we cannot live on tips alone!

[aethyrflux]

there are articles out there on people's motivations for tipping

and there are reports of the industry's interests, as well

there's even a lot of excellent research & suggested solutions for what to do about the whole debacle

but i noticed that there wasn't a whole lot of data out there about how the current American system developed... here's

Comments

[nobodobodon]

It offloads the living wage responsibility onto the consumer, while also offloading the responsibility of satisfactory customer service onto the workers.

If I go into, for instance, a Home Depot, and I have shitty service, who do I blame? I blame the managers, and rightly so: the employees are obviously poorly treated, underpayed, undertrained, and not properly supervised. Most of them would work well if treated properly, and the ones that don't would be shown the door by a responsible manager. Conversely, if a place is poorly run, the really good employees will either sour on their jobs and not do well, or go find another store to work at.

And I think people are by and large aware of that. I sure am. Sure, there's an extent to which it's the employees fault if he can't tell me where the Torx screwdrivers are, but in the long run, I blame up. The store manager isn't pulling his weight, and his regional managers aren't keeping up with that either, and neither are their bosses. (I use the male pronoun out of habit, though it's probably pretty accurate if we're talking about bad managers of Home Depot locations.)

But if I go into a Chili's and have crappy service, who do I blame? Well, myself for going into a Chili's, but let's pretend I'm not me... you get the picture.

As for Uncle Scrooge, millionaires don't usually get to be millionaires through their generosity.

[aethyrflux]

What about wealthy philanthropists like Andrew Carnegie, or even folks such as Bill Gates & George Lucas?