I've seen this a lot lately. I never personally experience this guilt, but understandably a lot of people do when publicly presented with this choice. I'm not sure what the solution is, but the companies producing and providing these point of sale tablets have made it far too easy to request a tip in situations that have no business asking for a tip. I suspect that the option exists to disable it, but then we have a problem of defaults situation and only the most respectable business owner is ever going to consider losing revenue to make their customers feel better.
At any rate. No service, no tip. For me this means I near exclusively tip only at restaurants which I'd still prefer raises their prices and got rid of tipping culture.
> in situations that have no business asking for a tip
In my mind there's always only been 2 situations, tip everywhere or tip nowhere. Why tip your server who has really very few interactions with you, but not tip any other customer service worker? Most get paid far less than what a server ends up making.
Jobs that are customarily tipped (I'm thinking food service) have a lower minimum wage they're required to pay than other sorts of jobs. In those cases, the business owner is literally demanding that the customers subsidize their employee's wages.
I'll tip for those things because if I don't, it actively harms those employees. I'm 100% being extorted by the business, and I resent it greatly, but what else can I do (besides never going back).
> Jobs that are customarily tipped (I'm thinking food service) have a lower minimum wage they're required to pay than other sorts of jobs. In those cases, the business owner is literally demanding that the customers subsidize their employee's wages.
Tipped employees certainly have a lower federal minimum wage, although the employer is required to pay more if the minimum cash wage + tips doesn't hit the minimum for nontipped employees. It's specified as the minimim wage is $X and the employer can take a tip credit of up to $Y, if tips happen. If somehow tipping stopped universally, employers would simply need to pay full minimum wage.
Additionally, in many states, minimum wage is the same for tipped and non-tipped employees.
I mean, I dunno about a clean conscience, but you don't need to worry that they won't get minimum wage. Depending on your tip amount, it's still a big change to effective hourly wage.
> yet people still tip wait staff & minimum wage is over $16 an hour here.
Which is still a bit over half (adjusted for inflation) of what minimum wage was when I was in high school, and even then minimum wage was widely considered too low. But that's an entirely different discussion.
I worked minimum wage jobs w/out tips that were definitely harder work than serving. It was entirely too low to actually live on if I wanted to do anything, but walking to the grocery store/work and eating crummy food worked. I'd often just hang out and read at the book store for entertainment.
I think at this point some legislation needs to be made, otherwise every place that turns this "feature" off on their terminal will be at a disadvantage.
At any rate. No service, no tip. For me this means I near exclusively tip only at restaurants which I'd still prefer raises their prices and got rid of tipping culture.