Perhaps you’ve noticed. We have reached a tipping point in the country over tipping.
To tip or not to tip has led to Shakespearean soliloquies by customers explaining why they refuse to tip for certain things.
During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, customers were grateful for those who seemingly risked their safety so we could get groceries, order dinner or anything that made our lives feel normal. A nice tip was the least we could do to show gratitude.
But now that we are out about and back to normal, the custom of tipping for just about everything has somehow remained; and customers are upset.
A new study from Pew Research shows most American adults say tipping is expected in more places than it was five years ago, and there’s no real consensus about how tipping should work.
I went to a brewery recently where they swipe your card at the entrance and hand you a little black credit card type thing. You find your own seats, you go grab a glass, and you insert the card into a slot at a beer tap and pour your own beer, priced by the ounce. If you want food, you go to a kiosk, put your card in, and order food. When it’s ready, you go to the kitchen and pick it up to bring back to your seat. When you leave, you bring the card back up to the register and they charge you for all the food and drink. But then it asks you how much you wanna tip. Who the fuck am I tipping? I was my own host, my own bartender, my own waiter, my own bus boy. I haven’t seen an actual employee here except for some woman who swiped my credit card during a 5 second interaction.
I went to a brewery like this as well. Pretty annoying to have to carry your own food out from the kitchen because they weren’t optimizing for take out. They had heavy plates and bowls. Also, feel like rather than sitting and relaxing I’m forced to get up and run around looking for condiments and silverware and water cups. Can’t make it all in one trip. Don’t quite feel like a guest. Then at the end you’re expected to bus your own table.
And yes, they wanted a full 20% tip, probably even 25% if I remember right.
Wtf is the point of this. Even if they wanted to save on labor costs of wait staff and everything why not just use your own card instead of trading it for a temporary card.
It’s like this pizza place I went to recently. They had a little arcade so I went to put some quarters in and realized I had to go buy tokens at a machine first. It wasn’t Dave and Busters or anything, just a hole in the wall with a few games in a corner. I didn’t buy any tokens. Same with laundromats that now want you to buy tokens ahead of time.
There isn’t a single business anymore that isn’t trying to just blatantly scam you out of your money. They used to at least be more subtle about it.
it divorces the act of spending from actual money, so you spend more. like buying gems in a mobile game. also saves on credit card transaction fees.
You’re comparing weeks of spending to a couple hours at a bar though, I’m not sure if that’s really comparable.
There’s a couple other reasons that apply as well:
Because they get charged less by the bank for lower quantity of bigger transactions, instead of high number of small transactions. Also allows for people who have cash but no card to use the system.
