The digital tip jar

[Aqua Letifer]

@Doctor-Phibes said in The digital tip jar:

I wonder if the base salary of tipped employees has fallen as a result of the increase expectation for a tip. Hopefully somebody less lazy than me can look that up.

Credit cards.

Credit cards screwed them. It's taxed. That's partly why there's been a percentage increase.

That and the stupid freaking software for credit card readers requesting a tip by default. You do know, right, that just because that machine asks for a tip, it doesn't mean that money goes to the person who rang you up?

[Mik]

The IRS also started paying much closer attention to tips.

[taiwan_girl]

Putting on my Ax hat. 555

"Do you mean that many waiters are committing tax fraud by not accurately reporting their earnings?"

[LuFins Dad]

I actually recently read a story about the tip inflation and found it interesting.

Apparently tipping was set at 10% for generations. It was during the inflation in the 70s when WaPo ran a story saying that tipping needed to go up to 15% to make up for inflation (forgetting that inflation meant the bills were higher, therefore tips were higher). Over the next 5 years tipping went up. Just recently, WaPo’s food critic stated that you must tip 20% no matter what! Because inflation!

[Aqua Letifer]

@taiwan_girl said in The digital tip jar:

Putting on my Ax hat. 555

"Do you mean that many waiters are committing tax fraud by not accurately reporting their earnings?"

You mean you don't know? I thought you were the fucking expert here?

[Aqua Letifer]

@Doctor-Phibes said in The digital tip jar:

And it's not that you take it seriously that I find funny, it's that you get so freaking mad with people who disagree with you.

I said it before in this thread and I'll explain it again: Disagree all you want about tipping. There are broken aspects to it that are certainly problematic.

The difference is, I'm not suggesting England has it wrong by not following a tipping model. But you think you know better than the country you moved to.

You're so quick to criticize silly Americans for expecting the world to conform to their sensibilities and here you are doing exactly the same thing.

[Mik]

I bet he likes cold beer better by now.

[Doctor Phibes]

I think the imperial system is stupid too but I’m too polite to say anything

[George K]

@Doctor-Phibes said in The digital tip jar:

I think the imperial system is stupid too but I’m too polite to say anything

That's our friend @Doctor-Phibes ! He's got modesty by the gallon.

[Doctor Phibes]

@George-K said in The digital tip jar:

@Doctor-Phibes said in The digital tip jar:

I think the imperial system is stupid too but I’m too polite to say anything

That's our friend @Doctor-Phibes ! He's got modesty by the gallon.

You wouldn't be so dismissive of my opinion if you'd ever had to make your living using the metric system.

Are you saying that I wasted my entire life using Celsius, refusing to bow to the inevitability of the frankly arcane Fahrenheit system?

I'll tell you this, American weather forecasters are not particularly well thought of when it comes to temperature measurement!

[George K]

@Doctor-Phibes said in The digital tip jar:

You wouldn't be so dismissive of my opinion if you'd ever had to make your living using the metric system.

Ahem...I did. I never gave someone a quart of fluids or prescribed a grain of oral medication.

Even when I was an intern, I would write, "Pt. may have spirits fermenti (vodka) 30 ml po at hs, prn. MR x 2."

[Mik]

Yup. Medicine is entirely metric.

[LuFins Dad]

I used the metric system when measuring… ahhh certain things…. Made me feel better about myself…

[Klaus]

@Aqua-Letifer said in The digital tip jar:

@Doctor-Phibes said in The digital tip jar:

And it's not that you take it seriously that I find funny, it's that you get so freaking mad with people who disagree with you.

I said it before in this thread and I'll explain it again: Disagree all you want about tipping. There are broken aspects to it that are certainly problematic.

The difference is, I'm not suggesting England has it wrong by not following a tipping model. But you think you know better than the country you moved to.

You're so quick to criticize silly Americans for expecting the world to conform to their sensibilities and here you are doing exactly the same thing.

When we travel around the world, we all like or dislike aspects of how other countries do things, or wish they would do things we find annoying differently.

It would be completely OK if you would suggest that England has it wrong by not following a tipping model.

And it is completely OK for TG to suggest that the US has it wrong by emphasizing tipping so much.

[Doctor Phibes]

@Klaus said in The digital tip jar:

When we travel around the world, we all like or dislike aspects of how other countries do things, or wish they would do things we find annoying differently.

It would be completely OK if you would suggest that England has it wrong by not following a tipping model.

And it is completely OK for TG to suggest that the US has it wrong by emphasizing tipping so much.

I do kind of understand Aqua's point. It is rather rude for immigrants such as myself to point out things we don't really like about our new country.

However, from my own experience when getting together with groups of immigrants in more than country, including England, pretty much every single immigrant to any country does it

Generally, it's in a light-hearted manner, which was my initial intent with this particular topic. I honestly don't feel particularly strongly about tipping, and I don't suppose that TG does, either.

Clearly it's a hot-button for Aqua, and I'll shut up about it now.

[Aqua Letifer]

@Doctor-Phibes said in The digital tip jar:

@Klaus said in The digital tip jar:

When we travel around the world, we all like or dislike aspects of how other countries do things, or wish they would do things we find annoying differently.

It would be completely OK if you would suggest that England has it wrong by not following a tipping model.

And it is completely OK for TG to suggest that the US has it wrong by emphasizing tipping so much.

I do kind of understand Aqua's point. It is rather rude for immigrants such as myself to point out things we don't really like about our new country.

However, from my own experience when getting together with groups of immigrants in more than country, including England, pretty much every single immigrant to any country does it

Well, yeah. Did it myself and I think that's only natural.

Waaaaay back, this discussion didn't start out that way. I explained very clearly why the tipping model works here, based on 10 years of my life relying on it.

What's annoying is hearing "no it isn't, you're quite wrong about that!" from someone who doesn't even live here, and "economically it'd be better for everybody!" from someone who has to ask you how that economy works.

It's ignorant.

[LuFins Dad]

Here’s something economic that I think works better in Europe than here… I love that the VAT and taxes are built into the price… If the tag says €20, then I pay €20, not €21.20.

[George K]

@LuFins-Dad said in The digital tip jar:

Here’s something economic that I think works better in Europe than here… I love that the VAT and taxes are built into the price… If the tag says €20, then I pay €20, not €21.20.

QFT!

[89th]

Oh absolutely. I would be absolutely fine with Congress making that law. The price you see is the price you pay, period.

And the tipping model works, it has just been vastly expanded in the last few years. Unfortunately I think it hurts traditionally tipped jobs (food delivery, sit-down restaurant, bar, etc) as folks are pushing back on the tipping culture every business has seemed to embrace.

[Doctor Phibes]

Another thing they should change - Americans should drive on the left hand side of the road, as God and nature intended.

Obviously, this would be a very difficult thing to accomplish overnight. It might be better to do it only for some States and see how well it worked. Or maybe just by implementing it at the weekend for a trial period.