Yes, abolish tips. I am furious (in a uselessly undirected way because the people I'm angry with are decent well-meaning people, I just think they're wrong) at the generalized "decent people tip high and people should tip for more things than they used to, like buying food and coffee over a counter," recent consensus. No! No one should tip for anything, ever! People should be paid a decent wage for their work rather than needing to rely on the benevolent (or malevolent as in the article) whimsy of their customers.
(Obviously, I do tip where appropriate, I just hate it as a system. Charge me more, and use that to pay salaries!)
They should tell those customers that they're shitheads so used to seeing their own mothers treated with casual contempt that they can't get hard for anyone with a brain. Then they can say "Oh, you meant this mask."
I'm just tipping everybody like I was drunk. I don't know who is hurting from the Covid collapse, but I know it's not me.
I always end up with elaborate pointless fantasies about what people in that sort of situation should say. "Why do you think I'm wearing this mask? It so you, or another customer of mine, or I, doesn't die slowly in pain choking on the fluid filling their lungs. Is making sure the woman handing you a drink isn't ugly important enough to you to kill someone, possibly yourself, over? Because that's disgusting and pathetic."
But this would not be effective.
I would go with, "Oh, I do have moles. Tons. I'm a real wildebeest."
The lookism was fierce in the Oz books. Beautiful was the signifier for good; Baum really lingered on beauty and ugliness.
Maybe "toad" makes more sense there.
I edit out the mean things about people's weight and looks all the time when I'm reading to the kids, or else I comment on it and state that it annoys me that the author put that in. Ace is sensitive about her weight, and when weight is used as an offhand way to show that a character is funny or foolish, she notices and feels a little upset, and I get so mad on her behalf.
Not as bad at least as those who refuse to tip on the self-serving grounds that the severs should be being paid a better wage, and that by being cheap they're fighting the system.
But even those are better than the NoVA "theology on tap" crowd who tip in Bible verses.
It's really amazing how explicit Jesus was about actually helping people in poverty by giving them money.
I do have moles and never thought of myself as a wildebeest.
I've never thought of you as one, either.
Technically I have no idea what you look like.
I am completely covered in spots that are either dark freckles or flat moles, depending on your standards. Or I'm a leopard. One or the other.
Because you've never met or are you getting into epistemology?
I do worry about my bartenders in this time of disease, but honestly the air quality in my usual place was horrible and they don't have any outdoor space.
In the past 5-10 years I've developed quite a few cherry angiomas. I remember seeing them all over my dad and asking about them. I don't mind having them because it makes me feel like my dad, sort of.
Mine are not as intense as the ones on google images, fwiw.
See, on the veldt when the moles leave their burrows for the solstice, they use their powerful forepaws to rid the wildebeest of ticks, and in return get free transport. Everyone wins.
This is hilarious. Some bullshit artist has a little bit about how to treat cherry angiomas. His tips:
1. Essential oils
2. Limit your exposure to bromides and other pesticide sprays
3. Apple cider vinegar
4. Detox, you know, like green smoothies.
One of these things is not like the others....
Oh, that's what those are called. Tim had lots, and I always vaguely wondered.
Hey, I have one of those. I made my doctor tell me it wasn't cancer.
I'm worried that guy at the bar wouldn't want to see under any of our masks.
For the record, nearly all of the salad I eat has a dressing made with apple cider vinegar.
Maybe too obvious to be worth noting, but the OP is just another instance of the dynamic where half the US thinks that the bug is a feature.
"Having to hustle for tips can make wait-staff feel humiliated."
"Yeah! Great, isn't it?"
"Having to wait hours in line means that fewer poor people vote."
"Yeah! Great, isn't it?"
Etc. etc.
Only it used to be that shitheads felt obliged to repeat some story about its all being for the greater good, including the good of the apparently downtrodden, and now they don't need to bother.
And essential oils, if you think about the role which olive oil has played in human civilization.
