That is the most comically bizarre way I have ever seen someone describe the problem of tipping.
A hostage situation? Who is forcing you to go to a restaurant? I don’t remember Marx or Lenin ever writing about how having a waiter serve you is a human right.
If you don’t want to tip, and want to “fight back”, then don’t go to restaurants; it’s that simple. Going to a place where you want and know a working class person has to serve you, and then stiffing them because they’re a “terrorist” holding you “hostage”, just makes you sound entitled and full of yourself.
Yes, the practice of tipping is disgusting. So is screwing over a working class person who you forced to serve you by willingly going to a restaurant. Imagine knowing about a broken system, and instead of not patronizing places that demand tipping, you still go there and take out your “righteous cause” on a random person busting their ass to serve you so they won’t starve. But you’re perfectly fine with them serving you, just the paying them part.
Sorry, I’ve just had plenty of friends get stiffed by “leftists” and chuds who claimed they were fighting back against the evil practice of tipping. People just trying to pay for housing while attending college and barely eating anything.
But I also didn’t really miss the point. If the worker is a hostage and the boss is the terrorist; then why are you patronizing the terrorist by eating at their restaurant? While simultaneously stiffing a working class person.
Also your comment was in response to me saying that it’s a Catch22 if you don’t tip but still eat at a restaurants, as that only harms a working class person.
The word “stiffed” says it all, though. It’s not “stiffed” when tipping is a bribe, not an entitlement, to begin with. The workers are getting stiffed by their boss, not the customers. It’s a particularly American mannerism and social divide-and-conquer mechanism to react to getting stiffed by ones’ employer, by trying to extort the customer instead rather than deal with the problem itself.
People just trying to pay for housing while attending college and barely eating anything.
And doesn’t this also go for most other people, as well? Most people in the US for instance can’t swallow a 500$ emergency expense, and are loaded to the gills with debt, among other things. Why should they have to bother with your country’s especially deranged form of bribery to top it all off?
To >95% of the world, you’re the one who comes off as not only entitled, but outright deluded, you realize that right? But sure, keep on promoting shaking down other proles for an extra buck rather than dealing with the real issue (that the rest of the world doesn’t have to deal with).
Your American brainworms are showing. Much of the world doesn’t tip and is better off for it. In no sensible worldview is a gratuity, basically a bribe, something “owed” to the server (not to mention the fact that servers aren’t the only ones involved in the product).
There’s something owed to the server- a living wage, but that’s between the staff and employer. Customers have nothing to do with it, and there is no ethical consumption to begin with (not to say that there cannot be “more ethical” forms of consumption- but let’s not kid ourselves, tipping does not factor whatsoever into that equation). A product has a price, and that’s how it works- anything more is a bribe, not an entitlement. Do you “owe a tip” to every other underpaid worker you pass by or of whom you occupy a moment’s worth of their time? The notion of “screwing over” someone by not coughing up the customary bribe is completely and utterly laughable. American culture being a- perhaps irrecoverable- dumpster fire doesn’t change anything in that sense.
I find contentious threads like this fascinating, for one thing you can really see who here is American and who isn’t based on their deeply culturally ingrained views on this issue.
Having been friends with waitstaff, they would always tell me how non-tippers would always have their food suspiciously left out under the heat lamp a little to long before one of them would take it to the table. Or how those tables always got the oldest vegetables and the worst cuts of meat on hand. Or how they would be painfully slow refilling any drinks.
It’s weird how that only happened to those tables.
If wait staff has anything negative at all to say about a table, they’re getting worse food. These are my friends and you don’t get yo treat them badly and expect a nice meal from me.
I’m guessing you’re a line cook? You guys are the backbone of the entire operation and the gods of the restaurant. If there’s anyone you don’t want to piss off in a restaurant, it is the line cooks.
I can also take your word for that, having personally seen line cooks beat a customer to a pulp because they sucker punched a waitress half their size.
If you’re a customer and someone from the kitchen has stopped making food and left the kitchen to address you as a problem, you are in an incredibly unsafe position. I’ve had to ask people to leave at a couple gigs when they’ve been outright abusive and they leave in a hurry. Part of the trick there is to have a rolling pin or something else with you. Don’t bring a knife, thats going way too hard and isn’t safe to cross the restaurant with, but the kitchen is full of things that are also fantastic weapons and it’s full of dudes who work a very physical job, are pretty pissed off usually anyway and have a pretty high percentage of employees who have been to prison and wouldn’t mind going back compared to most workplaces. Someone striking a server is for sure a beat down offense
I hope this a bit you’re doing because this ABSOLUTELY ain’t it.
The only thing you’re doing by not tipping is hurting that employee. Your ‘statement’ will not somehow trickle up to the capitalist who will have a change of heart and pay his workers more.
