this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2025
62 points (88.8% liked)

No Stupid Questions

43332 readers
968 users here now

No such thing. Ask away!

!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.

All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.



Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.

If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.



Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.

If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here. This includes using AI responses and summaries.



Credits

Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!

The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Im having beers at bar ordered wings and tipped $2 everything the bartender brings me.

Beer = $6

tip for beer $2

wings = $20ish

Tip for wings from bartender = $2

Total tips = $4

==============================

Same order from waitress/er = $26

Tip = $5.20

Now I know this is micro example but extrapolate this over several drinks with food and the difference swings the other way. The question remains tho, am I tipping correctly?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works 16 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

The way I see it, if the place requires tips for their staff to get by, then the staff are being financially abused and I would be propping up a system of exploitation. Prioritise places that pay their staff above the minimum wage.

Second sentence is fine, feel free to boycott places that pay below minimum wage. But if you do go to an establishment that pays based on the assumption of tips, and you don't tip, you're just joining in the exploitation.

[–] litchralee@sh.itjust.works 6 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

if you do go to an establishment that pays based on the assumption of tips

In the USA, there are only 7 US States (and Guam) which mandate that the minimum wage be paid prior to consideration of tips. All other states permit some fraction of tips to be considered as part of minimum wage, with some states limiting the employer contribution to as low as $2.13/hr.

This is indeed an absurd situation outside of those seven states, but it also means that it's nigh impossible to avoid establishments that rely on tips to supplement wages, in the other 43 states.

With this background, I can understand why the earlier commenter views tipping as exploitative, for both the consumer and the staff. The result of either choice -- boycotting places that pay less than minimum wage, or not tipping at those places -- doesn't change the fact that the staff are being underpaid, which is the root exploitative practice.

you're just joining in the exploitation

I think reasonable people can disagree on this point, on whether not tipping constitutes a secondary exploitation. Firstly, this framing places blame on individuals when the whole situation is a systemic machine of abuse. It is no different than the nebulous idea of personal responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions, when large polluters have the actual levers to make real change. Secondly -- and this is an economic policy argument which I personally don't subscribe to -- it can be argued that prolonged employment while underpaid is better than no employment at all, based on the premise that the employer would close down if a boycott was successful.

But like I said, the initial exploitation is root. Everything else is collateral. Systemic abuse is fixed by systemic overhaul.

[–] agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 weeks ago

I think reasonable people can disagree on this point, on whether not tipping constitutes a secondary exploitation.

No, they cannot. Disagreement here is not reasoned, it is just another example of clever people using their cleverness to justify unreasonable prior beliefs.

You can boycott a business, and write them to express that your boycott is based on their tipping policy. That would be a reasonable strategy to support the workers.

By still giving the business owners money, knowing they pay their staff sub-minimum wages based on the convention of tipping, and then not tipping, you have not communicated any disapproval to management. You have in fact directly supported the business owner exploiting their workers, and joined that exploitation for personal benefit. That's the opposite of supporting the worker.

[–] agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 weeks ago

The result of either choice -- boycotting places that pay less than minimum wage, or not tipping at those places -- doesn't change the fact that the staff are being underpaid, which is the root exploitative practice.

Yes, but boycotting those places is justifiable. Going anyway and just not tipping is actively participating in the exploitation.

[–] FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au 1 points 2 weeks ago

you’re just joining in the exploitation

Actually no, they’re doing the only real thing that can be done to get rid of tipping. If no one tips, the business is forced to pay a deserving wage, which is at least minimum wage.