Tip jars

[Mike Blakesley]

I've always been against tip jars. I don't like them. I understand why they exist, in most cases.

We have never had a tip jar on our concession counter. We are a pretty old-fashioned theater, from way back before tip jars were a counter fixture, so that's probably my main reason for not having them. Besides, it never seemed really necessary since all our employees are high school kids and they are not "living" on what they make here.

Sometimes people will ask them if we have a tip jar, to which they'll say no we don't. Sometimes people will ask if they accept tips, to which they say yes, we just don't have a tip jar. And some people just give them tips without saying anything.

Lately I've noticed an increase in people asking if we have a tip jar! So now I'm beginning to wonder if we should have one because people expect it?

What are your thoughts on this?

[Frank Cox]

Tacky.

I occasionally have someone give me a tip, mostly along the line of "keep the change". Not too often, though. I probably make an average of about $5 per month from tips and money that I find on the auditorium floor when I'm sweeping up.

[Steve Guttag]

If your patrons are asking about one, what's the harm? Possibly the hassle of dividing it up at some regular interval? I've never been big on the whole tipping thing, myself. I think the employer should be paying their employee properly. If I'm expected to pay a tip, how is that different than just building it into the cost? I can always tip someone that I think provides some sort of over-and-above service and at most any profession. Most of the world does not have the tipping culture we have. I think that since most every checkout where you are presented a "pad" to sign presents you with a tipping option, there is a bit of a backlash on the whole thing. It is like "tip-shaming."

[Frank Cox]

Steve: Your last sentence answers the question you posed in your first sentence.

[Barry Floyd]

I'm kinda "old school" about not having a tip jar on the counter as well... but we do. Many of our customers have asked if they can leave the staff a tip, and I tell them the can if they want, but its not necessary. I'm totally "hands off" on the money in the tip jar. That's the girls money, and they divide it up however they decide to. I will NOT ever have a tip option on our credit card terminals, I think it's tacky, especially in a place where you walk up to a counter to order your food.

[Ryan Gallagher]

I would say if your CC processing provides a TIP line, then you should also have tip jars for cash. It's just a parity thing, and more money for your staff.

excluding tip mechanism in the US is only really passable for food/counter service if you pay area living wages or better intending to compensate for the lack of tips, and provide benefits. Depending on how tax laws change around tips this term too might also be a factor. Employees may end up preferring the tip model to the comparable payroll model for tax reasons, assuming they previously reported all their tips of course. lol

[Ryan Gallagher]

If you really want to avoid a tip jar for cash... but staff are used to tips otherwise... one fair approach would be to to add to the tip pool the equivalent to what the CC processing would have cost you had those customers not used cash. Cause one technically "makes more" on the cash customers, but staff make less. Just an idea.

But that 2-4% compared to 15% gratuity is still not equivalent to just having the tip jar out there.

[Frank Cox]

You have to be careful when it comes to credit cards and tips. In some places it's illegal for an employer to deduct any portion of the credit card fee from the tip amount.

[Scott Norwood]

People are probably asking for it because everyone and his brother now wants to be tipped for basic service. It is kind of obnoxious and, as mentioned above, just paying employees reasonable wages and charging prices that are necessary to do that makes so much more sense for everyone.

I've never seen a tip jar in a chain cinema, but they seem to be about 50/50 in independents. I'm not wholehartedly against it, but it seems a bit on the tacky side. I would be less opposed to it in a place where the employees were consistently friendly and capable of providing good service, as opposed to just grunting at customers.

(Edit: to clarify, I have no issue with tipping in restaurants, cabs, barber shops, or other places where tipping is customary. My issue is with counter service, fast food, and even self-service, where tipping was never historically common, but where employees are starting to expect it.)

[Randy Stankey]

I don't know... I'm not against tip jars, per se, but I think that they are kind of "low," if you know what I mean.

I grew up in a bar. If a person wanted to tip the beertender, they would either put the money on the bar or just say, "Keep the change." Tipping should be a personal transaction between customers and servers.

If I'm going through the drive-through at Mc D's or some place like that and I see that the people are busy and running around, trying to get orders out, I'll give the person at the window a "thumbs up" and say, "Keep on rockin' the drive-through!" It's kind of hard to give tips at the drive-through but, hey! A proverbial fist bump and a "Ya' done good" can go a long way. Right?

It's not about just the money. It's more about the goodwill and support that the customer gives to the server for a job well done.

Putting out a tip jar just seems, to me, like people are begging for tips. Like I said, that's low.

