Yep, its called the Beauty Premium. There's evidence that being attractive leads to better job outcomes in most industries including higher starting salaries, more job offers, faster promotions, and better performance evaluations.
100% this! I hate how the main narrative it seems like Americans believe about tipping, especially among a certain set of privileged college-educated Democrat types, is that tipping is this virtuous practice that benefits the underclass so much, when really, it benefits restaurant owners most, and if any workers are better off under a tipping system, it's a small minority, like highly attractive white female servers in establishments that have rich clientele. Everyone else would be better off if prices (not a surcharge) went up once by 20% and restaurants spent that money on wages and abolished all tipping.
Anecdata, but I go to Taco Bell way more often than I should. There’s no tipping culture at Taco Bell, but the staff, at least at the one near my house, are always very nice to me and as far as I can tell my food is made with a sufficient amount of care.
When I do go to a restaurant that has tipping, people are usually nice to me as well, but I don’t feel like they’re really any nicer or better at their job than my local Taco Bell workers.
No, they're definitely more attentive for the tip, I just don't like it. If they're going to be extra nice, I don't want it to be for money. Felt nice going to other countries like Australia where the customer isn't always right but they still do their jobs.
Restaurant staff are still nice in Australia, and friendly.
They don't HAVE to be, but they also don't have to do a bunch of unnecessary stuff to play the tips game, like fill up water that's barely empty or check in on how you're going all the time.
Maybe people in America like a "service heavy" experience, and the only way to get it is tips?
> Maybe people in America like a "service heavy" experience, and the only way to get it is tips?
Interestingly enough, I find the service worse in the U.S. Part of the reason is that the tip system leads to waiters wasting time talking about a table, and waiters who aren't your own feeling like they don't have to do anything for you. It usually takes me 5-10 times longer to pay the check in the U.S. than it does in some other countries.
I wish restaurants started offering self service sections where you could order by phone and pick up the food yourself. Having to use waiters gives me the same feeling as when I drive through New Jersey and I'm not allowed to pump my own gas.
I think that’s pretty much the gist of it. People enjoy the diner-style pampering, and the only way to get that kind of service is if the employees are coerced to do it in order to get a living wage.
Happy employees who earn good salaries would not submit to ass-kissing and degrading work.
Knowing this is what makes the often terrible service in the Netherlands a bit more tolerable :)
They're doing the job for the money. They're relating to the customer both as part of their job, and as an actual human interaction. (Obviously the extent to which this is true varies a lot depending on the individuals involved and the context.) Believe it or not, sometimes people are genuinely friendly, even at work, and even when they're not receiving any extra compensation for going beyond the required level of politeness. Those interactions are, IMO, worth more than forced "friendliness" from someone who is simply looking to get as much money as they can out of me.
I don't fully believe this. There will be a category of staff for who the job is just a way to make money, sure, usually while they're also going to college/uni. But plenty are in the industry because it's their vocation, because they enjoy it, because they're people-persons, because they're good at it.
As an Australian who lived in America for 5 years - it’s bonkers to claim the service is better (or even as good) in Aus. It’s clearly more attentive in the states, anyone who says otherwise has an agenda.
Sometimes you don’t want good service - as in, you don’t want a server to talk to you. That’s a lot easier to find here.
Yeah, this exactly matches my experience visiting Sydney from the US, it was great. I'm not antisocial, in fact I enjoy talking to strangers, but it feels very wrong to pay them for it.
They are still paid to be polite and friendly, just not directly from you. It can also be a selection process because the ppl who do not smile enough have been fired or not taken for the job in the first place. Having a boss in these industries “encouraging“ employees to smile more is not unheard of. It makes sense that it feels better than paying directly to produce this outcome, but in a last analysis it is not very different.
It isn’t just employees. The manager/owner of the coffee shop I buy coffee from most mornings is very friendly - I’m sure part of this is just her personality, but it is also good business sense - there are lots of other places people can buy coffee instead, and no doubt her friendliness is one of the factors that keeps many of her regular customers coming back. And this is Australia, so no tips involved-it would feel weird and embarrassing even to offer one.
As an American, having traveled in Europe a few times and dined out a lot, I much prefer the culture of just leaving me alone and letting me signal the waiter to come over when I need something.
Or they may have different values to you. I find American style surveillance services and false smiles pushing upsells to be the worst restaurant experience globally. I'd take any abrupt waiter over that.
Anyone who has worked in a restaurant or bar can provide plenty of observational data that if you provide better service you will be tipped better. I would recommend trying out working as a server/bartender you will understand tipping a lot better.
