, "Hi! Thanks for coming in."
