Tipping can be tricky, especially when there’s a gap between what the servers think of themselves and the way you see them. Redditor Nerd_Rat shared a story about a night out with friends at a club, where he couldn’t drink due to medication. Despite ordering a simple soda, the waitress repeatedly ignored him while attending to everyone else. When it came time to pay the hefty tab, things took an unexpected turn as his friends decided to unite and teach the employee a lesson on customer service.
In many places, servers have to rely on tips if they want to earn a living
Image credits: freepik (not the actual photo)
But as this story shows, they still have to earn it
Image credits: freepik (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Nerd_Rat
Tipping used to be a thank you—now, it’s an expectation
These situations can’t be judged in a vacuum. According to a new report from personal finance company WalletHub, which examined Americans’ current attitudes toward gratuity, nearly 9 in 10 Americans think tipping culture has gone too far—a sharp increase from the around 75% who thought the same last year.
According to WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo, a huge part of people’s frustration is that they no longer know who to tip or how much to tip.
“You’re tipping for personal service. If you have a cup of coffee pushed to the end of the counter or someone’s handing you a bag of fast food through a drive-thru window, that’s not traditionally what tipping should be about,” Lupo explained. “If they feel like these tipping screens are invasive, these respondents say they’ll tip less or not even tip at all.”
This “tipflation” can backfire and result in workers, who would traditionally receive a fair tip for their service, getting less—or nothing at all—as customers grow increasingly frustrated and start pushing back across the board.
So, the key point in our story might not even be whether the waitress deserved $0, but that tipping has become so overused and unclear that even well-meaning customers feel pushed to make a statement.
Most people who read the guy’s confession think he did nothing wrong, including those who work in the industry
But some believe the group overreacted
A few say he was right to be upset, but that his friends took it too far by not tipping at all
Then there are those who say everyone’s to blame here