Phone reps, of course, have the difficulty of not being in physical contact with you. The others, though, my grandparents actually would tip house cleaners. Would get annoyed if we left out cash in the hotel, as "you should only do that if you are wanting the help staff to have it. And then, you should do it in an obvious way so that they don't feel like they are stealing." I distinctly remember them writing notes and leaving them with a tip on the desk.
House cleaners and hotel help are not janitors, but all of our workplaces are cleaned by them. We don't tip them, or the front desk people at any doctor's office, or the traffic crossing guards at any school, or the EMTs at the hospital, or the ticket taker at a movie theater.
There's a huge list of people you interact with daily who don't get tax free tips. Why are they less valuable than restaurant workers? That was my question.
Fair, I left out that they also gifted janitors, but they did. Is not unheard of to send gifts to mail delivery staff. Basically, anyone you ever interacted with on a regular basis.
Coming from a country with no tipping at all, it was somewhat creepy how the people expecting tips acted when I visited the US for the first time. You can tell when friendliness is fake/forced, and living in a country without tipping you don't see it nearly as much. I felt a bit uncomfortable.
There’s tipping everywhere (more or less, there are some exceptions). But there’s just one country that I know of where 15% is ”no tip” because it’s the expected baseline, and 25% is a small tip because it’s 5-10% over the expected minimum so the actual ”tip” part of a 25% tip is actually less.
I tip 0-10% where I live. Just like most Americans tip 15-25% but the first 15 are just eaten by expectation. There is zero difference except that 1) my menu shows actual prices 2) wait staff have a living wage regardless of tips or how busy the restaurant was that day.
I've been to both, a lot, and I've not noticed any difference whatsoever. Good service is the norm everywhere, honestly, and the odd instance of bad service happens everywhere too.
Beyond that, I personally find that leveraging someone's economic desperation to coerce deference out of them is disgusting. Give me staff who have the option to walk out without material harm, and choose not to.
There is evidence correlating being attractive to getting better tips, interestingly.
Yep, its called the Beauty Premium. There's evidence that being attractive leads to better job outcomes in most industries including higher starting salaries, more job offers, faster promotions, and better performance evaluations.
100% this! I hate how the main narrative it seems like Americans believe about tipping, especially among a certain set of privileged college-educated Democrat types, is that tipping is this virtuous practice that benefits the underclass so much, when really, it benefits restaurant owners most, and if any workers are better off under a tipping system, it's a small minority, like highly attractive white female servers in establishments that have rich clientele. Everyone else would be better off if prices (not a surcharge) went up once by 20% and restaurants spent that money on wages and abolished all tipping.
The servers I knew dyed their hair blonde to get better tips. Writing a smiley on the receipt worked wonders too.
And evidence correlating being a minority with lower tips.
Anecdata, but I go to Taco Bell way more often than I should. There’s no tipping culture at Taco Bell, but the staff, at least at the one near my house, are always very nice to me and as far as I can tell my food is made with a sufficient amount of care.
When I do go to a restaurant that has tipping, people are usually nice to me as well, but I don’t feel like they’re really any nicer or better at their job than my local Taco Bell workers.
No, they're definitely more attentive for the tip, I just don't like it. If they're going to be extra nice, I don't want it to be for money. Felt nice going to other countries like Australia where the customer isn't always right but they still do their jobs.
Bud, literally nobody gives a shit about waiting on you. They are literally only doing it for the money.
People in Australia are still doing it for the money, even if you don't realize it.
Restaurant staff are still nice in Australia, and friendly.
They don't HAVE to be, but they also don't have to do a bunch of unnecessary stuff to play the tips game, like fill up water that's barely empty or check in on how you're going all the time.
Maybe people in America like a "service heavy" experience, and the only way to get it is tips?
> Maybe people in America like a "service heavy" experience, and the only way to get it is tips?
Interestingly enough, I find the service worse in the U.S. Part of the reason is that the tip system leads to waiters wasting time talking about a table, and waiters who aren't your own feeling like they don't have to do anything for you. It usually takes me 5-10 times longer to pay the check in the U.S. than it does in some other countries.
I wish restaurants started offering self service sections where you could order by phone and pick up the food yourself. Having to use waiters gives me the same feeling as when I drive through New Jersey and I'm not allowed to pump my own gas.
I think that’s pretty much the gist of it. People enjoy the diner-style pampering, and the only way to get that kind of service is if the employees are coerced to do it in order to get a living wage.
Happy employees who earn good salaries would not submit to ass-kissing and degrading work.
Knowing this is what makes the often terrible service in the Netherlands a bit more tolerable :)
They're doing the job for the money. They're relating to the customer both as part of their job, and as an actual human interaction. (Obviously the extent to which this is true varies a lot depending on the individuals involved and the context.) Believe it or not, sometimes people are genuinely friendly, even at work, and even when they're not receiving any extra compensation for going beyond the required level of politeness. Those interactions are, IMO, worth more than forced "friendliness" from someone who is simply looking to get as much money as they can out of me.
