Tipping Culture

[pennswoods]

I just returned home from my last conference of the academic year. I was in San Diego sharing an AirBnB with two academic friends and due to a logistics mix-up, we ended up having to use Uber quite a bit to get around. At one point towards the end of the trip, I asked my friends their approach to tipping and rating Uber drivers. This is because they seem more comfortable using Uber and Lyft than me and also had a lot of opinions about a number of App-based things that I don't use or don't use as much and I thought they would have good advice. 

To my shock I learned that neither of them tips, except of exceptional service and they only leave ratings if there is a problem! They were adamant about this. I felt a little crazy because I do tip and give maximum ratings as much as possible and I wondered if I had been doing it wrong all along.

I also learned that they had never heard of tipping hotel cleaning staff (e.g. leaving a tip in the room whenever you have it cleaned). That one I learned about when I was older and started reading travel guides about tipping in different tiers of hotels for the different services. They also seemed to object to tipping cab drivers too and said that they tipped people like their hair dressers, who they had an ongoing relationship with. 

I was really beginning to doubt myself since there were other things this weekend that left me feeling like an oddball that didn't know social rules, so I reached out to another friend to ask about Uber tipping and she was adamant about tipping and rating at all times, My husband was also surprised to hear about the no-tipping tendencies of my friends and pointed out that the algorithms food delivery services deliberately lower the base pay drivers receive to make them more more reliant on tips. He surmised the same model was probably at play with Uber. 

I'm not alone in my preferences but I wonder just how much more common my friends' nontipping/non-rating practice is than my tipping/rating practice. 

How often and how much do those of you who use services like Uber and Lift rate and tip? And what factors affect your choice to do so or not?

Comments

[mundungus42]

I hope my city treated you well!!

Your husband is 100% correct. I judge people who don't tip gig and low-wage service workers pretty harshly (unless there is some kind of financial hardship). If your friends have spent a substantial amount of time in the US, there's no excuse for ignoring tipping culture, and it doesn't say anything good about their character. Nor does their refusal to give feedback for anything other than bad service. Ugh.

I usually tip 20%, especially on an app where doing so is super easy. I also tip fast food workers and try to always have cash on hand during travel for tips.

[pennswoods]

Your city was lovely and kept me busy! I am sorry I did not reach out to connect - this turned into a bigger conference than I expected with a lot more people to catch up with and Uber to.

Thank you for validating my initial response. My friends live in the US and have indeed spent many decades here - one is US-born, which also explains some of my shock. They were not just visiting and using Uber for the first time like some of my German colleagues. And it is clear that they use Uber and Lyft regularly when they travel which is why I wanted to ask for tips.

I am not so good at tipping fast food workers and that is still something I am trying to come to terms with since I don't use fast food a lot and also often don't have cash on me. But app tipping is extremely easy and I just assumed fellow US academics would be tipping like me.

[mundungus42]

No worries at all! I'm so glad it was a good conference that kept you busy and that you got to catch up with so many folks!

Yeah, it's always disconcerting to find that people with whom you have a collegial relationship do not share the same values as you. And because professional relationships are at stake, speaking up isn't always wise or advisable. But yeah, that cluelessness about (or indifference to) the way most folks live would make me think twice before potentially connecting anyone financially vulnerable or otherwise minoritized in the field to work with them. That may just be me being melodramatic, but given the number of grad students I've had crying in my office over he years, I'm perhaps oversensitive to things that could be red flags.

[pennswoods]

I consider both these professional contacts personal friends, good enough friends for me to room with them and visit them at their homes! I think they are both thoughtful people and are open to being given new information and they do the same for me when I need (and don't always want feedback) on my own behavior. I think I was just surprised because they struck me as the type of people that would indeed tip and leave reviews because they've been using Uber longer than me (Uber was not a thing when I was in Sweden).

[clevermanka]

I gave $5 to the guy at Costco who helped me load stuff into my car when I was suffering from a back injury (they don't have people to do that, I just asked a random employee for help as I was leaving). He said it was against policy and couldn't accept it so I said "Just pretend to shake my hand" and handed it over that way.

The store in town where I buy my incense has two jars at the cash register, labeled Tacos and Pizza. I put a dollar in each when I buy my $10 worth of incense.

Last week I tipped 20% on some Chinese food I was picking up myself.

So yeah, even though my income puts me at just above the US poverty level I'm 100% in favor of tipping in every possible situation. Unless they're digging-change-out-of-the-couch-for-gas-money poor I think people should pony up to give at least a buck or two to service workers at any opportunity. I'm an incredibly frugal person but I'm not stingy and I think a lot of USians don't understand the difference.

This is a super touchy issue for me (in case you didn't notice) and yes I have quit friendships over it 😅

[drinkingcocoa]

I haven't had to quit any friendships yet but I have given my full lecture. I have also trekked back to places to leave more tip after suspecting that the person "treating" me undertipped. Sheesh. People who need a power trip should try not punching down.

