u/GordianBalloonKnot

This is the thick of who the anti-tipping crowd is gunning after.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Waiters/comments/1thue9z/follow_up_data_on_how_much_i_make_at_texas/

What they're actually after are the exceptional stories. What 90% of the industry is actually like is much more like what this employee in the link is reporting... the dude is making slightly more than 4 dollars per guest in a med-tier steakhouse.

50 dollars an hour for a whole shift is the top 5% of the industry in places like Vegas, Chicago, NYC, etc. There are entire small towns and cities where nobody makes 50 dollars an hour regularly, barring certain holidays.

Because... so what? Says who?? You??

For 95% of you, this boils down to how you feel about tipping. It doesn't stem from economical analysis, industry understanding or legitimate comparisons.

Yes other countries do business differently, yes the cost of going to those businesses as a customer is different. Those countries also have entirely different economics systems where the cost of operations are different. When we did the economic comparison between the US and Japan, it's legitimately cheaper to do business as a restaurant in Japan compared to the US for similar plates.

When asked repeatedly over several different posts how it could be explained that tipping is producing a more expensive, less beneficial product compared to not tipping almost nobody had any answers. These posts got hundreds of thousands of views and hundreds of comments collectively.

What was discovered, rather, was that people are quite bad at math and business. But this shouldn't be a surprise. People are collectively bad at math; their math skills erode quickly after school. Most people don't go to college for Business and most people haven't owned businesses. This subreddit is particularly rich with people who haven't owned businesses because the people who do own them don't make these arguments, even if their businesses aren't restaurants and they pay their employees a full wage. They just understand economics better because they have to.

But enough exemplification...

"It's different" or "it seems weird" is not a legitimate reason why something is better or worse.

You're different. You seem weird. But you're not better or worse than other people if at the end of the day you're getting your work done and co-existing peacefully.

What's weird is tipping people who don't fit the 2 criteria of restaurant tipping: 1 hand and foot service 2 getting paid under minimum wage. There are actual reasons why that's bad and breaks the economic principles of tipping. But for the people who do fit those two criteria... I'm so sorry sweetheart, you're gonna have to make a financial decision and stand by it. It's called being an adult.

Tip your servers and bartenders if they're getting paid under minimum wage. Tip your servers and bartenders if you don't want hidden service fees that you're forced to pay even if the service is bad. Tipping is voluntary as a protection to you against shite service, it's not voluntary so that you can just not pay it. If you show that you're unable to participate in this system then the restaurants will force you to pay for what you always owed in the first place and take that option of protection away. You end-tippers are literally fighting for less freedom and choice.

I know a lot of the posts fall into the median range of fitness boxers with casual sparring (please understand what median means)... but I think this might be helpful for other people when they're choosing equipment.

It's not a competition. Embellishment would only create false impressions. Nobody really cares that you're spending 800 dollars on 8 oz Winnings to punch a bag in a Crunch Fitness with no wraps (no judgement, I swear)... but if you're a competitor with a history I think it'd open up the floor for more pointed questions on First Impression and Gear Review posts.