Tipping

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by PaulCrawhorn

First comes living wages
then stop tipping.

Indeed.

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by PaulCrawhorn

First comes living wages

then stop tipping.

To enable the same dignity as minimum wages in the 70's, USD $28/hr is now required.

Maybe a little less in rural / poor areas where housing is cheap, but certainly more in high COL cities where there is job growth and stupid crazy rents.

And that's for the bottom no degree menial workers, obviously teachers nurses etc should get a lot more.

Plus universal health care, subsidised childcare, free tertiary education, old age pensions etc etc

The fact that most USians' reaction go these ideas is shock and horror, just shows how deeply brainwashed they have been by their wealthy masters over the past five decades

Care to source that $28/hr presumption?

https://www.saving.org/inflation/facts/minimum-wage

Based on the above (and I found several sites with similar results...none even remotely close to your $28/hr figure). Inflation adjusted wages:
- The highest in the 1970's was $11.16/hr.
- The highest year ever was 1968 at $12.29/hr
- In 1938 it was $4.52/hr (the year minimum wage started)...if it's about "dignity" were they undignified back then?
- The average from 1938-2016 is $8.36....so current $7.25/hr isn't far off given that it only is updated every several years.

On top of that, almost no one makes minimum wage. Certainly not in areas with high living costs or workers with any remotely in-demand skill set. McD's was paying $14/hr in a low living cost area we were in last year.

As far as health care, if you are living off minimum wage you are either eligible for medicade (medicare?...can never keep those straight) or heavily subsidized obamacare, So the myth of not being able to get insurance is busted. PS: if you make more, you can still get obamacare just less subsidy

The tipping culture is out of hand but minimum wage has nothing to do with it.

[Tellie]

A bit rough and very un
PC so open with caution.

There's a sailor in every group.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4sbYy0WdGQ

[flee27]

I agree that tipping has become expected even if it is not deserved. I lay somewhere in the middle of this discussion. Ultimately I believe the best system would be one that didn't rely on tips. In that respect the culture that has been developed in the US is a little out of control and unhealthy IMO.

I own a business in the a service industry and we are not one that is deemed tippable. As a business owner there is something a little attractive about my customers subsidizing my payroll. But I am glad they don't because then I would be a part of the problem (and I do see it as a problem).

Interesting to have this discussion on a world wide platform. I like to hear how the practice of tipping is viewed and handled in other places.

Thanks
Foster

[dksail]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Discussions like this make me glad to be in Oz, where tipping is not a common practice. But then, neither are dock hands in marinas unless summoned for some extraordinary situation. On the whole, I'm happy to have staff paid a living wage by management rather than by guilt-tripping customers into supplementing meager wages. If this means higher prices up front, at least you know what you are getting into when you accept a service.

Jim

Exactly!

[Knotical]

We usually do our own pump out at the dock but if we call the boat in I would give him $5-10, most people in our area give $5 so that is the expected norm.


Thread drift-

I come from a different culture where tipping is not a normal/common thing, yes, I have tipped for excellent service or if the person went out of his way to do something for us. I see tipping as a way for us to say “thank you”, not a standardized thing where tipping is someone’s way to earn an adequate wage, I don’t mind paying more at a restaurant to fulfill the servers’ minimum wage than to tip them for whatever service they provide - which is not always “excellent”. I do not want to reward bad behavior yet, at the same time don’t want to fail to recognize someone’s good deeds.

[gonesail]

i wasn't aware that marina employees worked for tips. a 5 minute pumpout is part of the service they provide

[Mike OReilly]

Is the pump out part of the normal job of this worker? Aren't you already paying for the service? If so, then why would you consider paying more?

Oh... I understand the reason. This isn't a tip in the traditional sense. It is part of the fee for the service. Tipping's original intent was to reward service that went far beyond normal expectations. But most especially in the USA and its satellites (Canada being one), tipping has become a way to shift the cost of workers away from the employers, and directly onto the customers.