[clevermanka]

Full Lecture and Fixing The Undertipping Situation fuck yeah. *fistbump*

And actually now that you say it, I realize I haven't quit friendships just for that, but lack of generosity is very much a red flag for me. And, like, I'm not saying those people are bad, just that I want to spend my energy cultivating relationships with generous people.

[pennswoods]

I love the shaking hands to discretely tip story. I wish I had a story like that but I have the opposite - a failure to tip. I was trying to tip the bartender at the conference dinner last week where they only accepted payment using cards but they could not accept tips via card - only cash. Because we had all been notified in advance that payment was cashless, I had no cash with me at all and I was frustrated that there was no way I could tip. I think people may use Venmo in these circumstances but I don't have a Venmo. I guess I need to set one up.

[clevermanka]

Oh noooooooooooooooo. How frustrating. And, tbh, rude of the organizers to not announce that somehow. People so rarely think about how their actions affect service workers.

[drinkingcocoa]

I am frankly shocked that anyone withholds feedback unless it's negative. My rage and judgment are beyond words. The only time I withhold feedback is WHEN it's negative and then I contact the business directly to work it out in private and not ruin their public-facing account, unless it was, like, an actual crime. And even so, negative feedback is only if you're committed to bringing down a business and have exhausted all other avenues.

I thought not tipping was the worst, but withholding feedback except for whatever is deemed "exceptional" is so bizarrely entitled and self-righteous, I feel disgust.

My policy is for any business that relies on ratings, such as Lyft or Etsy, maximum stars and glowing feedback unless they've, like, run over my dog. Minimum base tip is 20%, regularly more if I can afford it.

If I cannot afford a tip, I don't buy the thing or get the service at all. The tip is not optional. Maybe in other countries, but not in the U.S. where the pay scale is rigged so people starve if the customer doesn't make up their wages with a tip. (I mean, people starve even with that.) The tip is the most important part of the payment.

Ever since the pandemic, when cash became less common, I have started going to the bank to get ones, fives, and tens so I can tip in cash whenever possible, even if I pay the actual bill with a card. I don't trust businesses to give tips fairly to the employees. I don't feel safe unless I put the cash directly into the employee's hand.

I have physically tracked down housekeepers in hotels to make sure they got my $5. I know some people leave their housekeeping tip all at once at the end of their stay, but the housekeepers' schedules change all the time, so I make sure to do it daily. If I can afford a $200 room, I can damn well make it $205 in my head.

I tipped regularly before, but my worldview became more adamant when pandemic started and some people could quarantine and work for home, while others had to keep going to their crappy jobs and catch covid. I took to heart that the less gap a society has between richest and poorest, the more functional that society is. Money exists to help people live a basic, decent life. If I have enough for that and someone else doesn't, the thing to do is redistribute.

Oh my god I cannot stop ranting. Yeah, this is a black-and-white issue for me.

[clevermanka]

Alllllll this yes yes yes loved your rant thank you.

[pennswoods]

I started reading blogs by Uber drivers and r/uber just now to inform myself more. I thought the review thing was crucial as a way for drivers to earn a higher status, but it seems it's a lot more complicated than I can wrap my mind around and I need to read more. It appears not tipping and not reviewing is also a lot more common than I thought! Or rather, there are certain circumstances when people are more likely to tip and leave comments: long rides, airport pickups, reserved rides, Comfort/upgraded rides. Three out of four of these overlap with most of my Uber reservations but these do not make up the majority of Uber rides. For instance, there are a lot of short trips of drunk students who need a ride back to their apartment/dorm from the bar on Friday nights. There are also cases of people using Uber as a transport for the elderly to get to medical appointments in wheelchairs when they would better be served by an actual medical transport.

Uber is doing the work of an absent public transportation system but without the security and benefits offered state employees.

Anyway, my friends are not poor uninformed uni students or overworked elder care faculty staff whose administration has outsourced medical transport to Uber. They have good hearts and mean well and I think there may be a way for me to share information with them to help them think about tipping and rating differently.

[drinkingcocoa]

I feel kind of bad about this because I think I may have ranted too vehemently and I didn't mean that you are obligated to take on a mission of confronting your friends! I know how I get when I feel this way about something.

I've been thinking that my perspective is informed by a few different things, including:

- experience with the fanfic economy. If you read a chapter in a story and you even remotely know the author, you leave a review. Not just "I am dead this made me cry" but with quotes and specific phrases.

- experience as a crafter and Etsy seller.

- experience as an author whose book is only available online, dependent on online reviews

I don't know how different my take would be if I had ever driven for a rideshare, cleaned hotel rooms, or tended bar. I am making a bunch of assumptions. I could be very, very wrong on a lot of things.

I am sorry for the overbearing aspect of my rant!

[pennswoods]

I didn't find it overbearing - I found it passionate but also you included reason. I may or may not talk with my friends about this but if and when it happens, it will be at a later time and when it is meaningful (e.g. like we are talking about Ubering). I just found your reasoning compelling to think about.