I got a coffee the other day on a date night. Girl (I can say that, she had her pronouns on her nametag) turned the iPad around for me to pay. I shit you not, the options were 0%, 25%, 50%, and "100% if [barista's name] knocked it out of the park today!" Who tf is falling for that?

[–] Korne127 22 points 4 months ago

What the fuck

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

How much was the coffee?

[–] db2 13 points 4 months ago (1 children)

tf does that matter?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

25-50% on a $2 coffee isn't totally unreasonable if you actually received great service.

[–] db2 12 points 4 months ago (1 children)

"Here is some extra money for pouring liquid in a cup and setting it on the counter after taking my other money."

You have to see how ridiculous that is.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Which would be why I specified "if you actually received great service". If the barista spent a few minutes going over the flavor profiles of the roasts, helped you decide, and actually went above and beyond pour-liquid-in-a-cup-and-set-ot-on-the-counter, then yeah I don't think $1 is ridiculous gratuity. Obviously that's a different circumstance than just bare minimum.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

My main issue with that ideology, while I fully understand that train of thought; Is that that's literally their job. It's not like the guest is coming in and being like yo what were the Powerball numbers last night, can you look up if the Dodgers made it into the series? It's literally questions that as part of their job.

Now if the Barista was like the one that I had a year or so back where they were out of an item and instead of just saying oh we're out, was able to appropriately give an alternative that actually tasted damn close to what the original drink was, you bet your ass I gave them a five. But if that Barista is just telling me what's on the menu and what's in the drink, that is what I would expect the Barista to be able to do regardless and I don't feel like that's going above and beyond or worth a tip

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

You can tell the difference between "Just doing your job" and "Going above and beyond". If I know what I want and they just pour coffee in a cup, I'm probably not tipping, or maybe I'll round up. If I have a ton of questions and need help deciding, I'll probably throw them a dollar or two, depending on how complicated I make things.

My whole point is if the coffee is like $3, 25-50% is 75¢-$1.50, which is perfectly reasonable for someone who did go above and beyond. I can even see 100% if they were exceptionally fantastic, like that one you had a year or so back. If the coffee is $8, gtfo out of here with those percentages.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

fully agree. Percentage based tipping has never made much sense to me, like the same amount of work doesn't change based off the menu prices

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

Percentage is a good rule of thumb for most things, since generally menu prices are within a sigma or two of the average. This implies that a higher total is due to more items and more work. This decays at the high and low extremes, although a case could be made that if you're at an establishment with exceptionally high prices, you're generally getting exceptionally fine service.

For a cup of coffee though, 15-20% is a joke. Either they just did their job, which justifies 0%, or they earned a tip, which justifies at least $1. For low menu-price items, 0%, 25%, 50%, 100% is a reasonable spread; you yourself tipped what I assume was about 100% on a $5 coffee. I think all four options are valid.