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527 points lxm | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.267s | source
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Karrot_Kream ◴[] No.27671804[source]
I gotta say, I disagree with this piece. I, for one, love QR code menus. I can pinch zoom rather than squint at a menu with small/unreadable fonts in dim lighting. I don't need to badger the already exhausted wait staff on a busy night when they forget to drop us a menu or two. When orders are taken online, rather than awkwardly force a friend to not go to the bathroom (or take their kid to the bathroom) until a server can take their order, they can just order and then go. I do think restaurants should handle payment themselves and have the option for paper menus or menus posted on a wall if needed, but otherwise I'm a fan.
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monkeynotes ◴[] No.27675012[source]
Wait, restaurants are making you order from an app too?? So now you don't really need your 'exhausted wait staff' so much. Hire less wait staff as a portion are now are underutilized. Now some wait staff have no jobs, and the remainder work the same exhausting shifts. The reason these wait staff get tips is because they work so hard, with less service comes less tips. Now you have a whole industry of overworked AND underpaid staff.

Any efficiencies you are seeing will be refactored and stretched out as any business cannot afford to carry fat if they want maximum profit and competitive edge (price).

This whole inconvenience of a friend going to the bathroom is an incredibly weak argument for foregoing the tradition and ceremony of interacting with a person who will provide you with a meal. If you want to live in a McWorld where every step of your dining experience is as sterile, efficient, and touch free as possible then I am sad for you. That's not what a meal with friends and family means to me, it's not just about eating for sustenance.

Why do you draw the line at taking payment?

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astura ◴[] No.27675202[source]
>The reason these wait staff get tips is because they work so hard

The reason they get tips is because they are waitstaff, it has zero to do with how hard they work, it's simply custom to tip waitstaff, even lazy waitstaff.

Most employees work just as hard without getting tips (like the people who are actually cooking the food).

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monkeynotes ◴[] No.27675238[source]
Maybe for you, I tip extra for working hard to keep my meal hot on delivery, water topped up, checking in at appropriate times. I honestly don't understand how you can say tips are not proportional to level of service and how level of service is entirely detached from working hard.

> Most people work just as hard without getting tips (like the people who are actually cooking thr food)

Most people get paid a real wage which isn't backfilled with charity from their customers.

At many good restaurants tips are distributed to the kitchen staff too. Obviously I have no control over that, and the world isn't fair either. None of this changes my argument.

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astura ◴[] No.27675437[source]
> I tip extra for working hard to keep my meal hot on delivery, water topped up, checking in at appropriate times.

Those are things happen with good management, they have little to do with how hard an individual employee is working at a given time.

Besides the claim wasn't waitstaff gets "extra" tips for working hard, the claim was that waitstaff is tipped because they work hard. Don't move the goalposts.

>I honestly don't understand how you can say tips are not proportional to level of service and how level of service is entirely detached from working hard.

I tip the same if my service is shitty, I am not going to put an individual employee in a position of taking a pay cut when I can't know the exact reason something went wrong. I don't know enough about their operations to be punishing individual employees. Even if I could tell if it were an individual employee's fault, most places pool tips, so I'd be punishing the other employees working at the same time. So everyone gets the same tip from me.

I also simply just don't enjoy LARPing as a lord of my personal fiefdom.

Again, you get good service with good management, simple as that.

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1. monkeynotes ◴[] No.27675828[source]
> waitstaff gets "extra" tips for working hard

All tips are 'extra' that's the whole concept. It's money on top of what I am obliged to pay.

> you get good service with good management

Good management would pay a good wage and negate the need for tipping.

> I also simply just don't enjoy LARPing as a lord of my personal fiefdom.

Low blow. You are implying that I am less than you because I have some kind of financial control over waitstaff that I enjoy. A rather bad faith position to be in given how pious and understanding you are striving to come across as.

> most places pool tips

So now you agree kitchen staff get tipped too

> I tip the same if my service is shitty

Good for you. I don't think many people operate like this, so I'd say you are an edge case.

> it has zero to do with how hard they work, it's simply custom to tip waitstaff, even lazy waitstaff

Again, this is how you operate. Wikipedia lays out the common perception of tipping

"The customary amount of a tip can be a specific range of monetary amounts or a certain percentage of the bill based on the perceived quality of the service given."

I've experienced living in the UK without tipping, and in N.America with tipping. All I can say is it's night and day. Very few make a career out of working as waitstaff in the UK, plenty of people have a career in the service industry in N.America. Working hard for large tips can give you a living wage. In the UK because everyone is treated the same, waitstaff do the minimum for the minimum wage (there are exceptions, of course) and then find a better job. Since I left the UK this has begun to change, it's now reasonably common to tip in nicer restaurants, and guess what? The service is better and the waitstaff I assume are happier with more money in their pockets for their effort.