I worked in a fast food restaurant here in the States, people tipped but usually not well. I wasn't pressed about it, I was getting a full minimum wage. Entitled customers didn't give me trouble for whatever reason, they seemed to size up my coworkers as softer targets.
> Why?
I was just curious about how OP's experience informed their perspective.
When visiting the States I have observed on a couple of occasions where a customer shouted at staff and used the threat of withholding a tip as leverage to be unreasonably nasty to wait staff.
The service industry in the US is awful, and the tipping culture is really toxic. I don't understand those that defend the American approach.
To be clear, I don't defend it. I'm mildly against it. Unfortunately I don't in it's at the root of entitled customer behavior in the States, I think there's a deeper cultural contempt for service workers. You'll see similar behavior towards workers who aren't tipped but who provide some sort of face-to-face service, like cashiers and teachers.
> Unfortunately I don't in it's at the root of entitled customer behavior in the States, I think there's a deeper cultural contempt for service workers.
Completely agree with this position. I didn't mean to say that removal of tipping would solve the problem, more that it is an enabler of toxic behaviour. The more opportunities provided, the more likely assholes will be emboldened causing a normalisation effect both in them, and others around them.
Something that has occurred to me is that I have sometimes been that asshole entitled customer, and as I've matured I've learned to remove myself from a situation when I feel the urge to yell at a service worker.
It has never been about the money really. The only exception I remember was when I was upset about the way my bank processed my paycheck and yelled about it in my early 20s (my bad, I didn't know how depositing checks at an ATM worked but I ought to have). But usually it's because I felt insecure or disrespected in some way (which wasn't, to my memory, reasonable. It wasn't what the kids call a "valid crash out".).
For instance, it really gets under my skin when I am talking to technical support on the phone and they try to blame the problem on my running Linux. Argh! If it was Linux I wouldn't need their help! I'd either fix it on my own or ask some help forum.
I don't know how much that translates to the larger phenomenon, I'm not even talking about face-to-face interactions anymore, but that's my two cents.