Tipping in the service industry

[Autumnlicious]

I tip* between 15%-20% at any restaurant that is not fast food. I also tip 20% for my local barber shop because I know they make income on a per-job basis, I like them and I know they’re servicing an expensive part of town (their commutes are at least an hour).

That said, I hate tipping. I’d rather the flat cost simply inline all that. Tipping is inherently abusive - it allows for unfair behavior in a commission, solely subject to whim. It easily breeds in a customer unreasonable entitled behavior that must be catered to. It allows someone who is having a bad day to take it out on the staff. Ultimately it’s a strong conduit for negative pushback on only one person by harming their income. That’s pretty low.

If a place is bad and it’s not excusable, I will visit it less and less. Some places I skip entirely. It’s the responsibility of the business shareholders to make it succeed and it’s not my job to discipline the waitstaff.


* tipping is for me “shift decimal place over to the left, multiply by two if easy else floor the cents value until easy to multiply by two than multiply by two”, where easy is defined as “low latency”.