Read on Twitter
An analogy:
Contemporary service tipping is a barbaric system and should be abolished. Yet, should could continue to tip.
Contemporary service tipping is a barbaric system and should be abolished. Yet, should could continue to tip.
When businesses institute tipping systems, what they are doing is divesting themselves of the responsibility of compensating their employees and turning it into an act of personal generosity and/or normative obligation on the behalf of their customers.
The employee costs are being socialized at the wrong layer, at the customer, instead of business.
What the businesses in question should be doing is pricing in the cost of compensating their employees into the cost of the service, passing the cost along to all customers.
What the businesses in question should be doing is pricing in the cost of compensating their employees into the cost of the service, passing the cost along to all customers.
As a customer I understand that employee work is valuable and needs to be compensated, but I resent the idea that *I* have to make a personal sacrifice in the form of dollars above and beyond my legal obligations in order to make sure they get what they need.
I would resent it even more if the employee in question asked for a higher tip when they were in personal distress or to deal with upcoming time off - this is something the employer should be handling, not me.
All true. I tip anyway.
All true. I tip anyway.
We live in the society we live in, and the simple fact that the systems we live in are bad does not relieve us of the obligation to fulfill our social obligations in the system we have, however negatively it impacts us, until those impacts become overwhelming.
By the way, this is not just an analogy, tipping really is a barbaric system I loathe, and I still tip out of social obligation even though I would abolish it given the opportunity (and replace it with a token tipping system that is not relevant here).
People, to a first approximation, understand we fulfill the social obligations we have with the systems we have, not the systems we want, at least when it comes to tipping. Perhaps because so many people have been in service positions or know people who are.
Well, turns out there are a lot of obligations we organize at the wrong layer, and that leads to some sub-optimal, even unfair distributions that you end up on the wrong side of. That sucks.
Fulfill them anyway.
Fulfill them anyway.
What social obligations am I analogizing to?
To a first approximation, all of them, especially the one you're most upset about.
To a first approximation, all of them, especially the one you're most upset about.