If you live in a place where minimum wage is low (i.e. anywhere in the US) you are obligated to tip. If you don’t, you are not a leftist
If enough consumers did this, pay wouldn’t be enough, and hospitality employees would have to leave for other industries, unless employers raised wage offers.
I find tipping culture really hard to understand. And to defend.
It gives a leverage, better treatment, and attention to whoever got the most money to spare. It’s basically legalised corruption.
I find it really strange that tipping is defended in this forum.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t tip, considering material reality. I’m saying that tipping culture should not be defended, and discussing the political implications of tipping/not tipping.
If consumers (as a class, not wealthy consumers) all boycott (idealistic, I know) tipping altogether, all at once, it creates the pressure to look into legislation, because being a waiter living off tips becomes unbearable. That’s for the businesses to fix, probably following market rules (that are still a useful tool of analysis, in some contexts). Less supply of cheap labour increases price of said labour. There’s a shitty transition phase, but it improves conditions for the working class on the longer run.
Personally, I refuse to be served by a worker working on tips, just like I refuse to be served by an enslaved person. I obviously don’t eat out too often, and tipping is not a requirement here.
We all want tipping banned, and we want to boycott restaurants that pay their waitstaff this way.
However, in the current system, if you go out and eat at a restaurant something that is a luxury, then refuse to pay, all you are doing is being a dick too and hurting a random proletariat worker. As that tip is the only means through which they can survive.
It is vile. No one is defending this. It is just extremely entitled to believe that you have the right to demand to be served by a working class person, and then stiff them on their means of survival because of some backwards morality.
A moral person would not go to a restaurant at all. That’s how you put pressure on the system. If you go to a restaurant and pay, the owner gets paid anyways and has no incentive to change anything. All you accomplish is being a dick to a random prole.
You essentially touch on that with your last few sentences. We are all arguing it is normal and moral to refuse to be served by a tip worker.
However others in the thread are claiming that it is fine to go to a restaurant and be served. They just won’t tip the person after they made them serve them. Which is disgusting.
I can generally agree with you. I think we’re looking at it from distinct angles.
If it’s clear who’s responsible for paying the serving person, I’m OK with it. When it’s all just implied costume, there’s too much room for scamming, intimidation, and exercise of monetary power.
Please explain to me what you mean by this and who exactly exerts this ‘pressure’?
Less supply of cheap labour increases price of said labour
And how is this done exactly? How does ending tipping lead to a decreased supply of ‘cheal labour’. Perhaps it’s due to people who were already on the margins of society going down to $2.13/hour (the US minimum wage for any server) and losing their house then dropping out of the labor pool altogether. That would certainly reduce the supply of ‘cheap labour’ eh? Fucking idiot
There’s a shitty transition phase
Please explain. What are the material realities of this ‘uncomfy’ transition phase
and tipping is not a requirement here
And why is that exactly? Because folks are paid a living wage to begin with?
Listen, if you’re going to flippantly say we need to end tipping you really need to fucking face up to what that actually means and not just ‘hand waive’ peoples lives away as mere market externalities
Please explain to me what you mean by this and who exactly exerts this ‘pressure’?
When all tipping is cut, any and all jobs that pay above $2.13 become immediately better option for all previous tip workers.
And how is this done exactly?
Without tipping, it is illegal to employ workers below minimum wage. The problem is that the law allows it, and everyone complies.
What if one of the interested parties organised to cut short that supply of money? Any attempt to point blame at customers is just capitalists avoiding their responsibility, as usual.
Customers and employees are not enemies. With tipping, you empower rich customers, and cut access to less wealthy people to a pleasing experience with their friends and family.
Please explain. What are the material realities of this ‘uncomfy’ transition phase
Can we really predict all details of the future?
The immediate effect should be that a huge amount of people would have to look for new jobs, if restaurant bourgeoisie won’t raise wages.
Restaurant bourgeoisie is also likely to increase prices in their establishments.
And why is that exactly? Because folks are paid a living wage to begin with?
Yes. Barely, but yet.
I’m not hand waving anything. If the US had a strong proletariat government, this could be supported by state incentives. It wouldn’t even be a issue in the first place.
Without that state incentive, how could things start moving? I’d go for seeding class consciousness between tip workers and customers. Most customers are also working class.
For the most part no one is gonna spit in your food or anything that gross, what will happen is your food will be made really bad on purpose. Your salad will be mostly romain cores, your food will be just a little burnt and over seasoned, just enough here and there to make the whole thing kinda suck.
don’t tip and refuse to elaborate
It’s a shitty catch 22, where all you’re doing is screwing over a random working class person.
What you are describing is a hostage situation and we don’t negotiate with terrorists.
That is the most comically bizarre way I have ever seen someone describe the problem of tipping.
A hostage situation? Who is forcing you to go to a restaurant? I don’t remember Marx or Lenin ever writing about how having a waiter serve you is a human right.
