Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO

That depends on whether it's table service, or whether you yourself go to the counter to buy your drink. Until very recently, that was the dividing line for tips (except at bars).

Bro there's no "wait staff" involved in this transaction. He purchased an item, the person handed it to him. This is well outside the bounds of what should be tipped.

How cruel can one be to try to come up with such a "line"? In my mind it goes like this:

If you're served by a human and tips are not included in normal pay by law, you tip.

If it's a country where people can't live with just the one job, you tip a lot.

Disappointed that you haven’t sent me my money for being parent to my comment. Do you need ETH address to tip to?

Cruel?

There are a set of pretty arbitrary customs about where you tip and where you don't tip. You would be considered a weirdo if you tipped at the grocery store. In the US, you have to tip at sit-down restaurants.

Traditionally, in the US, people rarely tipped when they had to go to the counter to order and pick up food.

That's just the custom, though it seems to be rapidly changing, so that basically any food or drink service now involves tipping.

By your own logic, do you tip every grocery store cashier? Do you tip your landlord? Do you tip the toll collector on the highway?

Tipping everybody who you hand cash to is crazy. And the US is the only place where you have to do it for a large percentage of that population.

If that is your takeaway from this story, hooooo boy you must be in a rage every day. Places all over Seattle default their machines to tip 18% when you buy a single roll of toilet paper and nothing else. (Edit: you could also pick up a few bottles of expensive wine they sell; maybe you’re in a rush and don’t expect a tip screen ; ooooops you tipped $40 for nothing!)

There’s a place that does this less than a block from me right now. Actually probably 2-3 places if you extend a block further.

Isn't that shifting responsibility to the customer? That is a very odd take

Isn't that shifting responsibility to the customer?

Where in Seattle does this? Maybe it’s different on the east side. Costco and the grocery store chains here certainly don’t do that.

Wait, you guys tip now when you go to the supermarket and get and scan your own toilet paper?

I’m in lower Queen Anne. Every corner store that also sells coffee/sandwiches does this. Maybe 1-5% of customers are buying a sandwich, but 100% are prompted to tip with an 18% default.

Nope! We sure don’t! Not on purpose any way. But the businesses sure want us to.

This mostly happens at smaller stores and not big chains.

I think Seattle should introduce 18% tip on original 18% tip as it adds extra work for service workers in form of collecting tip, maintenance of tip screen and so on.

No way, no how. I tip really well for people who actually provide service. If you're my waiter or delivery driver, I'll take care of you. Conversely, I have never tipped anyone a single penny for handing me a burger at a drive thru, nor will I, and I don't feel the slightest bit guilty about it.

Coffee bars are a grey area. If I'm ordering something fancy, I'll probably tip. If I'm getting a cup of black joe from an urn of pre-made coffee, I may or may not.

I'll continue to tip well for people working in traditionally tipped positions. The last few years have seen companies attempt to massively expand that list of positions so that their employees get paid more without their bosses having to pay for it. Those cheapskates can give their workers raises instead of turfing it off onto us.

Lmao they prepared his usual for him before he got there every day and had it waiting for him. That is exceptional service.

Agree to disagree.

We learned his schedule, we made sure to make his drink so it would be ready on time while also handling the hundreds of other orders in the morning rush. This is something we tried to do for every regular customer with a fixed order.

I'd argue that this sort of thing is well within the bounds of what was 'tippable' service back then.

But to be clear, tips weren't expected then like they are now. It was an infrequent thing. If you dropped your ~15¢ change into the jar once or twice a month, you were a generous tipper.

We served Steve for many years and he was definitely an outlier. He wasn't the only other customer that never tipped. But he was the only one that was famously rich, which is what made it so amusing to us.

Unless he specifically asked for that kind of service, I wouldn't tip either, and I refuse to tip a pickup order regardless of net worth, out of principle (unless I am making a non-standard request).

I've given stores bad Yelp reviews for daring to ask. I tip people in tipped positions really well. No way in hell I'm giving a penny to someone who only rang up the stuff I carried up to their counter.

Am I the only one who caught the Reservoir Dogs reference?

The responsibility is already on the customer. It shouldn’t be, and restaurants should have to pay their workers minimum wage. But it isn’t that way, and stiffing service workers isn’t the way to fix it.

Neither is stiffing the customers to the tune of 15-20 percent.

Why would you do that though? Were you told to do this by the owner? If not, then that's on you and you should have treated him no differently than any other paying customer.

Do you do the minimum acceptable work at your job?

The problem is that it seems to be necessary to prompt every transaction for a tip to collect any credit tips at all, or at least all the major POS are set-up that way.

Which doesn't seem like it should be a big problem in an already not tip-heavy, but there are a surprising number of people who make a very big show of not being able to tip because there's no credit option.

Are there technically/legally any “tipped positions” in Washington? Since tipped minimum wage is not a thing.

Nobody is arguing that tipping culture isn’t stupid. But it’s the society we live in and you know that before you step into a restaurant.

And nobody has stopped paying tips either. It is very socially awkward not to pay it. But i won't agree that in principle not paying is stiffing the staff. It is stupid, the industry has arm twisted customers to make it socially mandatory to pay and calling it stiffing the staff is blaming another victim.