What gives with gratuities these days? A friend of mine was recently shamed into a 15% tip at a to-go fast food joint. It was on the register as soon as he inserted his card. He said he’d feel shamed to select the no tip option. But he felt ashamed nonetheless because he was coerced into tipping for a sullen fast food joint service.
It used to be that during summer, you could go to one of those little ice cream joints that looked like shacks. Go up to the window, and order a triple mocha chocolate whammy with sprinkles. The high school or college kid taking the order was fast and cheerful. Alongside the service window was a tip jar stuffed with bills. Who didn’t want to help a cheerful youth out on his summer job? Nowadays, a little card reader is suggesting a 20% tip. The kid is now a forty-year-old sullen wannabe to whom the world owes a living. Oh! And they forgot the sprinkles, sparkles, Jimmies, or whatever you called them.
Thank You!
Gratuities have started to grate on me. I’ve been a waiter. I know precisely how vital a tip can be to your making rent or going to the grocery store. But I’ve come to dislike automated tipping for no service rendered at places where the burger pops out of a storage locker, onto the grill, and is flipped by a machine.
Being the suspicious type, I also wonder if the establishment honestly shares the electronically gathered tips with the staff. The statement that the tips are shared equally among the cook staff, waiters, busboys, and others leaves me wondering. Is this just a cover for inadequate wages? How honest is the management? Once again, having been a waiter, I don’t trust without verification.
I tend to leave a little note saying “tip in cash to the server” and make sure the money goes directly into the hands of the person who made my visit to the restaurant pleasant. Traditionally, waitstaff made up their small wages with the gratuities from customers. Has this changed? Not ot my knowledge.
I am waiting for some blowhard to follow me outside and complain. I am always willing to share what’s on my mind, I’ll undo the latch on my big mouth and tell them.
Be grateful? Absolutely. Get taken for a guilt trip, or a deceptive lack of service? No Thank you.
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Even in the pet store where I pick up the cat food and meds, on the display pad is always the question: Would you like to save a pet’s life? And the donation buttons are there with various amounts. Well, hell. I am trying to save my own cat’s life with her kidney meds so I click, “No.” But all these tip and save lives and gratuity buttons are borderline aggravating. To say nothing of the ever-popular question at so many stores: “Do you want to round up (your purchase)?” What will happen when we do away with the penny? Don’t get me started, Lou!
I mistrust corporate America. Will they actually send all those donations, or will they shave some off the top. I feel bad to be so pessimistic, but it’s the nature of the society we are now living in.
That is how I feel so there is no shame when I hit the “No” button.
Agreed. When all the counter person just hands you your food, do you automatically owe them a tip? And starting at 15%. A fellow who’d been a teen pump jockey commented that they were out pumping gas in all weathers and got no tips.
As to donations for this and that: one day at the supermarket I was asked to donate to a school literacy program. I was puzzled. “Isn’t that what schools do now, teach kids to read?” The cashier had no answer, guess she was just told to ask for funds. Maybe the locals knew more?
Soem of the school literacy programs I’ve seen around here are for adults, or for English Language learning kids wwho don’t speak, and arn’t literate, in English.
But I do agree with you – Isn’t that what the schools do?
I don’t know anything anymore.
I agree with you dear Lou. You made a wonderful point. Also made me to think more, Thank you, Love, nia