Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.

Alamias

@Ganymede said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

@Thenomain said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

(Don't raise your hand @Ganymede. We all know you.)

The fuck, dude? I'm a regular at Golden Corral.

Why wouldn't you be? Golden Corral is excellent for a buffet.

Ganymede

@Thenomain said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

Now that’s living the high life!

Actually, the service at the Golden Corral here is pretty damn good. In fact, there's a lot of places that I frequent which have great service. Of course, I used to work in the service industry, so I may be more forgiving on certain things, and more picky about others (like, WTF, host, why the fuck is my server on the other side of the restaurant, you stupid bint?).

I might be able to afford a larger house if I didn't tip so largely, but I've been there -- I've been there. Take this 40% tip because you showed me a pic of your baby, and she's adorable, sir.

Kanye Qwest

@Ganymede my bank regularly sends me emails that say "did you really mean to tip 40% of your bill?" Yes. How many times do I need to confirm this. Waitressing as a teenager and bartending as a young adult was an illuminating experience.

Tinuviel

Reliance on tips still boggles my mind.

ETA: That is to say a business' reliance on tips rather than paying an actual living wage.

Ganymede

@Tinuviel said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

ETA: That is to say a business' reliance on tips rather than paying an actual living wage.

There is a slow movement in the United States to move away from tips towards a better wage for service workers, but it is exceedingly slow.

Tinuviel

@Ganymede said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

@Tinuviel said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

ETA: That is to say a business' reliance on tips rather than paying an actual living wage.

There is a slow movement in the United States to move away from tips towards a better wage for service workers, but it is exceedingly slow.

As all societal change is, alas.

Sparks

@Kanye-Qwest said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

@Ganymede my bank regularly sends me emails that say "did you really mean to tip 40% of your bill?" Yes. How many times do I need to confirm this. Waitressing as a teenager and bartending as a young adult was an illuminating experience.

That honestly strikes me as incredibly obnoxious of your bank; the whole business seems wildly unproductive whether or not they keep repeating it. It comes across almost like reverse tip-shaming: "Why did you tip so much? Are you sure you want to do this? Shouldn't you keep more of your money?" I mean, do people working service industry jobs honestly need smaller tips than the fairly miniscule amount they already get on average?

Just... yikes.

Ghost

@Sparks @Kanye-Qwest I gather they're probably checking to see if the restaurant isn't turning 3s into 8s.

Knowing what I know about the bank industry, it probably has less to do with your money and more to do with investigating probable gratuity fraud in the same way they follow up on sudden purchases from Kazakhstan.

Average tip being 15-20%, double that in a tip might raise a flag.

ETA: Now that I think about it...

Most transactions your bank receives comes at a flat amount on your statement. There's a thing on credit card terminals called tip overage. When your card is swiped it assumes a 20% tip as acceptable but a tip higher than 20% risks flagging for fraud, YOUR bank initiating a chargeback, and the transaction rate could be downgraded. So going over 20% on a cash tip isn't so huge a deal, but on a card it's more scrutinized.

Advice? 20% on the card and if you can leave extra cash on the table.

https://www.cardfellow.com/blog/tips-credit-card-affect-restaurant/

Kanye Qwest

I wasn't really asking for advice. It is a bit onbnoxious in that it's not my BANK bank but my credit card bank ( I don't usually pay with my debit card). So while i would prefer that capital one would move me to a rule group that doesn't flag high gratuity, that'd be great, but i'm not gonna start carrying cash over it.

Ghost

@Kanye-Qwest Fair enough. Tipping has changed a lot since back in the day. I wasn't giving you advice per se. Fact is that if any one wants to support (over 20%)the tip-based service industry your best options are still to tip cash or 20%+cash extra.

The card payment industry can get pretty complex in terms of how money shuffles around.

Example: All transactions on credit cards are ultimately ranked by risk. The higher the risk, the more the credit card company charges the merchant to process the transaction. This is why merchants and card issuers push for use of in-person transactions with verified ID and chip readers. MOTO (mail order/telephone order) transactions are higher risk since the merchant can't see the person making the purchase, so those typically cost more. This is why they want to verify address, zip, cvv code, etc. Each one of those verified lowers the % of the transaction the merchant has to pay to run the card.

MOTO is the main source of fraudulent/ID theft-based transactions.

Credit card with tip is considered somewhat risky because typically the card is run and pre-authorized for a 20% tip, but then later someone has to go and enter the tips data-entry style. If it's risky enough, the server might not actually get the tip until it clears the bank. If your card issuer refuses the transaction, they might not get the tip at all.

9/10 times everything works out fine, but I wouldn't be surprised if sometimes those reddit threads where someone posts a pic of someone giving them a $1000 tip on Christmas Eve end in a bunch of bank calls, a hold on the transaction, etc.

Restaurants and servers don't mention this, but behind the scenes, caaaaaash.

mietze

I see the slow movement from tips to wages at high end places here, but unfortunately in other areas the gig platforms are moving people rapidly the other way. Even directly misleading customers about their "tips" which are often stolen by the company itself or are obfuscated so that the company changes the amount they pay their driver/deliverer/shopper based on the tip. Say they promise the contractor $15 for a delivery. If the customer tips $10, then that company will just add $5 to make the difference between what they promised their contractor, and then just make it seem like the customer offered no tip. These places get caught, get handslapped, fix it for a little while, and then go right back to it.

