Vent: That time at a Madison diner made me rethink tipping culture

I was at a diner in Madison last month and overheard two tables arguing about whether tipping younger servers was wasting money. The older guy said Gen Z tipped too much and ruined the system, while a 20-something said Boomers tipped too little for good service. It got me thinking: who actually messed up tipping culture in this country? What's your take on which generation set these crazy expectations?

2 comments

2 Comments

patricia3175d ago

Man, this whole thing is just another example of how we can't agree on anything anymore. You see it everywhere, not just with tipping. People my age remember when a standard tip was 10-15% for good service, then it became 15-20%, and now some places start at 25% on a tablet screen. Meanwhile, younger folks grew up with that auto-suggest and think the older crowd is cheap for not hitting 20% for a coffee pour. The real problem is nobody talks about it openly, so we just judge each other from across the room.

juliag104d ago

Honestly, I think the older guy in that diner had a point. Tipping was never meant to be a guaranteed 20% for every single transaction, that's a pretty recent thing that younger workers pushed for through those tablet prompts. You grab a coffee at a counter and they spin that screen around with 20, 25, 30% options like you're a cheapskate for hitting "no tip" on a takeout order. We've normalized handing out extra cash for the bare minimum, and now servers expect it as a baseline instead of a reward, which is way more entitled than anything boomers ever did.