Interesting article on U.S. Tipping

[scubaozy]

It’s because the US is, at its core, an entrepreneurial, free-market culture. And tipping is an entrepreneurial model. Customers are conditioned to tip and employees are conditioned to earn their tips – like any entrepreneur.

People who wrote this article have no idea what entrepreneur means. If I worked in a restaurant and my boss told me this, first thing I would do next morning is to fire him and take over that restaurant.

“We treat our sections like our own small businesses,” write six workers with more than 50 years of experience in the restaurant industry. “To us, the restaurant floor is an interwoven system of independent entrepreneurs that runs like a well-oiled machine. We have no issue with an increased minimum wage for non-tipped workers, but for our industry the tipping model works for the guests, the employees and the company.”

Same as the first one, utter nonsense. Bottom line of the second article is as I read, some service workers may prefer tip system its because they might actually earn more in tips than salaried work. Why? Because the price is variable and noone knows what that is exactly. So, it is up to emotional state of the customer and it seems our emotions favor the tipping higher more often than it doesn't.
This is all about creating ambiguity about the price basically.

 

[Jcp2]

You could try to take over the restaurant, but only after buying it from the owner at a price that both of you agree to. My guess is then you might not want to open the restaurant after all.

 

[Angelo Farina]

Been busy, but the issue of foreign workers getting left holding the (tipping) bag regarding expenses stuck in my head a bit. It's worth pointing out a few things...

There are workarounds for dealing with these things.

Sure, for food there are workarounds. I did already find a number of places where service is included, or there is no service.
For other things, however, such as taxis, there are more problems. I was told by many taxi drivers, which I attempted not to tip, that the ticket from the taxi company does not include their wage, and that a 15% tip is expected as minimum...
I do not know about other law-bordering services, such as Uber: do these drivers expect a tip?
Of course as a worker I did never use these service, as the Uber driver cannot release a proper tax-traceable receipt, so I would get no refund.
But I wonder if these problems only affect foreign workers: how American workers can get reimbursement for their travel expenses for the tips paid for food, taxis, boats, diving?
Here most people travel or eat while working, not for holidays, hence getting reimbursable (ot tax-deducible) receipts is a very common need everywhere...

 

[brsnow]

Sure, for food there are workarounds. I did already find a number of places where service is included, or there is no service.
For other things, however, such as taxis, there are more problems. I was told by many taxi drivers, which I attempted not to tip, that the ticket from the taxi company does not include their wage, and that a 15% tip is expected as minimum...
I do not know about other law-bordering services, such as Uber: do these drivers expect a tip?
Of course as a worker I did never use these service, as the Uber driver cannot release a proper tax-traceable receipt, so I would get no refund.
But I wonder if these problems only affect foreign workers: how American workers can get reimbursement for their travel expenses for the tips paid for food, taxis, boats, diving?
Here most people travel or eat while working, not for holidays, hence getting reimbursable (ot tax-deducible) receipts is a very common need everywhere...

I travel for work, I take a picture of receipt with sub total, tip, my signature on credit card receipt and upload to program my company uses. Uber emails a itemized receipt showing tip that I upload as well. Pretty straight forward to get reimbursed.

 

[David Novo]

In Portugal, Uber gives invoices with tax number, fully refundable by employers.

 

[Jcp2]

It depends. Companies more often in the past gave a per diem that can be claimed but now more often require itemization and may or may not reimburse for the tip. If they do not then the employee pays out of pocket. It’s possible to then write these personal expenses off as business related expenses, but only the total that exceeds 2% gross revenue, so it’s generally not worth it.

 

[brsnow]

Most of the time I use a company issued CC so just submit receipts via their program and they pay the CC.