I hardly consider myself to be among the most anti-tipping people out there, but this really crosses the line.
Continue reading: Absurd: Newark Airport Self Check-Out Kiosk Requests Tips
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
In used to be tip shamed into selecting a tip amount from one of those tablet screens. No more. I just select NO TIP. Heck, I'm just ordering coffee to go. It doesn't make any sense.
If I must act as the cashier I should be offered at least a 5% discount. Then I will determine how much of a tip I deserve. And keep it.
Businesses are not required to give the tips made through these machines to employees. You are just giving more money to the owner.
probably best to walk away, there're other places in EWR where you can get some shtty food for $25.
The machine doesn't even make minimum wage! It has to rely of tips for it's entire income.
VFTW some month ago wrote about some convenience store (like Hudson news or something) in a US airport where the payment kiosk had a FORCED tip when paying with any card as it required a minimum of one cent in the selection menu and no tip wasnt an option. The only way to get around it is to pay with cash, for a five dollar water bottle!
This is crooked and completely out of control. Jersey Mike's is the first place where I saw this at a card payment machine; now it's everywhere. And, with some of them, if you try to x out of them without making a choice, they automatically hit you with the default tip - which happens to be whatever max they've set in there. That's how I ended up tipping Subway 20% for a job that shouldn't require tipping at all and never did in the past.
My position is that we should all skip the tipping until sanity prevails. If service employees feel underpaid, the market is quite healthy now and they can move to a better paying position. If basement-dweller owners can't find workers they either need to hike the pay or make other arrangements. But soaking the customers for tips is BS.
By the way, I have no issue with tipping service worklets who's jobs include more personalized service. This acts as an incentive and as a more personal message of appreication for a job well done. Restaurant servers, drivers, baggage guys, etc deserve your tips. But these are fairly specialized occupations. You shouldn't be relying on tips for flipping burgers, making sandwiches or selling Big Gulps and gasoline. Not that they even are, as I suspect that the store owner is pocketing the money anyhow. That's BS.
On Royal Caribbean the robot bartender kiosk takes an automatic 18% gratuity, I'm hoping at least they get extra oil for lubrication.
This is what America has birthed. Tip everyone. Just remember, this tip goes to the person who prepared your food behind the scenes...
There’s also the Shake Shack inside the Chicago Athletic Association. You place the order by yourself on a kiosk and it defaults to a 18% tips. There is no No Tip button either, you need to literally click Custom Tip and input 0.
Keep in mind this is a fast food burger joint. You place the order digitally, you wait and pickup your tray of food yourself, bring it to your seat yourself, then throw away the trash and bring back the tray yourself. The entire thing is literally the same as McDonalds, and they’re defaulting to a 18% tip. Shameless.
I came across it at DCA as well and there seemed to be no way to opt out of it. The only way to do so was to type in one penny, which I did. Again, it was a self service kiosk, just like the woman tweeted out. Enough is enough. This has to stop.
Say 5% tip => free money for the store. Why wouldn't they all ask?
I think the percentage is actually much higher.
Stop giving away your hard earned money people!
What becomes more common too is that you are essentially asked to "pre-pay" the tip before the service is received and evaluated.
In this example, you haven't unpacked and tasted the food, so it is impossible to judge how well it has been prepared. In other restaurants where you order at the counter and are asked to pay upfront, you haven't tasted the food or had it delivered to you table. The tip should reflect the service received and should not default to some customary amount.
I agree, that policy is bs.
But, some folks will say if SS was a full service restaurant, the only difference is someone is bringing you the food and refilling your beverage and then bringing you the check. The cooks are still cooking the food. Would that experience be worth an 18% tip? Because that's what we currently do right now.
I don’t understand why this is such a big deal. It’s pretty obvious that the tip money goes to the electrons that make the machines operate effectively and efficiently.
Do you realize how hard it is to be an electron with the crazy cost of living increases we’ve seen lately? They are at the very bottom of the social strata and getting hit the hardest, and I find it disgusting that people don’t want to chip in a few bucks to make their lives a little easier.
"Thank you, vending machine! How might I tip you for such excellent service?!" asked nobody, ever.
This is embarrassing for the USA.
I am 100% of this new trend. I never tip, but the people that tip subsidize my purchase by paying the employee wages. 🙂
I can concur, electrons lives are hard. They were in the same situation, then they left. That's why I'm so positive.
LOL, wait until the vending machines demand more electricity and less working hours.
At least most of them (for now) don't have mobility to cross the picket.
This is USA.
They are abusing the system .