The restaurant industry long fell to this practice, and it is bleeding out into many areas now. It is a terrible way to compensate people for the work they do. As osprey877 indicates, it leads to a whole set of problems in society, and is rarely beneficial to workers in general.

But it is complicated... A person stuck in one of these low-wage jobs that have been shifted to the tipping model may need tips just to make a livable income. So my advice in this case is to tip if necessary, BUT go talk to the management and complain that they are underpaying their workers, and that you will be moving your business to someplace that pays people fairly.

And yes... that means you will have to pay more for your pump out, but you're already doing that through the tip.

[Chotu]

Well, all of you anti-tippers are giving sailors a bad name. Because every power boat that comes through gives a percentage to the dock hand. You guys are gonna be the cause of us being treated poorly at the dock. Thanks a lot.

Unbelievable that we have so many cheap people on here. And this is a different kind of cheap than just saving money on your boat. This is a cheap that goes against your fellow human being.

People that work on the dock are paid a normal wage. It’s a summer job. For kids. Take a look at who hands you the fuel hose when you go to a dock. It’s typically a college kid. Or somebody just about to enter their first year of college. It’s also somebody who enjoys sailing. And they don’t have a boat yet. Many of them are the same people that race competitively in college. They race on 420s, things like that.

I don’t understand how people can put such negative vibes into their own communities. This is the next generation of people that will be sailing with us.

I’m truly surprised this forum is full of these outlooks. I thought we were the nicer people on the water.

I understand Canadians and the culture of non-tipping there. That’s just how it is. But the Canadians should also understand that we do have a culture of tipping here. So when in Rome.

[siamese]

I wouldn't tip.

I occasionally break with my vegan regimen and get a pizza from a terrific pizza place near my home. I hand the employee my credit card, they run it, and then they turn the register screen toward me so I can select the tip amount. REALLY!?!...I should tip you for doing your job? All you did was your job. Anything less, and you'd be fired.

Should I tip the cashier at Walmart? My doctor? Etc.....

It's up to the marina to employ and pay their people.

Tipping needs to go away.

[Peeew]

I do tip dockhands when I stop for fuel or a pump out. Admittedly both are rare for me as usually I am sailing in remote areas and don’t need either much. But when I did learn that powerboaters tend to tip a lot I also started to give some tip. Don’t want to be the ignored boat next time etc and I do think it helps out the dockhands.
As to Restaraunt tipping, it is normal where I live. But when traveling I have seen in some locations a “standard” gratuity is added to the bill. I think this leads to poor service as the staff Doesn’t have to offer anything special to get a tip. I suspect many don’t notice the automatic tip and add something without realizing they are double tipping. I sometimes will tell wait staff that I usually tip more but since this is what the restaurant chooses I will stick to that. Staff and the customer both can lobby to have this policy changed.

[landsend]

I agree with no tipping. Everywhere you go there's a tip jar or as Siamese said a screen prompting you to tip!

I do tip at restaurants but we rarely eat out, my food is more tasty.
Tipping the dock hand! That's their bloody job!
Tipping the fuel person that hands you the nozzle! Hell no!

[MicHughV]

I can't speak for the whole world...

But in the US......tips ARE the wages for waiters/waitresses in restaurants......at the and of the evening they usually give a cut of their tips to the busboys, kitchen staff, etc...they are paid a small salary by the restaurant, but it is not much...it varies from place to place....bartenders also make the bulk of their income from tips...

Interestingly enough, staff at fast food joints, McDonalds, etc, are rarely tipped...I think the notion is that they don't do much besides hand you, your food.

In the US, it's common to leave a 15% tip at a restaurant....extra good service....20%...if you are really cheap....10%...even if the food sucked......it's not the waitstaff fault...and should be tipped..

Upper scale restaurants will add the tip....called a gratuity...on the bill for your meal...usually 15-20%...so this decision is made for you...you may notice a message on the menu " a gratuity will be added to your bill"....this can be annoying if the service really sucked...

