Incessant Fee’s, tip pandering, and Shrinkflation

[Rich Konopka]

Regarding Tipping. I am a big tipper. I always appreciate someone who is working their butt off and relies on tips for their income. I don't like going into 5 Guys, Chinese Resturant, Starbucks , dunkin, etc where they are paid an hourly wage and groveling for tips.

I have always understood that a tip should be applied to the Food & Drink for service at a restaurant. I have noticed that the "Suggested Tip" at the bottom of the receipt more often is calculated with the fees and taxes.

[Thomas McCurnin]

I have a close friend that runs a restaurant and also a bar. The cost of most raw materials, eggs, flour, meat and the like have gone up. By the way, to go orders cost the restaurant more for packing and supplies.

As for delivery, it is the cost of convenience for cold food. Pay it and watch TV instead of driving, fighting traffic, and parking. Or not.

I tend to tip anyone who delivers anything to the home that I can catch.

[Edward Weber]

Shrinkflation: its been going on forever but I still fume over it, as I'm looking at my breakfast oreo cookie which seems to be half the size it used to be and with hardly any filling. I blame the ignorant buying public who don't look and don't know a pound is 16 ounces, not 12 (bacon) or 13 (coffee), and can't count or calculate value. Marketing is a science and they know how to use our weaknesses against us. I don't blame companies for wanting to make money, but people for being unwilling to learn basic math.

Tip-flation: Everyone expects, even demands, tips for doing nothing significant. Guilt-tipping is the new term, as nobody actually tips based on quality of service, just fear of being disliked. And I remember when it was pre-tax amount, but that idea disappeared. Yes, self-service concessions at the ballpark, where the only thing a human does is hand me a hotdog, and I'm supposed to tip? It's a ridiculous custom, to subsidize labor costs. Why cant we just expect businesses to pay their workers? The pandemic was/is used as an excuse to bump up tip expectations. Now it's permanent, and everywhere. Pandering for tips? I dont mind tipping for helpful service, but I value professionalism and efficiency over false friendliness and hovering. I dont need you to be my friend, just get my order correctly.

Delivery: the only food I have delivered is from my local pizza shop. The fewer people handling my food, the better. If I need McD's that badly, I can get off the couch or plan my day better. The grocery delivery services I can understand. I think the trend to cashless transactions means some people have learned to not see the cumulative effect of all these small purchases, because they dont see the cash leaving their hand. And mom & dad pay off the credit card, so it's not real money.

I wholeheartedly agree.
The entire concept of tipping was to give someone a little bit extra on top of their meager wages. A small amount to acknowledge that they went above their expected duties and that it was appreciated.

Now tipping is built in? not for me. You earn a tip, it's not a forgone conclusion.
There have even been stories about self checkout machines asking for a tip.

Pay people a proper wage, they shouldn't have to rely on their customers kindness/guilt to subsidize their pay.

[Doug Garson]

Sure, lots of interesting articles on the topic are available. Here is a well written one from 2021:


https://www.newyorker.com/culture/q-...-delivery-apps

with a nice quote:

"I was the former Head of Innovation at Grubhub, so I have seen the truth behind many of these claims first hand. Sadly, I invented a lot of the food delivery technologies that are now being used for evil. … COVID-19 is exposing the fact that delivery platforms are not actually in the business of delivery. They are in the business of finance. In many ways, they are like payday lenders for restaurants and drivers. They give you the sensation of cash-flow, but at the expense of your long term future and financial stability. Once you “take out this loan” you will never pay it back and it will ultimately kill your business."

Thanks, I wasn't aware of this. May still use Skip as we like the convenience but next time I'll look at ordering direct from the restaurant website. Did do it that way recently as Skip suddenly decided one of our favorite restaurants was outside our delivery area.

[Cameron Wood]

I worked as a waiter in my youth, and it was a baseline skill to take orders from a table, and deliver them to the right persons without having to ask who ordered what. These days, servers seem to have trouble even finding the right table.

Incompetentsation?

[Pat Germain]

Pay people a proper wage, they shouldn't have to rely on their customers kindness/guilt to subsidize their pay.