If you don’t want to tip, and want to “fight back”, then don’t go to restaurants; it’s that simple. Going to a place where you want and know a working class person has to serve you, and then stiffing them because they’re a “terrorist” holding you “hostage”, just makes you sound entitled and full of yourself.
Yes, the practice of tipping is disgusting. So is screwing over a working class person who you forced to serve you by willingly going to a restaurant. Imagine knowing about a broken system, and instead of not patronizing places that demand tipping, you still go there and take out your “righteous cause” on a random person busting their ass to serve you so they won’t starve. But you’re perfectly fine with them serving you, just the paying them part.
You’re missing the point, in this analogy the worker is the hostage and the boss is the terrorist. Also i was being facetious.
Sorry, I’ve just had plenty of friends get stiffed by “leftists” and chuds who claimed they were fighting back against the evil practice of tipping. People just trying to pay for housing while attending college and barely eating anything.
But I also didn’t really miss the point. If the worker is a hostage and the boss is the terrorist; then why are you patronizing the terrorist by eating at their restaurant? While simultaneously stiffing a working class person.
Also your comment was in response to me saying that it’s a Catch22 if you don’t tip but still eat at a restaurants, as that only harms a working class person.
The word “stiffed” says it all, though. It’s not “stiffed” when tipping is a bribe, not an entitlement, to begin with. The workers are getting stiffed by their boss, not the customers. It’s a particularly American mannerism and social divide-and-conquer mechanism to react to getting stiffed by ones’ employer, by trying to extort the customer instead rather than deal with the problem itself.
And doesn’t this also go for most other people, as well? Most people in the US for instance can’t swallow a 500$ emergency expense, and are loaded to the gills with debt, among other things. Why should they have to bother with your country’s especially deranged form of bribery to top it all off?
Then why are you eating at a restaurant?
Don’t like it? Want to fight back? Don’t go?
If you go and stiff. You’re an entititled prick. That simple.
To >95% of the world, you’re the one who comes off as not only entitled, but outright deluded, you realize that right? But sure, keep on promoting shaking down other proles for an extra buck rather than dealing with the real issue (that the rest of the world doesn’t have to deal with).
Your American brainworms are showing. Much of the world doesn’t tip and is better off for it. In no sensible worldview is a gratuity, basically a bribe, something “owed” to the server (not to mention the fact that servers aren’t the only ones involved in the product).
There’s something owed to the server- a living wage, but that’s between the staff and employer. Customers have nothing to do with it, and there is no ethical consumption to begin with (not to say that there cannot be “more ethical” forms of consumption- but let’s not kid ourselves, tipping does not factor whatsoever into that equation). A product has a price, and that’s how it works- anything more is a bribe, not an entitlement. Do you “owe a tip” to every other underpaid worker you pass by or of whom you occupy a moment’s worth of their time? The notion of “screwing over” someone by not coughing up the customary bribe is completely and utterly laughable. American culture being a- perhaps irrecoverable- dumpster fire doesn’t change anything in that sense.
I find contentious threads like this fascinating, for one thing you can really see who here is American and who isn’t based on their deeply culturally ingrained views on this issue.
Oh damn dude, giga-brain take here!
No, this is not it and anyone who thinks this deserves the wall
Then cook at home. If you’re a known non tipper I will ruin your food
Having been friends with waitstaff, they would always tell me how non-tippers would always have their food suspiciously left out under the heat lamp a little to long before one of them would take it to the table. Or how those tables always got the oldest vegetables and the worst cuts of meat on hand. Or how they would be painfully slow refilling any drinks.
It’s weird how that only happened to those tables.
If wait staff has anything negative at all to say about a table, they’re getting worse food. These are my friends and you don’t get yo treat them badly and expect a nice meal from me.
I’m guessing you’re a line cook? You guys are the backbone of the entire operation and the gods of the restaurant. If there’s anyone you don’t want to piss off in a restaurant, it is the line cooks.
I can also take your word for that, having personally seen line cooks beat a customer to a pulp because they sucker punched a waitress half their size.
If you’re a customer and someone from the kitchen has stopped making food and left the kitchen to address you as a problem, you are in an incredibly unsafe position. I’ve had to ask people to leave at a couple gigs when they’ve been outright abusive and they leave in a hurry. Part of the trick there is to have a rolling pin or something else with you. Don’t bring a knife, thats going way too hard and isn’t safe to cross the restaurant with, but the kitchen is full of things that are also fantastic weapons and it’s full of dudes who work a very physical job, are pretty pissed off usually anyway and have a pretty high percentage of employees who have been to prison and wouldn’t mind going back compared to most workplaces. Someone striking a server is for sure a beat down offense
I hope this a bit you’re doing because this ABSOLUTELY ain’t it.
