UK credit cards in the States

Olenna

Anyway, the best thing to do is budget for a 30% extra on everything with humans (including Starbucks) once you consider a possible tip and mandatory sales tax - with most things automated about 10% tax but apparently machines are now asking for tips too..!

Nasqueron

MyRealNameToo said:

Nasqueron said:

MyRealNameToo said:

_Chris__2 said:

It really is a ridiculous state of affairs when you're still expected to give a tip, even if the service (and food) was terrible!!

It's not a tip, it's service. Would you work for £1.58/hr as they do? Do you think you live in a big city like New York or LA on £1.58/hr? They have no right to paid holiday or sickpay either, if they are very lucky they will get 10 days for both, the average UK worker would be using half of that for sick pay and then wouldnt have enough days left to even cover bank holidays. 

US is supposed to be the land of opportunity so in their minds our "London living wage" of $19 plus sick pay, holiday pay etc is what's absolutely madness. Effectively you are paying staff well over $21 even if they are really poor and unreliable. 

They think it's better to allow customers to decide how much they get paid based on service or whatever other criteria the customer decides thus the good can earn well and the poor will scrape by. The reality of such however is even for poor service you should pay something else people can't live. 

US staff love the tip model and don't want it to change as they can grossly undeclare their income from tips and avoid tax.

We are not there to reward bad service with a 20% tip. Tips should be an amount, not a %. If I go to a restaurant and have a $5 drink and $20 salad, the waiter has done the same work as if I buy a $50 drink and $200 salad - $5 for the former, $50 for the latter, that can go straight in the bin. 

The minority who do well from it like it, the majority do not.

That isn't to do with tipping

I never said anything about any % doing well from it

I said the serving staff want that model for the reasons stated - they make more money from tips and can under declare it. In MA recently, servers were campaigning against a state motion to increase the wages because of the fact tips would be pooled and shared with line cooks and chefs who make the minimum wage. Servers interviewed by the Boston site supported it noting they could make up to $80 an hour at peak times and can live well off it 


 Just look at the thousands of stories of people on pitiful guaranteed salaries having to ration life saving medicines etc because they can't afford to take the amount their doctor has prescribed as on a bad week they can't afford their rent or food let alone luxuries like insulin. 

That's irrelevant, it's a failing of the US system because of lobbying from insurance and medical firms to convince Americans it's eViL sOcIaLiSm despite the cost of universal heathcare being less than the cost of the current system

Not sure there are many venues that sell a $20 and a $200 salad, most would tend to be at one end of the spectrum or the other.

It was an example of the problem of the % based tipping system, you completely missed the point


No system is perfect, and though the OP has protested at the idea of having to pay someone who does only an ok job they do ultimately seem to slightly prefer it to increasing the prices to cover the fact salaries are over 10x what they currently are. 

The problem is the de facto requirement for customers to tip, even with bad service to make up for the fact they have a bad system that they themselves support

Notes inline above