Just enter 0 , and don't tip anything in the machine .
Same thing at Coors Field in Denver, the Amazon operated self-checkout beer kiosks asked me for a tip at a game. I laughed and walked out. Tipping has gone into another dimension, I only tip wait staff at restaurants and bars anymore because they are paid the “tipped minimum wage” of like $2/hr or whatever it is. Everyone else can pound sand.
THAT naive, go look at his past comments, including taking pictures in airport is illegal.
We should be getting a discount for using them. We are doing the work of an employee especially if it's a grocery store where you're checking out dozens of items.. Of course that'll never happen
Grocery stores, not just no discount, some states effing (forcing) you to pay for bags.
And this, children, is why must never let tipping culture get out of hand at other continents.
Sure eliminate the self-checkout. Then you can wait in forever lines to pay. Self-checkout at the Grocery store isn't for cost savings, its because the stores cant fill the cashier jobs.
Tipping in USA is totally out of control. I don't tip at Starbucks, I am paying for a cup of coffee so why am I tipping you for making that cup of overpriced coffee? Tipping will only enable this bad business practice. If employees are not making enough money they will quit which will cause the owners to rethink their compensation package. Those stupid point of sale iPads are the worst which guilt you into tipping while they're watching you. It was so refreshing traveling in Japan or most of Asia for that matter where you don't have to tip for anything. And whenever I tip at places like wine tastings I always ask if the tip that I put on my credit card will go to them and if it doesn't I will tip them in cash.
After I used a hudson news self checkout kiosk at EWR the other month, solo with two young kids I was trying to corral, and obviously declined a tip, I then asked the one employee there for a bag. I was informed that they did not have any because New Jersey is a no bag state. A double / triple whammy if you ask me. (Of course, I then walked down the terminal and saw other vendors with bags). We’ve reached the tipping point.
If I'm doing nothing waiting for a friend to arrive, I don't sit on the street and hold out a cup panhandling while waiting, even if it's "free money".
Shamelessly asking for tips is disgusting.
@Ben this is also the same at Boudin in the international terminal concourse A at San Francisco. Insane. Then again it’s the USA where you’re supposed to tip machines for taking over humans jobs. I attempted to ask Boudin for a response abscess ignored. IMHO you should be ver make any purchases at US airports anyhow as they inflate prices sometimes 1.5 - 3 times
In April, I was taking the train from Providence to Boston, then heading to Logan to catch a Lufthansa flight.
Having not eaten anything all day (it was 1 pm at this time), I went to the café they have in the train station and stood there for several minutes while the employee talked to a friend and ignored me. So I went over to a store across the small waiting room, which was supposed to be a bookstore but had a ton of snack foods.
The girl at the register never looked up from the phone, I went over found something that would hold me over until I got to Boston took them to the register and she rang me up without saying a word then the credit car machine asked for a tip. I am a good tipper generally but there is no way I am tipping when I got my own stuff and the only thing she did was ring up the items.
There was also an article published on Linkedin about this with people bashing it and some guy responded to everyone's comments saying that they should be happy that the self-checkout was asking for tips because the company cares so much about its customers it has given them the option to tip instead of raising prices. Right...I wanted to respond to the guy and tell him I have some oceanfront property in Iowa to sell him if he truly believed that.
The following didn't happen at an airport, but takes the cake when it comes to U.S. tipping insanity. After a good meal, we generously tipped the server at a popular restaurant. On the way out we decided to buy a $100 restaurant gift card at the front register. The cashier rang it up and presented us with the credit card payment pad that asked if we would like to leave a 15%, 20%, or 25% tip on the purchase of a $100 gift card!
And this, adults, is why must never let politically correct culture get out of hand at other continents.
All these processing companies like SQUARE and Clover are to blame. They made it easy for anyone selling candles at a flea market to ask for a tip. It's ridiculous and I'm not tipping anyone that doesn't straight up deserve a tip.
I was just in EWR and had the same experience at what looks like a different location (food court in B) and had the similar, shocked reaction. I literally couldn't believe it.
In a full service restaurant the tips would be shared between the servers, cooks, busboys, etc. So if you want to tip the cooks at an otherwise self-serve place, my guess is they'd probably get at most 5% of the 18% or whatever you tip. So yeah it is different.
Ridiculous is not strong enough! Next time may be I should tip toilet for flushing water ? Uggh
Just to reiterate there are a handful of positions (like restaurant servers) that are legitimate tipped positions. They make less than the minimum wage and earn virtually all of their income from tips.
