this post was submitted on 03 Jan 2024
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Mildly Infuriating
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If you think tipping, a current necessity to ensure proper pay, is not something you should be doing why don't you stop using food services which expect tipping?
They won't stop underpaying because you don't tip they'll just blame the worker. The one who can't quit, because there's not alot of work around, and they need food for survival
A tip before service is not a tip. It's coercion. Maybe we should consider adding regulation to this entire industry to ensure fair pay.
I’m all for ending tipping culture. And a tip before service may not be a tip, but as long as this is how it’s set up, it’s the current way we must do things.
Just like if you want someone to do some handy work for you, you can go on Craigslist and say “need someone to do ‘x’. Will pay $150” and workers who search on there for jobs will decide whether or not it’s worth it for them to do the job. This job just so happens to be giving you food or a ride.
Right, and if a company can't pay their workers enough, then workers are not obligated to work there. It is not my responsibility to ensure your workers are paid fairly, regardless of how things are currently set up.
Ok, call your extra payment whatever name you want, and get the ball rolling on legislating new regulations to ensure fair pay. They deserve to get paid more, and when/if those regulations go through the drivers will have a better future.
That didn't answer the question, though. We both agree that drivers deserve to get paid more, so why not open up your wallet and start paying them more now? Why wait months or years for legislation to go through to force you to pay more, when the power to make sure your driver is paid well is sitting in the palm of your hand today? Your individual act of tipping or not tipping will do nothing to address the system at large, but it will do everything to ensure your driver driver gets paid fairly for the labor they perform while they serve you.
Why is it my responsibility to ensure they're paid fairly by me directly? It's the employer's responsibility to pay their workers fairly. If you can't pay your workers fairly, why does your business deserve to exist?
You've got the wrong model. DoorDash is not an employer, and Dashers are not employees. Dashers are not assigned shifts, or expected to clock in and out at specific times. Dashers are free to refuse offers they don't want to take.
DoorDash is a "broker", not an employer. They attempt to connect a customer to a vendor and a Dasher. What you pay DoorDash is a brokerage fee, not a service charge. Your "tip" is not a tip: it is a bid for the Dasher's delivery service. The Dasher is not obligated to serve you; if you want service, you need to offer payment for that service and find someone willing to provide it at that price.
Right...they are a middle man that only exists to extract money from other people's work. Customers have to pay them for the privilege, restaurants have to pay them for the privilege, and then customers have to pay the driver to actually deliver it. Why anyone would use these services, let alone work for them, is beyond me...
Because the price you pay for a service is a reflection of the relationship you have with the person providing that service, and to believe otherwise is something known as commodity fetishism
We are defined both individually and societally by the relationships that we form with other people.
It does not deserve to exist. However, it does exist, drivers drive for them and are not paid enough for their labor, and you continue to use it despite all of that. I'll ask again: why don't you personally be the change you want to see in the world and pay them more now?
Because it's not my responsibility to subsidize your business. If a tip is required to get good service, then the question becomes how much of a tip required to get good service. It pits customers against workers, while you brush it off as just the cost of getting good service. But if people decide that the cost of your business plus a tip is too much, then no one will use your business. That's capitalism...it works both ways. You can either decide to make less profit and pay your workers fairly without putting the onus onto your customers, or you can close the business. You are not entitled to exploit both your workers and your customers.
Man, I don't know what you think we're talking about, but I'm talking about DoorDash and DoorDash drivers in reality as it is today. I do not own DoorDash, so you are not subsidizing my business. The service offered is just bringing your food to your door, there isn't really any "good" service that can be used to justify a tip or vice versa. If people decide that the cost of a DoorDash delivery plus a tip is too much, they won't close the app and go get their food themselves--they will just not tip like OP did and like you do and they will both receive a message like the one above. If you want to have your order picked up quickly, you have to place a winning bid.