The only thing you’re doing by not tipping is hurting that employee. Your ‘statement’ will not somehow trickle up to the capitalist who will have a change of heart and pay his workers more.
If you live in a place where minimum wage is low (i.e. anywhere in the US) you are obligated to tip. If you don’t, you are not a leftist
If enough consumers did this, pay wouldn’t be enough, and hospitality employees would have to leave for other industries, unless employers raised wage offers.
There should be no moral obligation to tip.
Then you’re an entitled prick who wants to be served by a working class person but not pay.
You’re right that there should be no moral obligation, but that doesn’t mean that a non tipper is still a selfish dick.
I find tipping culture really hard to understand. And to defend.
It gives a leverage, better treatment, and attention to whoever got the most money to spare. It’s basically legalised corruption.
I find it really strange that tipping is defended in this forum.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t tip, considering material reality. I’m saying that tipping culture should not be defended, and discussing the political implications of tipping/not tipping.
If consumers (as a class, not wealthy consumers) all boycott (idealistic, I know) tipping altogether, all at once, it creates the pressure to look into legislation, because being a waiter living off tips becomes unbearable. That’s for the businesses to fix, probably following market rules (that are still a useful tool of analysis, in some contexts). Less supply of cheap labour increases price of said labour. There’s a shitty transition phase, but it improves conditions for the working class on the longer run.
Personally, I refuse to be served by a worker working on tips, just like I refuse to be served by an enslaved person. I obviously don’t eat out too often, and tipping is not a requirement here.
No one is defending tipping in this forum.
We all want tipping banned, and we want to boycott restaurants that pay their waitstaff this way.
However, in the current system, if you go out and eat at a restaurant something that is a luxury, then refuse to pay, all you are doing is being a dick too and hurting a random proletariat worker. As that tip is the only means through which they can survive.
It is vile. No one is defending this. It is just extremely entitled to believe that you have the right to demand to be served by a working class person, and then stiff them on their means of survival because of some backwards morality.
A moral person would not go to a restaurant at all. That’s how you put pressure on the system. If you go to a restaurant and pay, the owner gets paid anyways and has no incentive to change anything. All you accomplish is being a dick to a random prole.
You essentially touch on that with your last few sentences. We are all arguing it is normal and moral to refuse to be served by a tip worker.
However others in the thread are claiming that it is fine to go to a restaurant and be served. They just won’t tip the person after they made them serve them. Which is disgusting.
I can generally agree with you. I think we’re looking at it from distinct angles.
If it’s clear who’s responsible for paying the serving person, I’m OK with it. When it’s all just implied costume, there’s too much room for scamming, intimidation, and exercise of monetary power.
Please explain to me what you mean by this and who exactly exerts this ‘pressure’?
And how is this done exactly? How does ending tipping lead to a decreased supply of ‘cheal labour’. Perhaps it’s due to people who were already on the margins of society going down to $2.13/hour (the US minimum wage for any server) and losing their house then dropping out of the labor pool altogether. That would certainly reduce the supply of ‘cheap labour’ eh? Fucking idiot
Please explain. What are the material realities of this ‘uncomfy’ transition phase
And why is that exactly? Because folks are paid a living wage to begin with?
Listen, if you’re going to flippantly say we need to end tipping you really need to fucking face up to what that actually means and not just ‘hand waive’ peoples lives away as mere market externalities
When all tipping is cut, any and all jobs that pay above $2.13 become immediately better option for all previous tip workers.
Without tipping, it is illegal to employ workers below minimum wage. The problem is that the law allows it, and everyone complies.
What if one of the interested parties organised to cut short that supply of money? Any attempt to point blame at customers is just capitalists avoiding their responsibility, as usual.
Customers and employees are not enemies. With tipping, you empower rich customers, and cut access to less wealthy people to a pleasing experience with their friends and family.
Can we really predict all details of the future?
The immediate effect should be that a huge amount of people would have to look for new jobs, if restaurant bourgeoisie won’t raise wages.
Restaurant bourgeoisie is also likely to increase prices in their establishments.
Yes. Barely, but yet.
I’m not hand waving anything. If the US had a strong proletariat government, this could be supported by state incentives. It wouldn’t even be a issue in the first place.
Without that state incentive, how could things start moving? I’d go for seeding class consciousness between tip workers and customers. Most customers are also working class.
deleted by creator
They actually do. Hard to enforce, but they have the obligation to not poison your food on purpose.
Isn’t that a good way to start getting spit and snot on your food though?
Well by the time you have paid ideally you will have already eaten your food
I guess this only works if you never plan to go back to the same place.
For the most part no one is gonna spit in your food or anything that gross, what will happen is your food will be made really bad on purpose. Your salad will be mostly romain cores, your food will be just a little burnt and over seasoned, just enough here and there to make the whole thing kinda suck.