International fans visiting the US for the World Cup have become frustrated by the culture of having to tip servers, telling the BBC that tipping fatigue has set in.

Many international fans visiting the US for the World Cup have become frustrated by the culture of tipping servers, telling the BBC that tipping fatigue has set in.

England supporter Geoff Pryor said he understood tipping for good service, but he found it “weird” when buying a bottle of water and “they try to get a tip for doing nothing”.

In the US, staff at some restaurants and bars are paid just over $2 (£1.50) an hour, and they expect customers to tip about 20% of the total cost of the bill so they can earn a living.

Frustrations have also been shared by hospitality staff, with one bar owner telling the BBC that many World Cup tourists have been bad tippers.

  • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    3 days ago

    My favorite thing I saw recently in relation to tipping - was this sign at a restaurant about what the minimum wage was and encouraging tipping.

    I’m assuming that sign was put up or at least tacitly endorsed by the management.

    It’s almost as if they don’t have any agency over what they pay their own workers and they are then shaming customers into making up the difference? WTF?

    • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works
      0·
      2 days ago

      It’s almost as if they don’t have any agency over what they pay their own workers

      They kinda don’t. To pay their workers an acceptable base wage, they’d have to raise their menu prices 20%. They can put up as many signs as they want explaining the prices, but customers are pretty bad at reading signs. Many, if not most, customers are just going to see the higher prices and go somewhere cheaper. It doesn’t matter that the final price is the same, there’s a reason the whole $X.99 is so prevalent, monkey brain see smaller number, think better value.

      It’s kind of a game of chicken, any one individual business that tries to eliminate tipping is going to risk losing customers to competitors. This isn’t really a problem that can be fixed at the individual business level, it would require legislation that forces all businesses to raise prices roughly the same amount at the same time.

    • ne0n@lemmy.world
      0·
      2 days ago

      Of course it was. Tipping is a scam by business owners to have customers pay wages so they don’t have to.