CASHIERS IN STORES AND QUICK SERVICE RESTAURANTS DO NOT FALL INTO THAT CATEGORY. They make a legal minimum wage. And in fact in most airports (like Newark) they make considerably more than the minimum wage. Tipping a human cashier, whose interaction with you is literally just a few seconds, is just as ridiculous as tipping a robot.
Zero is what I think is an appropriate tip for a kiosk or self-serve machine. Are you kidding me? People have completely lost the concept of what "tipping" means. It is short for "gratuity" which means "gift, reward, bonus, donation". It is not required and is, therefore, entirely voluntary, or "gratuitous!" It is to show your gratitude for good service, and should be forthcoming unless the service was less than ideal. But a machine? Don't be stupid.
I was in DC. Went to a store to get a soda. Had to take the bottle out myself from the cooler (no big deal there) and went to checkout. The clerk rang me up, them handed meet the receipt and a pen to sign. There was a line for tips - I did not enter anything on it (call me cheap all you'd like, but simply checking me out for a soda I self-served does not deserve a tip in my book). Just entered the total and handed back the receipt. I could hear her crumpling the receipt before I was out the door. That clearly meant she had no interest in a signed receipt to begin with; all she cared about was the tip and there was none. Tipping and the expectation of getting tips has seriously gotten out of hand in this country.
I feel the same way about self-checkout lanes at the grocery store. If I have to scan and bag my items I should get an employee discount.
How do you determine if someone deserves a tip? Waitresses in countries like Japan provide excellent service but refuse tips. All waitresses in the US expect tips regardless of the level of service.
The more I see stories like this, the less likely I am to tip at all. The last person who tried to shame me into leaving a tip definitely came off worse.
And there's the problem in a nutshell: "regardless of the level of service"! If they don't like working in the sector, they should seek employment elsewhere.
To all those that find this to be an offensive abuse of the US tipping system - does anyone add a tip to the receipt when getting a take out order at a restaurant? If you do, then tipping an iPad at a self checkout is only a logical continuation.
The Twitter thread is good. Many people there suggest to better not piss off our robo overlords otherwise a bad social score, restricted Netflix recommendations and other bad things may happen 😉
In SFO- you get to the end of the line and there is a sign that says they wii add on an employee health surcharge ON TOP of the tip. The surcharge is NOT optional.
I feel bad for the workers but this is about greed... I'm not sure what other businesses do it, but do not frequent DOG PATCH... they should have the sign at the front and its really shi**y do it at the end. Did I walk away.... I sure did.
Oh, quac at the burrito restaurant is $4.00. No thanks. Im not buying this poor me stuff... I paid $35,000 in taxes last year and I'm middle class.
For those Americans who are interested, one of the reasons this sort of thing has not been imported to Europe is that European countries have laws saying "the price on the sticker must be the actual price you have to pay".
That includes VAT and any compulsory tip.
Any default option above that is a breach of the law.
I appreciate the argument that having sales tax added explicitly prevents (multiple layers of) government increasing the sales tax rates, so it may also be necessary to have laws preventing any level below a state having a sales tax.
But given the average level of numerical illiteracy it is probably better to insist on transparency of pricing in that sticker price = actual price, and put debates about tax levels into elections only.
I purchased sun glasses at SFO airport last week and was prompted upto 25% tips.
The only way to stop out of control tipping is if people stop tipping.
My rule: only tip where the minimum wage doesn't apply, i.e. servers at full-service restaurants. ZERO% EVERYWHERE else, where my tip only support large corporations lowering and lowering wages (yes, that includes Uber, a multibillion dollar company who knows exactly how much to pay drivers in order for them to show up, so any tip goes towards them paying drivers a lower share of what we pay them, same for hotel maids etc )
There is no other way. Until we tip, businesses will ask for tips -- and unless forced by law (i e. only for full service restaurant servers), they pocket the tip, either directly or by simply paying lower wages than otherwise would be required.
Economics 101.
Let‘s stop for a moment and think about this. At many airports, one or a few companies operate all the concessions, whether stores, restaurants, etc. That one company probably has one platform of payment terminals across all its concessions. Aren‘t many of the concessions at Newark run by OTG? Thus, you‘re probably seeing the tip prompt on those terminals because OTG or whoever the concessionaire is needs that prompt at the restaurant terminals.
Just the USA being the USA I guess, I won't be surprised if there will be a mass shooter that became one because he/she wasn't tipped lmao
'I mean, I don’t love the US tipping system, as I wish we’d see employees paid higher wages to begin with'
Starbucks employees are paid starting at $15 an hour. Why is an expectation of tipping in that case?