On the other hand...I've been to countries where you'll hear " keep the change" as your tip....this could be 10c out of a $20 bill...or a handful of pennies...but typically, the waitstaff is paid better....

Baghandlers at airports, cruise ship terminals are usually also tipped..typically based on number of bags....some people do....some people don't...

Probably the most annoying thing for me is the jacked up prices of booze in restaurants and bars. A bottle of wine in a store might be $15....but the same bottle in a restaurant will be $45...there is a lot of shenanigins going on in some bars....cheap booze sold as the good stuff.....beers from unseen kegs...and so..mixed drinks are usually quite expensive...some can run $15 for a single drink....and you are still expected to leave a tip..

Staff at marina's....fuel dock boys, drystack boys sometimes get tipped...but I don't often see it. The pump out costs $$$, so the general feeling is...as a boater....you are "paying" for the service.....

Some countries have personnel pumping your fuel....but tipping is rare...
In the US, you pump your own fuel. If you are incapacitated in some manner, you can ring a bell on the fuel dispenser and someone will come help you.

By and large, I think Americans are the best tippers in the world. It's part of the culture here.

[smj]

I’m guessing we save between $250-$500 a year by owning a composting head and not having to pay for a pump out or tip!

[JebLostInSpace]

Well I fear this thread will soon be closed for drifting away from cruising discussion. But I'll try to throw my inflation-adjusted $0.16 in before that happens.

In response to Paul and Valhalla's discussion of minimum wage changes, I found the below chart which I thought was rather illuminating.

The red line indicates inflation-adjusted minimum wage in 2016 dollars. It shows that the purchasing power of minimum wage decreased substantially from the 70's to the 80's, but has overall trended about flat since then.

The light blue line translates the minimum wage, still in 2016 dollars, but matched to the growth rate of non-supervisory production workers (low skill but not unskilled work) wages.

The dark blue line translates the minimum wage, still in 2016 dollars, but matched to the growth rate of a measure of total economic growth.

2 aspects of this chart jump out at me. First, the growth rate of minimum wage, growth in low-skill workers wages, and total economic growth rates were all very similar from the 50's up to 1968, when those growth rates abruptly diverged.

Second, since 1968, we've seen minimum wage workers earn a bit less, low skill wages stagnate, and total economic growth continue on the same growth pattern as before 1968. This indicates that the wealth generated by overall economic growth is not reaching low-skill or unskilled workers. Whether or not this wealth should reach low-skill and unskilled workers if a discussion firmly rooted in politics and I won't drag us there.

Now, to try and use this information to address the original purpose of the thread: I agree with other posters that tipping culture in the US is overall harmful because it allows certain kinds of employers to pay their workers less than a living wage, and places the responsibility for the workers' livelihoods on the customer. However, that is not the worker's fault, so if we patronize a business whose employees rely on tips for a living wage, we must tip. Since I disagree with the practice, I try to avoid patronizing those businesses, but cannot always do so.

In the case of tipping the marina dock hand, I have found that there is not really a consensus among the marinas in my area. At my home dock, pumpouts are done from a boat that comes around to each slip periodically. Often I am not even on board when it happens, and so there is no opportunity to tip for a pumpout. The cost of these pumpouts is included in my monthly slip fee. Because my home marina doesn't seem to be a place where workers expect or rely on tips, my baseline assumption is that other docks I visit are the same way. Sometimes that assumption is wrong. Sometimes I remember this fact and tip a dock hand. Sometimes I don't remember this fact and fail to tip, potentially harming a worker who relies on tips for a living wage. When I do tip, it is usually in the range of $5 if all they did was hand me a hose (for pumpout or fuel), $10 if they helped secure me on the dock in adverse conditions, or if it took them more than about 5 minutes to help me. I have never tipped a percentage of my fuel purchase, which seems to be the practice of some power boaters. If I did tip, for example, 15% of my fuel purchase, the tip amount would usually be around the same $5 I tip for handing me a hose.

Source for the chart is here:
https://www.epi.org/publication/the-...s-of-inaction/