Australians should embrace tipping culture?

[Pen^2]

I agree with PPs. It's a terrible idea. The minimum wage is high enough that it simply isn't required. I personally enjoy being able to reward truly exceptional service when I see it by tipping or, more often, purchasing something for the worker (flowers, a drink, etc. depending on their job and circumstance) rather than having to pay extra to everyone, no matter how lackluster their performance, because their employer isn't paying them enough to get by.

And that's enough before I start a huge rant about why it's the stupidest idea since lead make-up. Ugh.

[AussieMale]

Americans... when you come to Australia... please don't tip unless you are receiving exceptional service...

I don't think any sane Australian wants the tipping nightmare to begin here...

[MrsJWine]

I love tipping here in the US. I used to work for tips, and I love giving tips. But just because it works here (mostly, depending on who you talk to) doesn't mean it needs to start happening elsewhere. It's just a different system. No need to impose it on another place that has a system that works perfectly fine to begin with. I think that's just asking for problems.

[RubyCat]

American here. Run far and fast from tipping!

I wouldn't recommend instituting tipping to anyone. Considering how heated threads here and elsewhere can be I'd say they're bad for our overall happiness. Some people get petty about service and "punish" their server, some are cheap and try to find excuses to not tip, some people overtip as an ego boost so they can feel better than others, and servers get to either feel bad that they didn't do well enough or resentful because they did but were being held to crazy unreasonable standards by someone who didn't really want to tip. I tip, but I think it's a bad system.

As an American who recently posted with a tipping dilemma I can't agree enough. I think employers should pay a good enough wage that people are able/willing to work for. When I was young, it was customary to tip 10%, which was easy enough to calculate. Then 15% became the custom; now it is 20%. Recently, I saw an article suggesting tipping 25% because the cost of living has increased. I don't think that one will fly. 

I wish we could do away with it.

[Katana_Geldar]

I think they're trying to with increasing the minimum wage.

[mime]

American here. Run far and fast from tipping!

I wouldn't recommend instituting tipping to anyone. Considering how heated threads here and elsewhere can be I'd say they're bad for our overall happiness. Some people get petty about service and "punish" their server, some are cheap and try to find excuses to not tip, some people overtip as an ego boost so they can feel better than others, and servers get to either feel bad that they didn't do well enough or resentful because they did but were being held to crazy unreasonable standards by someone who didn't really want to tip. I tip, but I think it's a bad system.

POD

I tip average to well because I know servers depend in tips.  But, there are so many others that provide services that aren't tipped and end up making less than the waitstaff at an upscale restaurant.

Yes Yes Yes!  Another USA resident here.  I tip a standard amount in almost all cases because it has become is more of a 'service fee' for the server than a tip.  I'll increase for great service, and in my mind that increase is the REAL tip. I think the system is ridiculous and wish we'd do away with it here and just increase the menu prices and let our discretionary tips (if any) actually be a reward for over and above, rather than an expectation.

[shhh its me]

  As an American I hope you don't.  I don't think true tipping is bad but what we've to some not all tip industries. Paying an insanely low wage to waitstaff is really unconscionable.  Federal minimum wage is $7.25 a hour most people agree that's not enough to live on as an independent adult(some argue that working at McDonald for example isn't a career so you don't need to earn a living wage but I've never heard anyone try to say "You can work 40 hours a week earning $7.25 an be an independent adult") the minimum wage for waitstaff is $2.13. *just as an example a gallon of milk cost $2.50 *  Good waitstaff in decently run restaurants make considerable more but the system depends far too much on peoples sense of fairness.


A customer of a company shouldn't really be able to decide that one single worker should not be paid or how much, that's whats its really become. 

[Iris]

I read the thread title and immediately thought "No. Why would we do that?"

The only way that tipping should become a necessity is if minimum wage is no longer a living wage, and I would literally take to the streets if that were proposed.

[Danika]

Yet another American here. I hate hate hate that our system expects people to tip. Now we have coffee baristas and frozen yogurt retailers asking for tips when they didn't and couldn't do anything above and beyond what was in their job descriptions. It never ends.

And then the confusion that the 15% tip should go on the pre-tax amount, but our food is taxed, so many people pay on the post-tax amount. And the ridiculous laws of the state that I live in where every city and county have different tax levels, so a $1 item costs more in one city than it does across the street in another city. Not to mention that the prices on things here in the US are pre-tax so you never know how much cash to have in hand when you go to pay for something you've ordered and the lines take longer than necessarily because people are counting out change and digging in pockets.

No! Australians, please, don't do this to yourselves!

[Redsoil]

I can't see Aussies ever really "taking" to tipping.  It's just not done unless circumstances are exceptional.  I think adult wage for restaurant staff is around $26 an hour?  Plus time and a half/double time in certain circumstances.

[kareng57]

I'm Canadian, not American, but servers in my area must be paid minimum wage anyway.  While I'm not completely against tipping, I don't think it should be mandatory when the service is lackluster.  Yes, I realize that servers work very hard, but so do warehouse workers (as an example) and no one tips them.  I certainly wouldn't recommend starting tipping in a culture where it's not routine.

Servers in upscale restaurants here can really make an enviable wage when the tips are factored in.

[CakeEater]

No. No tipping.

I want someone to provide an item or a service, I want to see the price tag and then I'll decide whether I want to pay. No tipping, no haggling, no trying to get a better deal.

[Psychopoesie]

No tipping for me either.   It seems needlessly complicated when we have an alternative system which seems to work. I'm not seeing any advantage for me as a customer, anyway.

[cabbageweevil]

I'm not Australian, or North American; but the content of this thread, brings to mind for me things which often occur to me when reading about certain aspects of US life.  Unfortunately, I've never been in a position to visit the USA.  Should I ever manage to do so -- I'd be apprehensive about ongoingly being driven slightly crazy by the "sales tax" business (I'm used to the amount displayed, being the amount that I'm required to pay !), and by the potential for mayhem in the realm of tipping.

Can "see with my head" that the conventions for tipping in US restaurants are considerably below rocket-science level as regards difficulty in understanding them; and that for the great majority of the time, things proceed smoothly on track and everyone is reasonably happy -- frankly, though, the whole US system re the remuneration of restaurant staff, strikes me as a dreadful one.

[Peppergirl]

American here.  I despise our tipping system and wouldn't wish it on anyone.