I don't fully believe this. There will be a category of staff for who the job is just a way to make money, sure, usually while they're also going to college/uni. But plenty are in the industry because it's their vocation, because they enjoy it, because they're people-persons, because they're good at it.
People who are not under constant existential stress are generally friendly and nice to other people, even when there's no direct financial benefit.
If you need to pay people to be pleasant to you, that's a moment for introspection.
As an Australian who lived in America for 5 years - it’s bonkers to claim the service is better (or even as good) in Aus. It’s clearly more attentive in the states, anyone who says otherwise has an agenda.
Sometimes you don’t want good service - as in, you don’t want a server to talk to you. That’s a lot easier to find here.
Yeah, this exactly matches my experience visiting Sydney from the US, it was great. I'm not antisocial, in fact I enjoy talking to strangers, but it feels very wrong to pay them for it.
They are still paid to be polite and friendly, just not directly from you. It can also be a selection process because the ppl who do not smile enough have been fired or not taken for the job in the first place. Having a boss in these industries “encouraging“ employees to smile more is not unheard of. It makes sense that it feels better than paying directly to produce this outcome, but in a last analysis it is not very different.
It isn’t just employees. The manager/owner of the coffee shop I buy coffee from most mornings is very friendly - I’m sure part of this is just her personality, but it is also good business sense - there are lots of other places people can buy coffee instead, and no doubt her friendliness is one of the factors that keeps many of her regular customers coming back. And this is Australia, so no tips involved-it would feel weird and embarrassing even to offer one.
As an American, having traveled in Europe a few times and dined out a lot, I much prefer the culture of just leaving me alone and letting me signal the waiter to come over when I need something.
Or they may have different values to you. I find American style surveillance services and false smiles pushing upsells to be the worst restaurant experience globally. I'd take any abrupt waiter over that.
Anyone who has worked in a restaurant or bar can provide plenty of observational data that if you provide better service you will be tipped better. I would recommend trying out working as a server/bartender you will understand tipping a lot better.
Why should we tip restaurant workers but not janitors or phone customer service reps? Why are they better than other types of service workers?
Phone reps, of course, have the difficulty of not being in physical contact with you. The others, though, my grandparents actually would tip house cleaners. Would get annoyed if we left out cash in the hotel, as "you should only do that if you are wanting the help staff to have it. And then, you should do it in an obvious way so that they don't feel like they are stealing." I distinctly remember them writing notes and leaving them with a tip on the desk.
House cleaners and hotel help are not janitors, but all of our workplaces are cleaned by them. We don't tip them, or the front desk people at any doctor's office, or the traffic crossing guards at any school, or the EMTs at the hospital, or the ticket taker at a movie theater.
There's a huge list of people you interact with daily who don't get tax free tips. Why are they less valuable than restaurant workers? That was my question.
Fair, I left out that they also gifted janitors, but they did. Is not unheard of to send gifts to mail delivery staff. Basically, anyone you ever interacted with on a regular basis.
Well, one does handle your food before you eat it - and before you’ve seen it.
Love the idea that threatening people into giving you a tax exempt handout is anything other than a mafia move
Oh it’s not a threat, it’s the implication.
There is definitely a huge difference in countries where they tip and countries where they don't tip.
Coming from a country with no tipping at all, it was somewhat creepy how the people expecting tips acted when I visited the US for the first time. You can tell when friendliness is fake/forced, and living in a country without tipping you don't see it nearly as much. I felt a bit uncomfortable.
Yeah, the huge difference is that in the US waiters or even managers might confront you if you choose to not tip.
There’s tipping everywhere (more or less, there are some exceptions). But there’s just one country that I know of where 15% is ”no tip” because it’s the expected baseline, and 25% is a small tip because it’s 5-10% over the expected minimum so the actual ”tip” part of a 25% tip is actually less.
I tip 0-10% where I live. Just like most Americans tip 15-25% but the first 15 are just eaten by expectation. There is zero difference except that 1) my menu shows actual prices 2) wait staff have a living wage regardless of tips or how busy the restaurant was that day.
What do you mean? Service is usually far better in Asia than in Western countries and there's no tipping.
I've been to both, a lot, and I've not noticed any difference whatsoever. Good service is the norm everywhere, honestly, and the odd instance of bad service happens everywhere too.
Beyond that, I personally find that leveraging someone's economic desperation to coerce deference out of them is disgusting. Give me staff who have the option to walk out without material harm, and choose not to.
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