Yes. It’s particularly bad in that we have a government who refuses to condemn these practices.
…I don’t know how you missed this, but slavery was an exceptionally racist institution in America, and its modern versions explicitly keep up that tradition.
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America 's obsession with tipping of course has racist roots
FTFY
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I get that people think that way, but I’ve spent years in Paris and all over North America, and I never saw any difference in the quality of service. You get bad service if you’re an ass to people or the staff are having a bad day. Otherwise you get good service because people care about their jobs. That’s all I’ve seen. I always tip excessively in the US regardless because I understand it’s part of their wages, but waitstaff are still sometimes unpleasant to me if they’re having a bad day, like any of us would be.
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That’s more or less my experience too, but I do see a difference in the U.S. What I see amounts to an expectation of servility in the server, which is exacerbated by the common, more general sense in many American places of cheerfulness. A service worker, including say a cashier, is widely thought to be doing a bad job if they don’t openly display a cheerful (and really, servile) concern for the customer’s happiness.
As an American, I’ve had to remind myself in other places that this or that service worker isn’t being rude. They’re just not putting on that mask of servile, solicitous cheeriness expected of service workers in much of the U.S.
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Yah, I think that’s cultural difference though, not a difference in behavior due to tipping. Waitstaff in Paris are frequently not smiley and bouncy, particularly at more old fashioned or bougie places. Culturally that’s considered more refined and professional, and they see Americans as “grinning idiots”. Again though, this is nothing to do with tipping. In any case, it’s changing as world culture slowly homogenizes. The staff in younger hipper cafes in Paris are plenty bouncy and smiley.
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My first trip to Japan was illuminating. Not only is tipping not practiced, it is generally considered an insult as it casts aspersions on the server’s work ethic and motivations.
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There is an illuminating contrast with how you (don’t) tip in UK bars. Cash tips are frowned on because it creates an expectation of service and that gets the power relationship wrong. They have the alcohol, you want a drink and you will only get one on their say so (also a legal obligation not to in some circumstance). Instead the etiquette is to offer to buy them a drink “and one for yourself” - implying a relationship among equals (UK drinking culture is rounds based - you take turns buying for a group). In reality this is sham. Almost all of the time the person behind the bar will says thanks, I’ll take it later, ring it up and take the cash at the end of the shift, but the implied relationship is preserved.
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Thanks for describing that. Fascinating way to tip without tipping (nor tippling!).
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While in Tokyo in 2015 my coworkers and I went to a restaurant. My coworker left a tip, and I told him not to, but he insisted.
The wait staff ran after us to give back the tip. Lady was furious.
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FWIW, as a former pub girl, I can tell you we were not allowed to pocket the cash. we had to take it as a drink or not as all. I successfully lobbied for the tip-drinks to be aggregated so that I could have one expensive whisky shot at the end of my shift rather than a bunch of half pints all shift long, but that was an oddity that everyone talked about because it was so unheard of.
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That sucks. Bar job I did we got free drinks at the end of the shift, and free food. It was a theatre bar so it was always crickets or 6 deep at the bar, and fast, you needed to be sober. I still reminis about that job. The hours were 6pm to 1pm. Perfect hours for a night owl. Knock off at 1, hang around for a drink, be in bed at 2, get up at leisure, and the day free for writing etc. Got triple pay for New Years Eve etc as well.
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I assume you mean 1 AM? Otherwise that’s a 19 hour day.
I never thought about that but that would be the perfect working hours for me, too!
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