Do You Tip Every Time You Are Asked?

Have you noticed how more companies are asking for tips these days? If you’re shopping for coffee, you can’t pretend not to notice the tip jar like you could in the old days of 2017. The rise in digital kiosk transactions at the point of sale means you need to actively choose whether to give an extra 15% or 20% while a barista or caterer waits for you. And they see that you clicked . It’s a lot of pressure, and a lot of people just seem to click, “Of course. Whatever. Make it more expensive.” Industry research shows that on-screen tips can increase tips by more than 20%.

This can be especially frustrating in situations where tipping has traditionally not been the norm—at least there is a cultural history of tipping in the food service industry—but when you’re asked to tip a cashier at a hardware store, it seems predatory like everyone else. their hand. Or as a sneaky way to raise prices.

Sign in corporations

Huge mega-corporations like Burger King or Starbucks expecting customers to increase the income of their employees behind the counter raise a different set of questions than a family-owned store adding a digital “tip” option. Tips are supposed to go directly to employees, so in a sense you are giving money to another person, not to some creatures that run large corporations. But in reality, you have no idea how your generosity (or lack of it) counts towards the base pay rate for the people you meet. Someone at MegaFoodCo is definitely doing the math, putting customers in a financial and sociological minefield when they just want to buy a McRib. No wonder people are outraged.

Lifehacker published a detailed guide on who to tip and how much back in 2019 (did you know you should tip your tattoo artist?), and the bottom line about buying a cup of coffee or taking food out on the counter is that you are not expected to tips, but you can if they somehow go above and beyond.” But that was before, when it was just a tip jar that you could ignore unless you wanted to toss in the coins you received as change.

Things have changed so much that there seems to be no accepted etiquette, so I’m reaching out to you Lifehacker reader: let us know how you deal with being asked for advice in new and unexpected places in our comment section. below.