When I worked instacart I had a regular customer show me her text convo with support one time when they kept missing their promised delivery window. She never adds a tip on the app because she knows the IC steals from their contractors, so she always tips cash (and generously). Customer service admitted that it might be because her order was small, and thus didn't pay very well, so they encouraged her to put a big tip in the app to bump up the pay the contractor would see and then just remove it after delivery (For IC and many other places, customers have up to 3 days to remove their tip). I am sure that has happened with food delivery as well (I know some just outright don't disclose tips to their contractors at all).

Ghost

@mietze Ugh I've heard a lot about tip stealing here in town. Remember that crazy "Amy's Baking Company" from Kitchen Nightmares? Those dicks took all tips from their servers. It's legal.

Those big fancy restaurants, like the $90 steak houses, tend to give their staff salaries and (I've heard) sometimes benefits.

Ganymede

@mietze said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

I see the slow movement from tips to wages at high end places here, but unfortunately in other areas the gig platforms are moving people rapidly the other way.

Around here, we're seeing the shift in the casual fast-food joints, like Noodles & Co.. The most vocal critics of no-tipping seem to come from large cities, where restaurant owners have reversed course. In the latter places, though, tips can lead to higher-than-living-wage paychecks, and, in my opinion, restaurant goers like the ability to smack down "their lessers" because, fuck, why not hold oneself up as progressive while simultaneously holding down the "lazy and indolent"?

I frankly think a lot of the backlash is due to elitist prejudice. From an economic standpoint, there's no good reason to continue tipping as a practice; it is unpredictable, and predictability is the hallmark of a strong business model. There are reasons why fast-food joints are much more successful insofar as growth is concerned.

Ghost

@Ganymede I'd be interested to see the differences in any tax rates or benefits to state/federal for tipped vs salaried employees.

I dont have the time to research it, but I'd hypothesize it as having something to do with how tip-based businesses are able to payout less of a wage and base tip percentage allotted based on the store's overall performance.

The pessimist in me imagines that the reason why this change is coming slowly is related to the fact that someone other than the employee is getting something from it.

That New Yorker article about the elitism was interesting as Hell.

ETA: Yeah, or more nefarious or pessimistic, could it truly be that people may be unwilling to pay restaurants more because having control over the tip makes the food cheaper for the diner and gives them more control over the performance of the serving staff?

I dunno

mietze

@Ghost It is something that def happens at brick and mortar. A lot of these gig platforms are getting into trouble for violating laws governing how you treat private contractors as well since those are fairly strict and not very grey. You'd think these guys would learn from Microsoft how expensive that can be when the hammer finally comes down, but it's probably going to take a big hammer again.

I feel sorry for Amazon folks. They treat their actual employees like utter shit. That is one gig platform where the contractors are a) actually treated like contractors and b) treated way better than many of the employees (at least the blue vests/warehouse folks.

People like their convenience. They don't really think about how it gets to them. Not sure that will ever change here.

Ghost

@mietze Yeah, IMO private contractors are risky. Being one, that is.

In my experience most companies hire private contractors as quasi-employees that they don't have to payout vacation or other benefits to that are the first line of cuts when layoffs happen. That way they can keep their employees and buck off the mercenaries.

Sure, you get the freedom of negotiating for your work and don't get sucked into 100% of the company BS, but you do so at the risk of securities, benefits, time off.

mietze

@Ghost pretty sure that's reversing now in some jobs. Employees are cut, in favor of hiring contractors.

Ghost

@mietze Seen a little bit of that lately.

I work with more than a few people who have been "contract" employees, but have been in that state for years. Very few are transitioned into employees.

Now, that could be by choice; I don't know.

mietze

@Ghost Microsoft's use of contractors before, during, and after their legal spanking is pretty interesting. It takes so long to enforce though I am not surprised smaller companies with less deep pockets are taking the risk/crossing boundaries.

Thenomain

@Ganymede said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

@Thenomain said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

Now that’s living the high life!

Actually, the service at the Golden Corral here is pretty damn good. In fact, there's a lot of places that I frequent which have great service.

And this is what I'm finding. Service is either declining (because it's harder to find people who are willing to work the shitty wages that are not rising in pace of cost of living) or are fantastic (because they are and people are willing to try harder for the business to maintain this). There are places where I've been where I go regardless of the service because that's not the point (In-n-Out, e.g.)

I might be able to afford a larger house if I didn't tip so largely, but I've been there -- I've been there. Take this 40% tip because you showed me a pic of your baby, and she's adorable, sir.

People who have worked in that part of the service industry are the best tippers by far, ever, of all time. I myself tip better if I'm treated like a person when I'm smiling and talking and joking, and I'm always respectful of their time because the more people they get to the more money they make.

And if you don't respect that when you get it, then you don't deserve good service.

Sadly, the service workers in that situation can't afford to walk away from your shitty self.