The system survives and thrives because a) people actually like to tip---makes them feel more generous. b) a lot of restaurant employees actually prefer the system because they can make more money with tips then they would with just wages. I mean you are not going to get paid 100$ an hour to pour coffee. c) companies can keep their pricing artificially low (and profits high!)
Unpopular Opinion: People in the hospitality industry love the tipping system. You should take your frustration out on them if you want anything changed.
I never tip when buying a gift card in a restaurant. The reason being, when the card is used at the restaurant, you'll be tipping for that transaction. If you tip when you buy it, you'll be double tipping. Say it's a $100 gift card and you tip 10% ($10) when purchasing, then you tip 20% ($20) when you spend the gift card. By tipping on both ends of the transaction, you ended up tipping 30% ($30).
We all need to boycott businesses that do this. Then perhaps they realize this kind of practice will be detrimental to their business.
Yes, finally a correct but politically incorrect answer.
Let me translate it for you.
Let‘s stop for a moment and think about this. At many war zones, one or a few companies operate all the bullet delivery, whether assault rifle, handguns, etc. That one company probably has one platform of intended target across all its bullet delivery system (the bad guys). Aren‘t many of the bullet delivery system in schools run by AR-15 owners? Thus, you‘re probably seeing the innocent deaths on those bullet delivery system because AR-15 or whoever the bullet delivery system is, needs it to settle war, recreational hunting, self defense, well regulated Militia for the security of a free State, exercise rights, etc.
Tipping prompts are just like guns in a way.
Such a hateful racist comment. Stereotyping is totally racist, and you make it worse by making a joke with a tragedy.
This is odd logic. Somebody made the food, somebody else brought it to the front of the restaurant and interacted with you. In an airport self checkout nobody is making a bottle of water and the customer has to process the transaction themselves.
I don't believe a tip is warranted in either case but it's certainly not a logical continuation to go from a service provided by an actual person to a fully automated self-service transaction...
Given the ludicrous tipping system in the USA I can hardly say I'm surprised. It's almost as bad as the all the companies that ask you to tip up front before you've even had the service! Given how poor the service sometimes is it'd be a total con if you'd paid a tip up front. Please someone stop this utter lunacy.
OTG is a joke generally. The prices are ridiculous and the tip defaults at QSRs are absurd. Their up front payment system actually creates a huge problem when they are out if something, because the refund process is absolutely absurd.
You know I have to laugh when people automatically side with tipped workers and whine about how unfair the system is. In NY some high end restaurants did away with tipping all together and paid their workers a real salary. What happened? The servers demanded to go back to the old system because they wanted the big tippers who pay way beyond 20-25%. So those people at least demanded to return to the tipping system. It’s ridiculous but sometimes the employees are the ones keeping this practice going and for whatever reason tipping in the US keeps getting expanded in the US including to people who don’t even work for a tipped wage. Enough of this crap.
Actually in places like nyc all restaurant workers will receive at least minimum wage if their tips don’t hit that level. I think some other cities may have that as well, so your argument only applies to some of the US.
Sure this is ridiculous but at least you have the choice tipping or not. You will always have morrons who will tip machines.
In Brasil i.e. when you ask the bill in restaurants at the end if you don't mention it at the waiter you don't want it, your bill will automaticaly be 'awarded' 10%.
I like to decide by myself whether I tip or not.
I think it ducks to high heaven and I absolutely would refuse to do it. Where on earth would the money go as other pNancyeople commenting would also ask?
Maybe if they try to fix it I wouldn't joke about it, as an Asian the idea of tipping will never be not ridiculous. Same goes for mass shootings. Also, how is it racist when "American" is not an ethnicity but an amalgamation of people around the world who complain and beat each other up for the dumbest reasons possible
They can use paper bags, not plastic, if it is below a certain size. Like CVS can use paper bags, but Target can't. Why some small stores refuse to do this is beyond me, maybe paper costs them more. (But I'd rather pay 5 cents for a paper bag than carry my lunch out of Quick Chik with my hands and have no place to put the garbage. )
Ridiculous. Even if there was someone there to help me checkout I would not leave a tip. It is more like a shop than a restaurant. This said the shop probably uses a standardized system.
Zero. As is the case with any worker in the service industry who isn’t a server or bartender. If you make minimum wage or more, you don’t get tipped.
And you don’t get a requested email receipt. The restaurants have terrible service and food as well. I travel a-lot and this airport is the absolute worst!
Instead of asking for a tip at these self check out machines we should be getting at least a 3 percent discount for doing the work ourselves
How about that.