We dug into how American tipping culture got so broken, and the fight to fix it.
It turns out that your tips are subsidizing the payrolls of multi-billion dollar chains, while they pay their workers under minimum wage.
It’s a system rooted in slavery, and pushed by a wealthy restaurant owners onto the rest of us.
But there’s a growing movement to change it.
My fear of not tipping before I get my food/product is the fear of a resentful employee tampering with it before I get it. So then I’m left in a situation of feeling like my food is being held hostage if I don’t give a tip. It really feels like a shakedown, and I don’t appreciate it. It has made me stop frequenting places that ask for a tip before I even get my food.
That doesn’t happen. The companies want you to think that happens, but anywhere that you’re tipping before receiving service is a place with employees that don’t get paid in tips individually. It’s either split evenly or the owner takes a large cut of what you “tip.” So the employees really don’t care enough to fuck with your food, which could get them fired or prosecuted.
Tips like that are an excuse for the owners not to pay their employees a fair wage and tell them during hiring they could make “up to x” amount.