THAT is what capitalism is--not some idealized pursuit of profit that refuses to exploit its workers; but a house of cards built out of dozens of competing contradictions, full of people hoping to leave someone else holding the bag when it all comes crashing down. I recommend reading Contradiction 7 of Seventeen Contradictions and The End of Capitalism, "The Contradictory Unity of Production and realisation". It's all about how capitalists are fighting the competing contradictions of wanting to sell their goods for as much as possible while paying their laborers as little as possible, and what the broader social impacts of that may be.
I'm talk about "you" figuratively, as in one of the middle-man businesses that only exist to make money off of other people's work, not "you" literally.
Doordash and other such services merely a convenient way to connect restaurants to more delivery drivers instead of hiring their own. On the surface that's a decent business model. In reality, it just exploits drivers and charges restaurants for the privilege, and then charges customers and asks for tips that don't necessarily all go to the drivers. At some point though, customers are going to decide its too expensive, or in this case stop tipping which only results in worse service and complaints. It's already happening. When real taxi services charge less for delivery, a service they use to provide before these fake taxi companies started, then the tides will turn. Unless Doordash can exploit their drivers more, in which case they risk losing drivers. That's capitalism...your company is as much a customer as it is a service provider, but most companies refuse to accept that and instead exploit their workers. That's why laws should exist to prevent that. That's why we should demand those laws, instead of just subsidizing the wages of workers through the company that's exploiting them in the first place.
In the UK (and a lot of Europe) tipping is completely optional. We only tip for exceptional service or if we've made the server's life difficult. It's an optional extra for the server.
At this point, it's so endemic, in the US, that it likely needs to be fixed from the governmental level, but that doesn't make it something that can't be complained about.
American workers rights really scare me. Tipping being allowed to subsidise wages is awful, but so is the safety legislation, and child labour laws. We have issues in the UK obviously, but they're relatively minor in comparison.
It's only expected because consumers with a similar mentality keep supplying the bandaids to the business. That, and poor local and federal regulation.
It's a poverty trap. Your choice often isn't "get another job" or stay there. It's do this job, and survive another month, or quit and be not be able to afford basic necessities (like rent, or food). Unfortunately, the job can leave you too mentally and/or physically exhausted to properly hunt or reskill for another job. It's a catch 22 situation.
Interestingly, COVID actually helped a lot of people on that front. The government income support, and enforced rest let people stop, breathe and think. Many then went on to do exactly what you suggested. Unfortunately there's always more to be drawn into the trap.
Dashers are not employees. There is no employer obligating a Dasher to serve the business's customers.
A waitress is an employee. Her employer can demand that she serve a particular customer. She can be fired for refusing to serve you.
A Dasher is not an employee. DoorDash cannot fire a Dasher for refusing to accept an order. The Dasher is perfectly free to decline your offer for any reason they want.
The only information the Dasher is given is the location of the pickup, the location of the dropoff, and how much you are willing to pay for the trip. From that information, the Dasher has to decide whether to take the offer, or decline.
When your offer is so shitty that it would cost more to fulfill it than you're offering the Dasher is absolutely justified in flaming you to a crisp.
Personally I tip 20% or more at most Restaurants. I draw the line at tipping before service as well. They aren’t even pretending anymore that it’s about service.
That said, I don’t use any Gig economy service; I don’t believe in their business models at all, and part of what you are saying is why. Workers shouldn’t be taking on the burden, companies should.
I do tip at some pre-service places that I’m a regular at, but I’ve run into some pretty ridiculous stores asking for tips where nothing warrants it. I try to be fair, but it is getting ridiculous.
One of the most ridiculous tipping related thing happened a couple of weeks ago. I was ordering some pantry items from an online store that shipped to me (shipping fee was separate, based on how much is purchased). They had a vinegar that I couldn't find locally or online elsewhere, and since they are a small family business, I decided to order a few other things to support them even though all their prices were a bit higher than other places. When checking out, they asked for a 20-25% tip to help support their small family business. That just made me mad. Never going to shop from them again.
Yes that’s completely ridiculous. You’re helping their small business by shopping there in the first place.