This. Big picture:

- Wages have not kept up with inflation over the past few decades. People dog unions a lot and many have valid reasons for doing so. But those same people talk of a "Golden Age" in the 1950s and a big part of that Golden Age came about from labor unions.
- The cost for higher education has gone up many times greater than the rate of inflation
- The cost of gasoline and diesel is up

All this adds up to goods and services costing us more.

When I was a lad, it was possible to graduate high school and work an entry-level job to pay for a cheap car, rent a cheap apartment or house with some friends maybe and even go to college. This is no longer possible. There are no more cheap apartments or houses for rent. There are no more cheap cars. Tuition is WAY too high. Although pay for entry-level jobs has gone up, it's still not nearly a living wage in most parts of the country. This is why your typical counter service has a tip jar. They are simply trying to get by as people in my generation did when we were young.

I grew up in Orange County, California where these issues cropped up in the early 1980s. My cousins had to live with their parents as young adults because housing was so ridiculously expensive. All these problems are now common in most of the country.

[Pat Germain]

I worked as a waiter in my youth, and it was a baseline skill to take orders from a table, and deliver them to the right persons without having to ask who ordered what. These days, servers seem to have trouble even finding the right table.

Incompetentsation?

This is because, post-pandemic, the skilled and experienced wait staff got better jobs with better pay, better hours and benefits. When hundreds of thousands of older workers retired during the pandemic, that left a lot of open jobs and many people were able to move up. Now there's a large vacuum at the lower rungs.

[Rob Luter]

I fight this trend by never using any delivery service, rarely getting carry out, and not dining out very often. When we do carry out it’s Chinese from a place I’ve gone for almost 30 years. I’m happy to tip them for putting my order together. When we dine out it’s at a Mom and Pop. I tip well as the wait staff are busting their collective butts. Mostly, I’m a good cook and don’t need to depend on someone else for nourishment.

[Chris Parks]

No tipping in Australia as a general rule, thanks for the service and move on. Pay the staff a living wage and everything becomes so much simpler.

[Curt Harms]

FWIW, Bing AI said DoorDash offered 15-30% plans to restaurants and the average (or maybe, typical) was 20%. Few months back there was newspaper article about how the restaurants in the pandemic were squeezed by delivery services.
In general, though, it all boils down to convenience for the end-user and maybe these services provide enough value-added to make it worthwhile for a business to pay the charge.

There's one time that delivery services are useful - if you're in a hotel without a car. Even at hotels that offer something to eat - I hesitate to call it food - it's useful to have an alternative besides Dominos.

[Rich Konopka]

There's one time that delivery services are useful - if you're in a hotel without a car. Even at hotels that offer something to eat - I hesitate to call it food - it's useful to have an alternative besides Dominos.

Ding Ding Ding !! Winner winner of a Chickens dinner. That is exactly how I started using them when traveling years ago using Grub Hub n NYC. I used them to order from Ollies for what was some of the best Chinese in NYC.

[Kevin Jenness]

Mr. Pink doesn't tip. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4sTSIYzDIk

[Keegan Shields]

No tipping in Australia as a general rule, thanks for the service and move on. Pay the staff a living wage and everything becomes so much simpler.

Agreed. It’s an artifact of the US and has its roots in the Jim Crow south after slavery was abolished. Being a waiter was one of the only occupations open to African American men. They worked on 100% tips. Our current system is a direct descendent.

Lots of info out there on how our tipping system requires waiters to put up with sexual harassment, verbal abuse, etc. all in the pursuit of tips.

That said, including a tip line on the receipt when I grab a coffee from Starbucks always struck me as odd. Starting pay at Starbucks is around $14/hr in Texas. Certainly not the $2/hr base salary that waiters get.

[Rich Konopka]

Agreed. It’s an artifact of the US and has its roots in the Jim Crow south after slavery was abolished. Being a waiter was one of the only occupations open to African American men. They worked on 100% tips. Our current system is a direct descendent.
.

So tipping is racist? Than it should be abolished 😬

[Keegan Shields]

Isn’t history fun?

I’m certainly in favor of eliminating our tipping system and paying waiters a living wage.

Another widespread issue with our tipping system - wage theft. If waiters base pay + tips don’t add up to minimum wage at the end of a pay period, restaurant owners are supposed to make up the difference. Many don’t.