My brother is such an ugly tipper. Totally feels entitled. Doesn't automatically tip 20%. I have to throw more money on the table whenever I go out to eat with him and his kids (such a bad example for them). It pisses me off. But I'd much rather have everyone making a living wage and no tips.
Mr. Pink has opinions about tipping.
The tipping thing feels like a symptom of how the left lost continuity across the generations somehow. Orwell has some very clear writing about how tipping is bad because it enforces servility and social inequality, and that seems to have dropped out of the discourse.
The problem is the cognitive dissonance: a lot of lefty low wage workers, or former low-wage workers, pride themselves on being really great tippers. If you get a little rush of virtue from being a great tipper, it's hard to simultaneously feel gross about the whole abstract concept unless you really spend some time thinking it over.
The lookism part of the post was interesting too, but I don't have much useful to say about it.
Tipping isn't really a thing in the Anglosphere outside of the US, and most non-Americans just naturally find it icky. But I wonder whether another part of the reason for the difference in custom might be that outside the US no-one thinks it's necessary in order to ensure decent service. And whether that might in turn be connected with Calvinism and total depravity. You can't really expect a totally depraved waitress to make any effort without an incentive.
I went to a tip-free restaurant in San Francisco. They were all very helpful without being obsequious. It was nice. Unfortunately, though this place was known for brunch and had solid food, it wasn't S good as the prix fixe menu I had had the day before.
Tip-free restaurant isn't enough to make me pick one over a place with better food.
29: I used to tip 15 until I realized that 20 was standard. I now find myself tipping 5-10% at some independent shops and bakeries.
The weird thing about tipping is that there are times I've tipped 10% because the service was so bad. This has only happened twice, but I'm talking about times that were so atrocious I thought about complaining to management, I felt kind of abused and certainly wouldn't go back.
Basically, I didn't think any kind of tip was warranted and the waitperson should have been fired but I did tip some *because* tip wages are so much lower than the regular minimum wage.
There was that analysis from a San Diego restaurateur a few years ago, which added the point that tips are given or withheld so arbitrarily that it's not even useful information to servers on how good their service was. (And even less so to their supervisors.)
I'm not sold on what I read re tips-for-income being developed to allow the underpayment of Black servers - I'd want to see the evidence - but race seems possibly a significant part of the story distinguishing our practices from the Commonwealth's.
The thing about lookism is that it's just so all pervasive, and distorts everything. Obviously, the manifestation in jobs where tips are a big part of the pay is more pernicious than most, although the incels have apparently built up a whole cult (and plastic surgery industry) over it.
It's hard to get over the audacity of the assholery of asking a waitress to raise her mask.
I'm not saying we can or should adopt the Yemeni solution. And even then, you can tell whether a woman is tall or short, thin or fat, ratio of hips to waist, etc.
36: 15% was standard in my adult life -- it moved up to 20% as a norm I think no later than the late 90s.
37: If the speculation at 34 has any validity then a racial-prejudice aspect would sort of make sense. 'All human beings are totally depraved but some are more totally depraved than others.'
We ate fairly often at a tip-free restaurant. But it closed with covid and isn't doing delivery. I hope it makes it.
39: As a kid at Brigham's/Friendlys, in college and for a few years into my adulthood I did 15-18%. It wasn't until 2000 that I caught on. To be fair, in 98-99 I was in the UK.
"Abolish Tips" reminds me. Happy Hanukkah where applicable.
I thought you acknowledged it when you were praising essential oils.
I feel like I'm from an alternate universe, or at least an alternate timeline. I was definitely hearing that 15% is standard well into my adulthood, including online (so, less affected by local trends). It wasn't until the 2010s when I started hearing 20% as standard. Maybe 20% happened faster in places with a higher ratio of rent to food costs?
Early 2010s, I meant, and that was a guess. This thread from 2009 reflects then being in a transitional period going from a 15% to 20% standard, with expensive coastal cities being further along.
