Goddamn… as a fellow celiac sufferer, I’m very sorry to hear that. If the blood tests are pretty conclusive, you can probably assume it’s celiac without the colonoscopy. The downside is that if you start a gluten-free diet now and decide to get a colonoscopy later, it might now show anything since you’re off the gluten. Best of luck!

I’m in favor of it because it helps everyone involved. There is no one that tipping is bad for.

Uh… what about the people actually paying the tip? How on earth is it beneficial for the person paying more money for the level of service they should be getting regardless? How is that extra $3 more important to the server than to the person losing it?

All wages are paid by consumers.

Yes, indirectly, not directly. When I buy a burger at McDonald’s, the corporation takes my money and distributes it across all their expenses, including employee salary. If they distribute it so poorly that they can’t afford to give their employees a living wage, then frankly they don’t deserve to be in business. Tipping is just subsidizing the corporation’s expenses by allowing them to pay you less, then guilt-tripping the customer because the poor employee doesn’t get paid enough.

People will go to restaurants less, more restaurants will fail, fewer people will work as servers, and they’ll work longer hours

I don’t get the argument that restaurants would fail if we abolished tipping. If a burger right now costs $10 plus a 20% tip, why would customers be afraid to buy a $12 burger outright without the tip? You get paid the wage you deserve, the employer charges what they need to meet all their expenses, and there’s no hidden guilt trip for the customer. And if the business can only stay afloat by underpaying you, then good riddance.

You can see this played out in countries that do not tip - and also with jobs like catering that generally do not focus on topping for service.

So you’re advocating for all jobs to switch to a tipping model? You must be since you say it’s inherent to fair pay and good service right? Or do you personally get to gatekeep the jobs that are deserving of tips, and coincidentally it’s just the one you happen to work in?

What won’t happen is the restaurant owners themselves won’t be paying servers more from their own pocket.

But they will because there’s a federally mandated minimum wage for non-tipped employees. They’ll make the same minimum wage like everyone else (insufficient as I agree that is). You’re fine with some industries getting minimum wage, you just think you personally deserve more

most points are just completely ignorant of the reality of working in a restaurant and the rest seem like they’re specifically designed to manipulate you.

Someone’s being manipulated alright but it’s not the consumer trying to pay the listed price for the product/service. It’s very telling that you think expecting a fair wage from an employer, the payer of the wage is manipulative.

I don’t think I’m gonna convince you of any of this so I’m just gonna back out now. I hope one day you learn to redirect your frustration to the cheap ass boss who thinks an hour of your sweat is worth $2 so he can keep the other $8 (edit:) and stop shaming the customer who’s probably struggling just as much as you.

I feel like everything you said supports my point. You’re not in favour of tipping because it’s the morally right thing to do, or because you altruistically support hard workers. You’re in favour of it because you personally make a shit ton more money.

And it completely avoids my point that if you think you deserve that money (which I agree you do) then you should take it up with your employer instead of shaking down customers through guilt.

certain service roles

This is really the heart of it. I’m sorry but no role is more deserving of tips than another. Everyone deserves a living wage paid by their employer. If you truly believed in rewarding good service with good pay, you would want to abolish the tipping system and advocate for all workers being paid a living wage regardless of tips. You can’t just support the industry that you personally work in and say you care about fair pay.

I’m in Canada where the minimum wage is the same for all employees, regardless of tips or not (with one small exception in Quebec, where it’s $10.80 instead of $13.50).

I just looked up the US law and it seems so circular. There’s a smaller minimum for those considered ‘tipped employees’, but the definition of ‘tipped employee’ is one who makes at least $30/month in tips in general.

So you could say it’s incumbent on customers to pity these employees and top up their salaries, but it seems just as reasonable to stop tipping them so they no longer fit that definition and they get the actual minimum wage.

In other words, they only get a smaller minimum wage because they prefer being tipped employees. If they didn’t, they would just refuse the tips.

Or trying to attract people that prefer Twitter :P

Can confirm, I have zero plumbing experience and installed mine with zero issues. It’s about as simple as entry-level Ikea furniture.

I’ve always supported this approach too but I have to wonder… is there a point where it gets taxed so high that people will just go back to the black market? What would prevent anyone from going black (heh) if it’s cheaper than the legal option?