Maybe we should not have tips? There is no actual need or advantage to giving people tips, and there are plenty of countries where tipping is not common (including some where cash is still favored over electronic payments). Why not just pay people a fair wage that they can live on?
Its time to pay people a living wage, and stop the tipping culture. I hate carrying cash, and It bothers me that I have to carry $1 bills for the tipping extortion.<p>Im resentful that I have to pay for things as well as bribe the workers. Its disgusting.
Tipping is often associated with both corruption and racism:<p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2012/09/05/study-countries-with-more-tipping-are-more-corrupt/" rel="nofollow">https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2012/09/05/study...</a><p><a href="http://scholarship.sha.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1030&context=articles" rel="nofollow">http://scholarship.sha.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?artic...</a><p>I have actually almost entirely stopped using Uber after they made tipping part of the app. I've worked in a place with tipping, and my experience directly corroborates those links.
A lot of these jobs that they're bemoaning the loss of tips for, also aren't all that necessary. If establishments want to give off the impression they're upper class, they ought to pay these "professions" considerably more considering they obviously have the money. Otherwise, opening doors and operating elevators are things I'm content to do on my own.
Is it really worth tipping someone to open a door or press a button in an elevator? I never understood the need for this position, let alone why anyone would ever tip them.
The 'cashless society' is starting to show another dark side here in Sweden in that several banks have started to close accounts for organisations [1] which don't "agree to the bank's ethical foundation" (the Swedish word is "Värdegrund" [2]). While there still are banks willing to take these organisations as customers this is a development in the wrong direction. It does not matter whether you agree with the "ethical foundation" these "banned" organisations have, the important fact is that they operate within the bounds of the law of the land. This used to be the deciding factor to separate 'good' from 'bad', legal from illegal, allowed from disallowed. Cash does not care about politics, it is - by law - as valid for a communist as it is for a priest or a libertarian. This currently does not go for the services provided by banks to enable transactions in a cashless society as can be seen by the Swedish example; there is no compulsion for those banks to take up anyone or any organisation as a customer. In a polarised society like Sweden where the pressure to abide by the "ethical foundation" is very strong this leads to extra-judicial sentences on those who do not abide by or agree to those ethical foundations.<p>Had those organisations been shunned because of their stance on, say, religion, those banks would be accused of discrimination. Discrimination based on political orientation however is currently not protected by law. If the "cashless society" is to succeed this probably will have to change, doing anything else will only lead to even more segregation where "left-wing" financial institutions refuse to do business with "right-wing" customers.<p>In short, in a land ruled by law it is the law which should be the boundary between what is allowed and disallowed. As long as an individual or an organisations abides by the law their ideological standpoint should be irrelevant to financial service companies.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.friatider.se/nordea-st-nger-ner-nationalisters-konton-kan-ej-motivera-varf-r-och-l-gger-p-luren" rel="nofollow">http://www.friatider.se/nordea-st-nger-ner-nationalisters-ko...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%A4rdegrund" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%A4rdegrund</a>
<i>Do</i> people not carry cash?<p>Maybe the types who have an apartment with a doorman in Manhattan don't. But I (a "millenial") often go to bars and restaurants that are cash only.<p>Eventually, I found it was easier keep budget my "entertainment" in cash. Visually being able to see how much I have, how much I'm taking out helps. Being able to see that amount grow if I'm frugal one month feels good too.<p>I have friends who claim they get value from "points". But unless you're working towards a spending minimum for a sign up bonus, I've found the amount you make (2-5%) from using your credit card is less than the savings from thinking critically about which cash purchases to make.
This is the kind of reason I hate tipping culture: I never knew that you were supposed to tip the Elevator Man.<p>Now, I've only encountered an elevator man once in my life in the US. But still. It never occurred to me that he should be tipped.<p>And that's my main problem, the ambiguity. There's no consistency in who should get tipped and how much is a decent amount. And that kind of opaqueness always hurts everyone involved but a few lucky ones.
I'm reminded of a family friend telling me a story about how last year they were on day trip somewhere and a power outage happened to occur in whatever one-shop town out in the boondocks they were visiting and only one old Grandma had cash to pay for a drink or snack while the power was out, everyone else basically had to starve through lunch waiting for the power to come back on.
I've had this problem from the other side. I haven't been to the bank to withdraw cash in years. Usually I got all the cash I needed by splitting bills with friends, where I paid on the card and got cash, or Chinese New Year money.<p>But since having kids (and the invention of Venmo and its ilk), we've stopped going out with friends and splitting checks and when we do it's all digital, and now I have to <i>give</i> the New Year money instead of get it.<p>We have a house cleaner every couple of weeks that I like to tip, and lately it's been a struggle to find cash lying around for the tip. Also when I get a haircut they give a big discount for cash, and that's been a struggle too. Like the girl in the article, I just forget to go to the cash machine, it's not a priority until the time comes.<p>I may have to visit the ATM for the first time in a few years this holiday season to give holiday tips.
A lot of the arguments for getting away from tips are for servers.<p>There's already a solution in place to handle cashless tips for them. They aren't responsible for the transaction fee a lot of processors pass onto the gig economy. It works relatively well, even in the event of loss of internet or power.<p>The laws of averages work out for an average server, I worked for 5 years in the restaurant industry and two years of that was 100% waiting tables. I averaged $24-$26K between those two years in two different states and 4 different cities. Both of those states are at the US minimum wage of $2.13/hr (for restaurant waiters).<p>I worked about 30-40 hours a week. We're talking ~$12-$13/hr average. It's was definitely much better than any minimum wage position I could have had.<p>Anecdotally, the servers I knew who complained most about the wage were also the least responsible ones with their money. We worked at a restaurant that gave you your tips at the end of the night and to many peers, the urge to spend that cold hard cash was too strong. Those responsible but just underpaid were underpaid either way; they still could usually keep it together at $12-$13/hr, still a good wage for someone relatively just getting started career-wise.<p>Whatever wage you made from the $2.13/hr usually just covered your taxes. Most of my deposited paychecks were less than $10 every other week.<p>I know that this isn't what other countries do, but it <i>does</i> work and keeps most families and individuals out of the poverty level. The requirements for work are relatively undemanding and most people who want a job serving get a job serving.
When I was a kid, we tipped the postal worker and several other "service workers" that didn't need it the way food service does. It's just a nice eway of saying "thank you for your work". The purely logical among you will say "That's what a wage is for" but that's not the point. Kind of like how I don't get Christmas gift because I can't afford socks.
I’m bothered by the need to carry cash just for tips, kind of like how quarters function solely as special magic tokens for parking meters. Starbucks, for instance, does not have tipping activated on their electronic check out… Who knows why? I tip with every coffee I get, except when I’m unable to because of payment technology.
There is no way we will rid this society of tips. People will need to be paid more to compensate. And not many capitalist want to to give more and earn less. I was just in New York yesterday. Upon seeing the doormen dressed like the guy in Home Alone, I realized that there are people who still want you dressed in a monkey suit for no logical reason. I doubt they're willing to pay them more. I'm certain someone can make the doorman a device that will allow them to easily receive tips via chip card. I've seen boy scouts who use stripe.<p>On a side note do we even need door men?