Mr. Robot is providing support for a mediation today, which is a hell of a lot more interesting to overhear than Chancery.
I'm not sold on what I read re tips-for-income being developed to allow the underpayment of Black servers - I'd want to see the evidence - but race seems possibly a significant part of the story distinguishing our practices from the Commonwealth's.
A racial component is very plausible. I remember reading something not too long ago where a late-ninetenth-century middle-class white person was remarking on how strange it felt to tip a white person (presumably on a rare occasion when a white person happened to be doing a job that was customarily tipped).
I remember reading something not too long ago where a late-ninetenth-century middle-class white person was remarking on how strange it felt to tip a white person
Wow. Where?
That is, in what state/city/region, not what source.
My specific course lookism affects men as well as women. My mom encouraged me to be a good Tipper so I am I guess.
What do you guys think about Lovecraft country I'm really enjoying it?
52: Haven't got around to the show yet. I liked the book though.
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Remember when HHS took over hospital COVID reporting from CDC and people were worried it would be hiding data politically?
It wasn't wrong to be worried of course, but possibly because they have less White House meddling to worry about these days, HHS is now releasing that data for public download (weekly averages).
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45: I couldn't tell you when I flipped from 15% standard to 20% standard. Not before the late 90s, but it could have been later than that. And it was really a three step process (1) I tip 15% because it's standard; (2) I personally tip 20% but I still think 15% is standard; and only after a couple of years of thinking of myself as a generous tipper; (3) I tip 20% because it's standard.
Cyrus I like the book too. I thought it was a genius idea. So far I'm pleasantly surprised with the changes the show made, which is pretty unusual.
55: I sort of feel like I get tipped. I work with different groups of doctors. In one place the practice buys everyone a gift every year - an ll bean bag or some thing along with chocolates and they get it for everybody including the doctors, and they sometimes do a Yankee swap. At the other place, the doctors take up a collection and all the non provider (I.e. physicians and the NPh) get $100 cash in a card. It's coming from the doctors, not the hospital directly, so I think it counts as a gift. They also do a Yankee swap at their Christmas party.
Is that where you get scented candles?
58: I don't think an annual holiday season gift counts as a tip.
It would be kind of funny but ultimately tragic if was paid in tips. I suspect I would end up making more money sitting on the sidewalk in front of the Nationwide Buiding. Although maybe not during Covid.
60: Giving cash as opposed definitely signifies the power and income differential.
50, 51: I really wish I could remember either the source or the details. I think it was probably in the South. Definitely after the Civil War.
I am a good tipper in non-pandemic times and a very good tipper in the Covid era (20-30% standard). I hate tipping as an institution but I bracket that out by figuring that in my charitable donations I give to labor/organizing efforts where I can (both formally and informally) and that's my long-term blow-up-this-stupid-system plan, and in the meantime my role as a ridiculously well-paid human is to ease a bit of suffering wherever I can.
One thing that is interesting about tipping workers in the pandemic is you can see that there is a subset of retail workers who are genuinely horrified at being tipped. I strongly suspect it is because to them tips are for poorer or browner people, and despite being contingent retail workers making $12-15/hour they don't want to identify as one of THEM.
Since March, the only people who have turned down a quick, discreet cash tip when I do curbside pickup are two (white) Giant workers and two (white) JoAnn Fabrics workers. The one JoAnn lady was so horrified that she shrieked: "I'll give it to St. Jude!"
Also, I have a good academic book which talks about black domestic worker organizing and I'm nearly certain it has good data on the history of tipping but the ludicrous circumstances of my breakup mean that I am currently not living in my own house and so can't check. Grrrrrrrr.
Since Thanksgiving, we've been having Whole Foods pack our order and bring it out. I've tipped them both and one seemed reluctant. They were both white, but smallish.
One thing that is interesting about tipping workers in the pandemic is you can see that there is a subset of retail workers who are genuinely horrified at being tipped.