[Ed Gordon]

I agree that tip jars are low. The jars used to be for charities, now they are used to enhance personal income. It is viewed by customers as negative.

You could counter the tip jar trend with a simple little sign:

Where is our TIP jar?

We don't have one. We show movies for the love of it. We sell concessions to make money and stay in business. No tips are expected. Just buy the bucket of popcorn instead of a bag.

On second thought, that is a bad idea. You might offend your staff!

[Randy Stankey]

How about a sign that says, "Gratuities accepted with a smile!"

You could even do a one-liner like that with a label maker and stick it on the back of the till where the customer can see it.
If you want to have a tip jar, put it behind the bar and make a rule that employees have to put tips into the tip jar so that everything appears on the up-and-up. You don't want anybody to think that tips and other money are being mixed up or pocketed.

That's what every bar that I've ever been in does. There's a jar behind the counter. All tips go into the jar, where the customer can see. Everything is above board that way.

[Ryan Gallagher]

How about a sign that says, "Gratuities accepted with a smile!"

You could even do a one-liner like that with a label maker and stick it on the back of the till where the customer can see it.
If you want to have a tip jar, put it behind the bar and make a rule that employees have to put tips into the tip jar so that everything appears on the up-and-up. You don't want anybody to think that tips and other money are being mixed up or pocketed.

That's what every bar that I've ever been in does. There's a jar behind the counter. All tips go into the jar, where the customer can see. Everything is above board that way.

I agree the jars themselves are problematic, depending on your region. I've known far too many coffee barristas with stories of people just running out of the building with the jar. A courteous sign saying tips are indeed accepted and a jar behind the counter is probably better. Unless you intend to bolt the thing down to the counter.

[Randy Stankey]

You know why tip jars behind bars are made out of metal, don't you? They make noise when money goes in or out.

Customers get to hear the money hit the tip jar. It's like ringing a bell.
If somebody tries to steal money while nobody else is looking, the sound will alert the bartender.

I prefer the tip jar be kept behind the counter. It keeps tipping a face-to-face transaction. I think that is important.

For security, it could be important, too. The way to fix that is
Hey, YOU! Put that back!
*POW!*
#BLAM! BLAM!#
9-1-1 What is your emergency?
Hello! I'd like to report a holdup!
***

Besides, I think a tip jar behind the counter is classier.

[Ryan Gallagher]

In the US, which was already a tip required culture for food service wages to make sense... we've probably seen an encroachment of tipping into other typically not tipped counter services because overall the typical wage earner has lost ground relative to cost of living changes over the past 20 years. Most people would have seen better adjustments from the SSA if they were retired already. Adding tipping to the equation is an easy, no cost to the employer, way to attempt to bridge some of that gap? Though not the "correct" way?

At risk of veering into the political with a labor centric viewpoint... your views may differ, esp as small business owners.

I know its true even for our union Stage Technicians in Austin. I recently did some deep dive data analysis with old contracts going all the way back to 1983 because I chaired a couple contract negotiations... we mostly kept up for a time but after the first housing crisis things started to diverge, then even more in 2016, and then we got slammed with the inflationary changes during/after the pandemic too and are still reeling from that. Some of that is our own fault for not calibrating our asks and compromises correctly, some of it is just bad timing with term negotiations, but it's also a nationwide trend in ours and many other industries.

In current term, we've been aiming for, and mostly achieving 25-30% raises over the next contract term (usually 3 or 4 years in our contracts), which honestly only covers historical losses compared to COLA/SSA/CPI-U etc. It barely scratches the surface of what our local cost of living/housing market has done, but corrections in the form of compromises come in baby steps. Granted none of the employers view 25% as a baby step! LOL

Without a COLA adjustment clause, which are a rare bird in contracts these days, it's ironic how longer term contracts have sometimes served to hold wages back in periods of other extreme market/economic forces that cause non-union equivalent wages to jump drastically to attract the workforce, one that was almost completely disbanded, for longer than others, during the industry shutdown.

Austin is also a bit of an outlier. Our stage wages have always been on the lower side being in Texas. Our housing market never collapsed. It's still a boom town as far as growth/population/tech-sector. We keep climbing the national cost of living rankings but hourly wage earners generally haven't seen equivalent improvements.

It's a struggle as old as Capitalism itself. But Unions were viewed as balance striking force. It's just interesting to observe there is truly no silver bullet, even well functioning unions will struggle against a tidal wave of economic pressures at the table. Especially true in those that service non-profit arts organizations for some reason, which should be culturally aligned with our goals, but are hamstrung by the economics of donor driven fundraising.