I will tip for good service at a restaurant. I really try to do cash because it is common for management to steal all or a portion of the tips.
I just had this discussion with my wife yesterday when I got a Subway sub for her. When I went to pay it asked for a percentage based tip. Keep in mind this sub was $16 where I live.
I hate that corporations are underpaying their workers and trying to guilt you into giving them a tip which they then promptly steal.
The US are completely dystopian
I’ve never paid a single tip in my life.
Don’t visit the USA
People: “I am NOT paying my barista a tip for this, what do you MEAN they DEMAND a tip.”
Meanwhile the Barista is being paid less than US$3 an hour because in America, you can be paid that and be expected to reach minimum wage through tips if you work food service. Want to end that? Demand that food service workers be paid minimum wage at the very least. Don’t want to do even that? Then stop getting fast food.
- No, this will not raise the price of food in any meaningful way.
- No, these are not all teens, the average age of a minimum wage worker is 40.
- No, this will not raise the price of goods generally. Wages have remained stagnant and the price of goods have risen regardless.
In my city they get paid 21/hr min wage iirc, and while lower elsewhere, barely anywhere uses federal min wage right?
in my state it’s 17/20/25/27/38 i think but i’m not sure on the last two, it’s been a while. tips don’t enter into calculations at all toward your wages, they’re just separate.
Some places still use the federal minimum wage. Thats how you get Mississippi.
Edit: looked it up. Says that in 2024, “843,000 earned federal minimum wage or below… Today, only around 1 percent of hourly workers earn the federal minimum, while almost a quarter of the U.S. workforce makes less that $17 an hour.”
Source: https://www.statista.com/chart/9251/workers-earning-minimum-wage-or-below-united-states/
Additional info: the min wage has not been increased since 2009. It should be $11.17 by now just with inflation - and that’s not a living wage, just an arbitrary poverty wage:

Damn well there’s the problem, ig i just live in an expensive city so there’s higher min
Don’t want to do even that? Then stop getting fast food.
Not to take away from your point, but fast food workers get minimum wage, they’re not subject to the slave wages food service workers have to deal with. They get the moderately better minimum, rather than hoping tips makes it to minimum.
Yeah I was like wait, now we have to tip at Taco Bell? Fuck this country.
To be fair, I don’t think baristas get the ~$3 minimum wage. Not Starbucks workers at least. Still a valid point though.
I’m sorry, by if they work at Starbucks, they’re not baristas
OK cool. They’re still not making $3/hour.
Don’t want to do even that? Then stop getting fast food.
That’s exactly right. Being against tipping as a concept is fine, but the idea that we can end tipping culture by refusing to tip is fundamentally accelerationist. “Surely if we torture the workers enough they’ll be forced to demand higher wages!”
Either we refuse to even be customers for places that underpay their workers, or we tip generously to try to make up for it.
The logic of punishing our fellow victims of the system has always struck me as both misguided and cruel.
Thank you for pointing it out!
This is what I’ve done. I haven’t been out to eat since before the pandemic. I got used to making my meals at home.
I’m not aware of anywhere that pays (or is even allowed to pay) baristas what waiters and bartenders get. There may be exceptions. This post seems to be about literally anyplace with a new POS having basically options for 20-30% tips, despite the person behind it making like $15 an hour (at least where I live). Fortunately, lately, I’ll have the person reach around and press the “no tip” button often enough, since it’s usually the least obvious option available.
$15/hr still isn’t a living wage in most places, just for the record. It’s better than server wages for sure, but it’s not stable-life-level income.
Fast food isn’t a place that typically solicits tips or pays tip wages. Sit down restaurants with waiters and bar tenders are where this occurs.
You’d be surprised. I’ve seen tons of fast food/counter service places that have tips enabled on the POS. And I sure as shit am not tipping at any place that I have to get my food from the counter.
I begrudgingly tip at ‘real’ food/drink establishments, since I’m societally handcuffed to supporting worker slavery wages in restaurants when I go there, but fuck literally every other establishment that asks for tips.
And I really need to get it through one of my partners’ heads that we should not be tipping minimum wage places, the org most likely pockets most of not all of that and the workers don’t see shit.
I am the same mantra as you. If you are being paid tip wages, then I’ll tip…if not hell no.
Ahh yes. The barista that personally selected and programmed their store’s POS system.
Dog they just work there.
Responded to a guy that deleted his comment so it’s not visible anymore. Making fun of the system itself, barrista has nothing to be blamed about
That might’ve been the intention, but the text of the meme targets the barista, not their boss or the system itself.

Then I hope the barista is patient, because they’re gonna be waiting a long time …
I once went to a fancy rooftop bar where I was asked to pay in full (with tip) up front for a cocktail. No idea how that place is still in business.
Honestly, I kinda prefer that in bars? Means you can just walk off and not worry about paying once you’re done.
Plus, I’ll tip $1-2 for a fancy cocktail even if the service is crappy, because those take time to make, so I don’t really need to know what the service is like ahead of time unless it’s incredible. This sounds like it wasn’t though.
In my experience, if you’re a regular tipping that amount you will usually end up getting stronger drinks after the first few visits.
At one bar we had to ask them to stop because it was basically like drinking a glass of liquor.
The problem is do you know what those servers will do to your drink if they feel you did not tip enough!
I’ve been a server at multiple types of establishment in multiple countries. The only time anyone ever fucked with someone’s food/drink, it was because the customer had jumped one of the servers in the restaurant the week before and beaten the shit out of them.
And they should be getting paid for that time no matter what. No tip needed unless they are putting on a special show or gave you suggestions you needed.
Yeah but what if the cocktail sucks
They still put the effort in. If it’s sloppy or poorly made and the bars not busy, I don’t get another one.
It was $18.
Then I probably wouldn’t go, but I don’t go and not tip because the menu is expensive.
Places that pull that bullshit get a one star enraged review from me and are never visited again
Ahahah poor bad! Amiright?
Bro out here supporting post-slavery era policies, instead of realizing this is one of the many ways the rich keep us poor and fighting amongst ourselves.
Employers not paying a living wage bad.
And yet the meme is mocking the worker not the employer 🤔
Because the employees fight to keep themselves down and guilt us into helping keep them down. Look at how many people were fighting to make tips tax free instead of just paying people more.
Thats such a gross generalization. Does it happen? Yes totally, but the meme propagates a stereotype that the average (if not every) cafe worker is like this.
Thats my main issue with a meme like this, is that it normalizes mocking and belittling a class.
Would you for instance find it okay if we substituted “tips” for “change” and “barista” for “a homeless person”?
No bro, never implied that. You can criticize enshittification and the “let’s transform everything into sales, lootbox-mechanics and subscriptions” attitude without blaming the fucking workers
And yet here you are, mocking the workers.
I think being a hyporcite would mean not posting what I find funny out of fear of looking like a hypocrite
No. Systemic oppression that caused the concept of tipping bad.
And yet here you are, mocking the workers.
yeah. you TOTALLY thought it was sarcasm. You didnt think it was serious at all.
OP’s post is punching down (which OP said they find funny, even though they don’t seem to agree with the idea that workers are to blame - that’s not sarcasm, that’s just OP being and weirdo IMO), while the very obviously sarcastic comment is treated as if it’s serious.
Keep feeding tip culture instead of focusing on decent wages.