Well, yes, of course. The Orwell argument that tipping is socially bad because it enforces unequal power relations is a strong one -- when you tip someone you're treating them as a social inferior who needs to treat you with servility in the hopes of getting a good tip. It'd be natural for someone who doesn't think of their job as in that category to be a little shocked and insulted by a tip.
Never tip a police officer less than $20.
Aha. I found the quote that I suspect 50/51 are thinking of. It's from earlier research (a book and accompanying media coverage) by Saru Jayaraman, the woman who founded the Restaurant Opportunities Center and who is behind the One Fair Wage study linked in the OP.
Towards the end of the 19th-century, an anti-tipping movement emerged to fight for fair wages for workers. Restaurant owners resisted the movement's call for justice because "many of their workers were African-American, in many cases freed slaves whom these employers resented having to pay at all," Jayaraman said. "One writer of the period noted that he could never feel comfortable tipping a white person, since the practice should be reserved for 'Negroes'." Tipping in those days was meant to showcase white supremacy and degrade African-American workers.
And 2016 Wash Post interviewwith more detail.
66: And then there's living in your own house with no intention of going anywhere but still being unable to access your book because your spouse (who also had tons of books lying around and so has no leg to stand on - no leg!) has made you move most of them into storage. Are we happier now, just because we can move about freely? I would argue not.
Are we happier now, just because we can move about freely?
Objectively Pro-Brexit.
68: When I worked at WF, the folks who took groceries to people's cars. (There was a weird conveyor belt) were glad to get tipped - especially if it was cold. They weren't really supposed to get them, but it wasn't enforced, and they appreciated it.
74 to 67 as well. I think they were Latino men mostly and maybe a couple of white guys. It was a coveted assignment because of the tips.
I've given up on tipping the curbside-pickup grocery workers in Seattle because they aren't supposed to take them and apparently it's enforced because they won't. Oy.
a late-ninetenth-century middle-class white person was remarking on how strange it felt to tip a white person
Whereas English people were tipping white English people at the time, yes?
About the OP -- I haven't hassled through the paywall to read the actual article, but it's making me think of Twisty Faster's references to the sex class, viz., women.
"One writer of the period noted that he could never feel comfortable tipping a white person, since the practice should be reserved for 'Negroes'."
The phrasing here makes it ambiguous whether many people really did reserve it as such, or if this writer was proposing novel means of caste-differentiation after the Thirteenth Amendment.
I find tipping people absolutely excruciating. I can do it in restaurants, because it is somehow impersonal then; but actually pressing money into someone's hand for something they should have done anyway really makes me cringe. This is undoubtedly because it brings me up against my own privilege but I don't understand why. I mean, I don't feel bad about paying taxes, giving to charity, or other small ways of evening out the world. But the transfer of hard cash feels horrible.
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I'm reading Stella Gibbons. She is having fun:
"Alone once more, Miss Fielding let The Times fall upon her lap, and gazed into the fire with an expression which gradually became thoughtful. Thought, that wears and hollows the face to which it is habitual as water erodes the bed of a stream, had left no marks on her face, with its habitual decisive expression. Now it lay across her stubborn rosy features like a shade."
81: I tip for hair cuts and nail services. At the hair place they give you little envelopes to put the money in. At the nail salon, I always paid cash, gave it to the technician who was also the owner and said keep the change. That's ok. My husband overpaid his barber the first time he went in after lockdown.
I find tipping the people who take in your luggage in a hotel uncomfortable and feel unsure of what is appropriate so I usually try to avoid their gaze and wheel my luggage myself.
but actually pressing money into someone's hand for something they should have done anyway really makes me cringe.
The worst is feeling like you must press money into someone's hand for something you preferred to do yourself. Can't I just grab my duffle bag off the shuttle luggage rack myself and go? It would be much faster than waiting for the old man with the bad hip to slowly go up and down the bus steps. (I'm picturing the airport shuttle to and from the parking lots.)
