Hey Folks!
I’ve been living abroad for over half my life in a country where tipping is not the norm. At most you would round up. 19€ bill? Here’s a 20, keep this change.
Going to the US soon to visit family and the whole idea of tipping makes me nervous. It seems there’s a lot of discussion about getting rid of tipping, but I don’t know how much has changed in this regard.
The system seems ridiculously unfair, and that extra expense in a country where everything is already so expensive really makes a difference.
So will AITA if I don’t tip? Is it really my personal responsibility to make sure my server is paid enough?
Here, unfortunately, YTA if you don’t tip. I forgot once and had the server run after me to make sure something wasn’t wrong. Some service folks take it personally if you don’t tip, which makes sense given that their employers don’t pay them shit. So yeah, you the customer foot the bill for ensuring these people can make ends meet… as if giving the restaurant your custom wasn’t support enough.
The problem is that, like most other industries here in the US, the system is rigged against the working class. While not all restaurant owners intend to fuck over their staff (especially smaller, local places), it’s how it works. Now, some places will automatically add gratuity to your bill under certain conditions, so check your breakdown to ensure it’s not already included. This is becoming more common, which irritates me since I scale my tip based on the quality of the service rendered.
Also, we know it’s expensive here. Don’t bother coming here to complain about it, we do it enough ourselves. Tipping is here to stay for now and I don’t imagine it changing for quite some time.
Just to add onto this good answer, you are really only expected to tip for sit-down restaurants with service and bars.
For takeout, cafes, fast food, etc., you don’t need to tip. A lot of places these have payment machines that just ask if you want to tip by default. You can safely hit “No tip” on these if you don’t want to.
Ostensibly it’s just to replace the tip jar for those who don’t use cash, but the prompt appearing every time you pay by card has convinced a lot of people that tipping is what you’re supposed to do in those situations, when in reality you have no obligation to.
You should take a look at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_US_states_by_minimum_wage and see what the minimum wage is in the state you are visiting. The minimum wage where I am is one of the highest in the nation so I don’t tip anymore.
Edit: I am aware many states have below federal minimum for tipped employees. My point was if they’re visiting one of the states with a high minimum wage, they should forgo tipping. Nobody below bothered to link it, but here’s the minimum wage page for tipped employees: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/minimum-wage/tipped. It’s worth noting that even in the states that can pay tipped employee as little as $2.13/hr, the employees never actually make less than the federal minimum of $7.25/hr because the employer has to make up the difference if the employee doesn’t make enough in tips, not that $7.25/hr is even remotely a livable wage in 2023…
Regardless, tipping is an inherently flawed system, and it’s not the responsibility of the consumer to pay specifically the server a living wage while everyone in the kitchen suffers (I would know, I’ve been there). If you’re not happy with the wage laws in your state, get involved in politics and exercise your right to vote to do something about it.
Most states in the US have separate lower minimum wages for tipped workers, with a federal minimum of $2.13/hour.
Yes, it does make you the asshole, especially because you know that’s what we do here and why we do it. Until living wage laws are passed, it’s not going to change.
In all honesty, I will probably just tip the minimum amount and try not to let it get to me. Its not like I’ll be out eating by myself anyway, there will be plenty of social pressure to help me along :)
But imagine if all jobs worked this way. Oh, you wanted a good outcome for your surgery? Maybe you should have tipped your surgeon! Oh, you wanted your taxes done correctly? Should have tipped! Sorry boss, I would have gotten you that report on time, but you forgot to leave me a tip!
I also think its silly that tips are based on the price of your meal, as if that has anything to do with the service whatsoever. So the person who ordered a steak pays more in a tip than the person who ordered a salad? Why? It would make way more sense to tip based on time spent in the establishment. I would understand a standard 5$ tip per half-hour or something way more.
Here’s the thing. There are now tips added to all sorts of checkouts. And it’s muddier than ever.
As an American I don’t tip shit unless it’s a full service restaurant. Aka they are refilling my drinks for me.
If I’m getting a sandwich at a sandwich line where you stand in line and call out what ingrediants you want and take it to go, I don’t tip. If I’m just getting a coffee black, I’m not tipping. Etc etc.
The checkouts now though ask for tips on all sorts of stuff. I increasingly refuse to tip for things like self service places, takeout, etc.
Definitely tip. If you think the whole system sucks that’s fine, but don’t take out that frustration on the likely vastly underpaid employees
You enter a social compact when you enter an establishment that does tipping. When you don’t tip, you’re not making it better, your making sure someone goes hungry
if:
a. a person “has” to rely on other people to tip them
b. said person goes “hungry” if a single person/table doesn’t tip themyou… uh… have other issues to think about
i hope i can avoid ever having to come to the US.
There are already a lot of good answers here, but I thought you might appreciate a fictionalized version of my personal experience.
—
Back in the kitchen, the hostess comes in.
“I’ve got a 2-top at table 23, who’s next in the rotation?”
“Uh… I think it’s Bob, but he’s busy doing bumps in the walk in. I’ll take it. They nice?”
“Uhh, I think they’re German.”
—
Unfortunately for them, the knowledge that Europeans tend to tip poorly or not at all proceeds them. The server who took the two top will still serve them, but either consciously or subconsciously the service will suffer. Maybe your food was done five minutes ago sitting on the hot line, but your server decided to go chat up the elderly couple or the regular customer instead. Maybe the server is more rude or cold to you than other guests. Or maybe you’re lucky and your server isn’t yet jaded. Your mileage may vary depending on if you’re eating in a small town diner or a tourist hotspot, but even if the service seems fine, there’s almost certainly chatter going on behind your back from the moment you sit down.
There’s a very small chance that your server will chase after you if you leave no tip, but that is virtually unheard of and will get the server fired if it’s a nicer establishment. The more likely chain of events is that you leave, the server checks the checkbook, then goes into the back-of-house to scream/cry/drink/smoke/fuck someone/something. It’s completely ruined several of my shifts.
—BUT—
The above is all wrong. It felt gross to type, and feels grosser to know that I once felt that. These feelings may have been ‘valid’ considering the tipped system that I was a part of, but I have a hard time thinking of them as ‘reasonable’. As an empathetic human, I wish to treat everyone well. Also, I love travel, and would love to spend 30 minutes talking about the Cologne cathedral or the Bielefeld conspiracy or whateverthefuck. But I can’t, because then I’d be actively losing money. The profit motive of tip system makes servers, managers, and even clients all jaded. The anger that I felt when I was stiffed was unjustly redirected from the tipping system to the individual, because the system is designed to perpetuate itself. I make less money now, but I’m very glad I left that industry.
—
BONUS: If you want to see a hilarious yet barely over exaggerated vignette of what American servers do and how they think when you can’t see them, give Waiting… (2005) a watch.
No
no it’s not required but I can afford to tip so I do and that makes me better than people who don’t ;)
You do not have to tip. Feel free to, but there is no law, no moral reason, and in a Capitalist Society it is enforcing the status quo. The tip is just a way to subsidize the owner of the restaurant and ensure workers are never paid more then minimum wage without tips.
