To think tipping is a choice and not mandatory

[Pinkdreams]

I keep seeing posts online about if you can't afford to tip don't eat out, I know this is mainly aimed at America, however it seems people think tipping is mandatory and I don't understand, I don't have an issue with tipping but expecting someone to pay an extra £10 on top of a £50 bill is abit extreme, is it just me who feels this way? I know wait staff don't make a lot in America but shouldn't that be the employers issue?

It's coming to the UK now via uber eats mandatory tip plus payment for delivery you can add on even more money if you wish

It's now cheaper for me to get in my car and get it myself

America is very very different on this.

In the UK, the employment law is clear. Tips can’t count towards minimum wage payments.

Whereas in many states in America the tips are the main source of pay.

If you’re in a country where the restaurant doesn’t actually pay the service staff to a reasonable standard themselves, then you shouldn’t be dining there if you can’t cover the service as well. If you’re in a country where the pay for the service staff is covered as part of the charge for the meal then tipping is perfectly reasonably discretionary.

It’s a US thing. In the UK you are not obliged to tip at all. Wait staff get at least minimum wage.

i often leave a small tip because I was a waitress through uni and it used to cheer me up when someone left a tip. It was never huge amounts, but would buy me a couple of beers at the SU.

US is a different ball game and personally I think it’s got worse. 15% used to be normal, with 20% if you had good service. But recently bills have been coming with a suggested 25% which I think is insane. You’re also asked to tip everywhere, even self service places.

it is pretty much mandatory. At least if you want to go back. You’re right that wait staff often don’t get paid and rely on tips.

My friends son delivers take away on a weekend , he prob gets tipped by 1 in 5 customers , usually only a couple of quid , sometimes just rounded up to nearest £1 ( keep the change ) .
Will say it makes all the difference to a student trying to earn money , and realistically nobody ordering a take away is going to miss a £1 or 2 .
He did tell the story of a customer ordering £98.50 worth and giving him the exact money to the penny which although not wrong per se we all as a collective agreed was tight !

I think this may have appeared here before...

I'll be taking the stairs if I visit the US again.

Payment for delivery isn't unreasonable to be honest. Of course it's cheaper to go out and pick it up yourself. You're paying for the convenience of not leaving your house.

I tip if I want to. If I have had ordinary good service its 10%, great service might be more but if I have had crappy service there will be no tip. Also if I have had really bad service and there is a service tip I won't be paying it - I have only done that 3 times though.
I had an American ask me last week - you can actually just get up and walk out without leaving a tip if you want to????????

Tipping in America is basically mandatory. You won’t be arrested, but you are basically stealing from someone if you don’t in certain situations.

should we change the tipping system? Absolutely. We almost all hate it. Some restaurants have tried. The problem is that one of them have done it properly. They raise the wage, but not to the amount a good server was taking home on a Saturday night. It is averaged out with a new server who only gets two tables during a Tuesday lunch would have expected to make. A top server works their way up to the best shifts and can earn a decent living waiting tables at a successful restaurant. When they change the salary structure their wages plummet. The owners refuse to match the Saturday night peak salary wage so the servers leave. The only way things will change is if the law changes to increase wages and ban tips and there just isn’t any appetite for that.

A lot of cafes and restaurants are starting to add service charge to the bill and you have to opt out of it.

I was in a cafe where they were put out when I asked them to take the 10% service charge off the bill because the service was so bad, it was laughable. They were affronted that I had the audacity to do this. CFs.

Genuine question how hard is it to be a server? Some customers are rude yes, with experience they can learn on how to handle situations. But in essence, it's just taking order and delivering the food. Most people with a bit of good manner can do it.

There is no mandatory tipping on uber eats. We regularly don't tip there due to bad deliveries.

If they are going to make tipping mandatory or as close to it then why not just raise the prices overall by 10% or whatever in the first place

It depends on the level of service you want, on an ongoing basis. A table on a busy night, that nice corner table a hairdresser's apt when you have been asked to the opera at the last minute and she is fully booked.........

In the uk tipping won’t get you any of that.

if a hairdresser’s booked she’s booked. She isn’t going to ditch a client for you because you offered twenty quid. Same with a restaurant, if it’s busy it’s busy and you’ll wait your turn. A corner table perhaps, if it’s free. But if it’s free you’ll get it without needing to tip, if it isn’t free they won’t move someone for you.

unless you’re offering £££££££ to make it worthwhile their while pissing people off cancelling or moving them and risking bad reviews. You may persuade a hairdresser to stay behind after work if you offer enough.

not sure how it works elsewhere like the US, but it doesn’t seem like great business sense to me.

Really? It works for me.

That is unusual.

It isn't in my experience.

Are you in the uk?

it’s a bad business model to ditch a client for another just because they tip. Anyone moving my appointment or my table for someone else is getting terrible reviews and losing my custom. I wouldn’t be tipping them that day for services received and I’d be asking to see a manager to complain.

so you’re happy for you hairdresser to cancel a client to fit you in instead? Or for someone to be moved in a restaurant so you can have their table?

it’s more likely the table/appointment or whatever was available anyway and you’re being made to think your tipping is getting you preferential treatment. That’s good business.

Tipping is a European practice.
It's also mostly included on restaurant bills these days.

Tipping on Uber eats isn't mandatory. It's also an incredibly unethical business model IMO where delivery personnel can often earn below minimum wage on shifts that aren't busy, especially if a car is needed. Knowing that, I think people absolutely should tip a quid or two on each order (and more if you're requiring service from more than one collection) to ensure that the delivery person earns a liveable wage after expenses.

I’m a rules-based person. I want to know how much I’ll be expected to pay, then I’ll pay it. The whole idea of tipping etiquette stresses me out. That’s why I’ll never visit America or go on a cruise or order via a food app. I’ll happily give 10-20% in the UK for good service, but being made to feel bad for getting it wrong? I’m not going to put myself in that situation. There are lots of people like me.

I haven’t paid for a takeaway in cash in at least 7 years!

I presume they mean more that a person who tips well (AND is a pleasure to serve I might add) might find that a hairdresser would consider staying late to squeeze them in if they were fully booked, and that if you were a regular at a restaurant who was nice and tipped well, you might find that the restaurant would do their best to give you the nicer table out of the two available, and be extra attentive to you in a way that they wouldn't for standard guests.

For me as an ex waitress I must say, everybody got good service with a smile from me. If they were lovely regulars, I would go over and above if I could for them - but whilst tips made a big difference to me, how nice they were as customers was more influential than if they tipped - although there's an obvious correlation.

Working functions in a city centre hotel, I'd often have Big Important Men tip well at the beginning of the night and ask that we look after them and their guests at functions well. It certainly gave a feel good feeling and a big smile when I saw them at the bar and I'd do my best for them, but everybody got served in turn. On the very rare occasion that they tipped well up front but were a complete arse, the service level was ever so slightly lower than standard, and nothing you could lay your finger on with certainty.

The moral of the story is, treat service people how you want to be treated, tips or no tips.

Time for the greedy US employers to pay their workers a bit more.

US service workers overwhelmingly don’t want to be paid a set wage and for tipping to be abolished. Why would they? Which would you rather? The potential to earn potentially hundreds of pounds in tips on a busy night provided you grafted, or to earn £12.21 an hour, the going wage for most frontline hospitality staff here?