[ntr--]

> Tipping is about making sure the people who are performing that service for you are getting paid what they’re owed

Here in AU we call that "wages".

Having to do quick maths while under social pressure and the threat of having your service quality degraded to make up for an employer or state being unwilling to pay workers enough to live might be called "coercion", but certainly it is externalising costs onto the customer.

[Insanity]

As a European living in Canada, the tipping culture took some time to get used to. It's such a stupid/bad system.

[JimtheCoder]

Am Canadian, can confirm...

I do wish there was a way to tip the drivers who deliver my Amazon Prime stuff, though.

I don't want to tip someone who presses a few buttons on a screen to take my food order, that they usually mess up and sometimes add on a free side of bad attitude.

I would like an easy way to tip the guy who is trudging through the snow to deliver my 2KG jar of peanut butter at 9:30pm in January. I like this guy...

[pseudo0]

Tipping in Canada is extra absurd. The minimum wage for servers and bartenders is the same as for regular workers (eg. $15.50 per hour in Ontario). But thanks to cultural osmosis from the US, 15-25% tips are also expected on top of that.

[EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK]

In southern Europe, automatic 10% tips are often included. But the server will whisper into your ear that he doesn't see any of those 10%, owner takes it all for herself.

[ALittleLight]

Heh, I was in Canada recently and asked a waiter "Do you tip here?" Apparently they do.

[hedora]

The US faced a dilemma: Post civil war, many people didn't want to pay freed slaves for their labor.

A combination of tipping and converting jobs that were typically held by blacks to unpaid positions provided a solution. It became popular despite attempts to ban the practice.

Today, tipped workers in the US are paid, but have a lower minimum wage than normal workers.

Source: https://time.com/5404475/history-tipping-american-restaurant...

FWIW: Because I abhor the practice, I always tip 20%. If service is sufficiently bad, I tip 20% and never come back.

[makeitdouble]

A sociologist was joking on twitter that “every time I dig a rule that has been on the book for a long time but doesn’t seem to make any sense, it ends up to come from slavery” (paraphrasing)

I didn’t expect tipping to follow the same rule.

[BugsJustFindMe]

> Today, tipped workers in the US are paid, but have a lower minimum wage than normal workers.

Not in all states.

[valdiorn]

If there's anything we could actually call "institutionalised racism", I think tipping culture fits the bill.

It's a system literally implemented because a large portion of society didn't want to pay black people wages.

[barfingclouds]

All states that border the Pacific Ocean have full minimum wage (as in at least $14/hour) no matter what your job. Source: have lived there, have worked in restaurant

[lotsofpulp]

> Today, tipped workers in the US are paid, but have a lower minimum wage than normal workers.

No, they have the same minimum wage as all workers. The employer is liable to pay the employee if tips + earnings from tipped min wage are less than earnings from non tipped minimum wage.

[ssss11]

Thanks for the explanation! I didn’t know the history

[blacksmith_tb]

I can see the point of leaving a tip when a server has done a really good job (of course they should be paid a decent wage too). For me the annoying bit is being asked to tip before I have been served - I don't know yet if I would like to leave a big tip or a small one.

[hgsgm]

So you tip the cook when the cook does a really good job?

[ugh123]

> threat of having your service quality degraded

Or even worse, be publicly outed by a waiter online because they didn't agree with the tipped amount (retrieving your full name from the CC receipt). Happens.

[cudgy]

Foolish move. I’ll bet the restaurant owner loves (fires) the waiters for doing this. It hurts the restaurant and the waiters more than the single customer.