68 to 81. Tipping is an interpersonally disturbing thing to do.
85:. Bathroom attendants! Oy!
It's been a long time since I encountered one fortunately.
It's been since March that I've used a bathroom other than my own.
Oh, man, bathroom attendants. I don't run into them frequently, but when I do I have no money -- in a nice restaurant I'm usually wearing something with no pockets, and I don't wear makeup so I don't carry a bag to the bathroom with me. I just shamefacedly don't tip.
I find tipping the people who take in your luggage in a hotel uncomfortable
When I was in high school, I went to a competition in Washington, DC at a reasonably fancy hotel, and the people running the thing made us all agree to tip the people who take our luggage when we arrived at the hotel. We got there, and there was this line of luggage porters: a guy in front would take a bag, pass it on to another guy, who would pass it on to another guy, and so on. None of us had any idea what to do. Tipping all of them seemed impossible, and the ones in the back were moving around a lot to wheel bags to various places. We all kind of gave up, and the hotel staff complained to the organizers, and we all got a very angry lecture the next day about how poorly behaved we were and how our lack of generosity reflected badly on the whole organization.
To this day, I still have no idea what the right way to tip in that situation was.
The organizer should have tipped the head porter and asked him to distribute.
The organizer should have tipped the head porter and asked him to distribute.
The organizer should have tipped the head porter and asked him to distribute.
89: They used to have the, at the Symphony, and oh boy, did they need them in the women's restroom. Friday afternoon concerts were like 80% women, and there are always only 50/50 or 40/60 women to men availability (since men's restrooms have urinals). You needed somebody to manage the traffic until they allocated the bathroom space more effectively.
Urinals and sinks if there's a crush.
One time I met my dad and some of his colleagues in San Antonio and we wandered along the river walk and ended up randomly walking into and eating at, for real, unless I'm dreaming this, a rudeness-themed restaurant. Called Dick's, I think. And I remember my dad saying something to the waitress about "um we just want lunch, not the thing where you're unpleasant to us" but she was committed to the bit and I think we did not, as a group, tip well and the waitress came out as we were leaving and yelled some obscenities at us, which may also have been part of the bit. So that's pretty much the bleak endpoint of what the tipping system can lead to. Or else is just a parable about capitalism I made up, not sure.
What a business model! People go back a second time? You're supposed to be rude back? Isn't not leaving any tip at all the best way to play along?
There was a thing in Chicago like that -- might have been a chain? 50's themed 'diner' but also the waiters were supposed to give you a hard time. Might have been Johnny Rockets?
No, Johnny Rockets is ordinary fast food. I think I was thinking of Ed Debevic's.
Dick's last resort- they make fun of you especially if it's a special event for someone and then they have wear a hat and get extra abuse like being called fat and ugly. It actually existed before the Trump presidency but maybe anticipated it. Never been there myself.
Oh yeah, I remember a comic about that place.
101:I went once to the one in Faneuil Hall, because an acquaintance wanted to go there for his birthday. It was weird. I think they were known for their shrimp.
If you Google image search the chain it appears most of the jokes are that men don't have enough sex and women have too much sex.
Statistically, that's proof lesbians are better at homosexuality than gay men are.
Assuming a spherical heterosexuality.
Patriarchy, capitalism and white supremacy are the three legs of the Stool of Evil.
Also, did you guys know about this?
I didn't know about that- congrats on the new arrival, Nat!
Quick. What do give to a one year old for Christmas?
The problem with December birthdays is I already used my idea for that (Baby Yoda doll).
What should I get my wife for Christmas, assuming that my guess that a giant, inflatable Baby Yoda for the front of the house is not going to be right?
It can't be real estate because legally I'd own half of it (I think) or board books (because we already have a bunch of those).
There's a great handbag-sized crossbow on Etsy.
116: Perfect. And have your son give her the bolts.