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

[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.