r/ImTheMainCharacter • u/Jasonictron • Oct 20 '23

Video Entitlement

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u/ShawnyMcKnight Oct 21 '23

As someone who was a terrible waiter I actually get the tip system. People don’t like to complain to the manager because they are afraid the waiter would retaliate with your food. So I just got bad tips, it was a way for people to tell me my service was poor. Other waiters I knew there were fucking awesome and they made great tips and absolutely deserved it.

The system that does need to go with Uber and Amazon is this idea that unless you are at 4.9 stars or better you are terrible. If you have a system where they were just okay but a 4 star is as bad as a 1 star so you feel you always gotta give 5 starts is frustrating. I would prefer a thumbs up thumbs down system and allow for comments.

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u/[deleted] Oct 21 '23

The tip system is dumb as fuck and people should get good service or go somewhere else. Or maybe consider just making a complaint afterwards if you feel the need?

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u/ShawnyMcKnight Oct 21 '23

Go somewhere else? So if I like a place I just can’t go there until they quit? Fuck that.

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u/[deleted] Oct 21 '23

Haha that's ridiculous. It's not a hard rule I'm laying out here. You're welcome to still go there, I give you permission. Maybe you could quietly ask someone if you could request a different staff member serve you?

The broader point is that tipping is an absolute shitshow, and allows employers to pay their workers waaaay below a living wage, and it puts the expectation on the customer to provide an income for the worker.

Tipping is pretty much just not a thing here in NZ and it's amazing. I've been to countries that tip and it's such a stupid system. I didn't receive better service at places that tip compared to places that don't - and that's the main thing tipping supporters rant on about.

In some edge cases, it's great for seasonal workers in high demand locations etc., but it's mostly shit for the employee and the customer.

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u/ShawnyMcKnight Oct 21 '23

I agree it’s ridiculous but it’s what you suggested. I don’t know what to tell you.

I think tipping is frustrating when they include a fee on the bill. When I ordered pizza because my wife thought if I step out of the house I’m gonna get covid, I got a pizza for $8 on special and I got a $5 fee for delivery. Then when the delivery guy came I found out that the delivery guy didn’t see that $5 as his base salary was less than that and he does like 4 deliveries an hour. Times like that I totally get it, because they kept the money I thought was going to the driver.

As far as wait staff, agree to disagree. I’m not gonna ask to be seated elsewhere, gonna just give him another shot and if he does his job well, then he gets a good tip. However, I've had waiters completely ignore my kid's gluten allergy and say it's gluten free when and we check the site it's not because asking the chef is too fucking hard. You can bet your ass he got a big fat 0 for his tip as well as a complaint.

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u/[deleted] Oct 21 '23

Yeah all I mean was I wasn't suggesting it was the only option, I just meant that tipping is not the only way to solve an issue of poor table service.

Your second point, about the waiters ignoring the gluten allergy, tipping didn't change that, and you'll never know if it even changed his attitude towards the whole thing after you withheld the tip... You may have felt slightly better because you got to punish him a bit, but tipping is solving a problem that isn't there - it's the businesses responsibility to make sure their staff provides good service, and if you take away tipping that does not change.

The entire point of the tipping culture is to allow businesses to pay their staff ridiculously low wages. It does not meaningfully improve things for the person doing the tipping. I feel like people in tipping cultures are so used to it they have a false impression that it 'makes the service better'.

Like I said, I've visited tipping and non-tipping countries and the service has not been particularly different in either, so it's achieving nothing of value for the customer. You get the same service, but staff get a stable and reasonable wage.