Someone posted this online…
Outrageous and greedy.
Newest one for me, my physical therapy office sent a “how was your appointment with X today?” With one to 5 stars to click. I clicked 5 because I like my therapist and he’s helping me…immediately I got a “how about giving X a tip?” With a fill in the dollar amount - um, no. I don’t tip my dental hygienist or the nurse practitioner at my OBGYN either. Sheesh!
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I must say I’m speechless!
I just don’t understand this. What crazy world are we all living in these days?!
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I’m sorry, I think our country has gone mad in tipping and I refuse to go along with it. I don’t tip my PT, whom we are crazy about and have been seeing for years. I tip waithelp IF they serve me, not if I stand at a counter, order and then fetch my order. I refuse to tip inflated amounts and tip what I feel appropriate—mostly custom tips or cash.
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IMO, the craziness stems from the fact that having an electronic payment system ask for the tip is 0 incremental cost - it even eliminates the personal embarrassment that a service provider who normally is not tipped would have if he or she had to ask - so that just 1 person, 1 cent of tip is incremental income to someone. The only potential downside to a business is that a customer would get so mad that they would not go back. That is unlikely to happen unless the product/service were so bad that they would not have come back anyways.
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I agree with your post, but I think there is another potential downside and that is the customer sharing their negative opinion on the business soliciting tips with others. In this day and age, since people often share these things via social media, the negative coverage can be widespread and some potential customers may opt out before ever giving the business a try.
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People worry that if they don’t tip the wait staff well they may be remembered on a repeat visit and the person will spit in their food. Imagine what could happen if dental hygienists or ob/gyn nurse didn’t approve of one’s tip amount. Ouch ouch ouch .
Yes, NextDoor is full of comments about places where people are tired of all these charges being added and tips on top of everything and discouraging of such places.
I’m tired of feeling like we are supposed to provide generous tips everywhere all the time. Feels very much like when our kids were young and wanted everything in the gift or snack shop. We just said no.
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From the article…
One thing is clear: The ubiquity of digital payment apps that invite consumers to tip appears to be breeding some consumer resentment. Two-thirds of those polled expressed a negative view about tipping, Bankrate found, while 41% of respondents said businesses should pay their employees better rather than relying so much on tips to boost workers’ income.
Meanwhile, just 16% of adults say they would be willing to pay higher prices if tipping were eliminated altogether.
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This BBC article compared tipping from various countries. The experience someone in the article had re.tipping in the US was similar to what we discussed here, outrageous.
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People tended to tip more generously during 2020-2021 to show appreciation for what food service workers were doing to keep things going.
Now that we are closer to normal life again, it seems that outrageous tipping is now the expectation. Seems to be built in to all point-of-sale software, whether it is appropriate or not.
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We need to put aside feeling self conscious and speak up when that auto tip screen comes up. I do, whenever I can. And it’s helpf to start carrying around a bit of cash for these situations.
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I honestly have no issue just selecting no tip, the businesses invested $ in these screens during Covid, but that doesn’t mean cashiers expect tips like servers do.
We shouldn’t have an issue with no tip, you are right. But too many people feel obliged to, and/or don’t even understand that “no tip” or “other amount” is an option.
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I Aiways think - these people are working hard or if young kids….I feel sorry.
If throwing in a buck or two doesn’t impact me but helps them, I’m ok.
But it took me a long time to get here.
I mean if I go get my food when u call my # why should I tip.
But time has wore me down.
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I don’t, because where does it end? I’m going to go with the hyperbolic scenario here… This assumes we are talking about people who earn less because they are considered tipped workers. But as we are all aware, all kinds of workers are now suggesting tips. Or their card readers are.
Why not give the grocery store checkout person a tip? Especially if they help bag my items? Why not tip the sales clerk at Macys? Why not tip the law mowing guys every time they finish? Why not tip the dental hygienist and the receptionist and the dentist? Why not tip the guy at Home Depot who directs me to the right aisle? They were all helpful and provided a service. The lines over who gets a tip and who doesn’t are totally blurred now.
Not only do I not feel sorry for them, I also dislike that more frequently we are now seeing options to tip up to 50%. If I tip 50%, they’d better be cutting up my food and wiping my mouth for me too😆. At what point is an expectation of a 30% tip making it unaffordable for not-rich people to eat out?
I fully support wait staff, and I waited tables all through college. If people can’t afford to tip, don’t eat out. Having said that, if the expectation is I must always leave a large tip for anyone who asks, I have to draw a line.
Maybe I can afford to spend $120 on dinner for two, with a $24 tip a few times a year. Think of what I can afford for $120. My 20% tip x 5 equals one whole meal out. I can afford that. But If I am tipping $36 each time on the same $120 bill, I’m only going to be able to afford three meals out and some change.
If these unreasonable expectations continue unchecked, people will simply be unable to afford spending money on unnecessary things. For young people, Starbucks and Chili’s with friends gets unaffordable. For middle class people, the family meal out at Red Lobster, or PF Changs, or Legal Seafood starts to become unaffordable.
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My big fear is that the employees don’t get the tips, that management takes a cut out of them.
A Boston-based cruise company, Vantage, has been in the news recently as the company is teetering toward bankruptcy, cancelling cruises while still accepting deposits for new bookings, etc. I bring this up because a new development is that the crew on one of last cruises to run did NOT get their tips from management.
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I am not against tips. At sit down restaurants and especially at the mom and pop ice cream stores and coffee shops.
But I have to say, the longer we overextend who we are tipping, the more likely it is to become norm and/or expected. We gotta work as a non-over-tipping team!!
Well this is true. I want to tip who deserves to be tipped.
But not extra people. But I’m numb to it on all food at this point.