Because customer service is draining. Because even when you get paid $75k, dealing with assholes still sucks.
I'm gonna hand wave some more: most Americans when they think of good service beyond just being quick on delivery. Good service is about having a friendly conversation and building rapport with another person. It's may be weird for those of us with introverted tendencies, but this is Middle America with big smiling teeth.
Now.. by giving me an immediate incentive (tip) to smile through a bad customer's rudeness (or even harassment--please don't ever hit on people paid to serve you, ever), I'll continue to smile and pour on that syrupy niceness even when I just want to tell a person that they're an asshole and never have to deal with them again.
Personally, I have absolute no problem with tipping, or paying higher prices to pay restaurant workers a better wage, but I think people who are pushing no-tip don't understand the complexities in place.
In the restaurant world, at the end of each night, you'd get a huge wad of cash, and you felt you had worked for it (even though it can be argued people tip consistently). So even though the carrot may not be real, it still convinced people to act a certain way.
Now take away that carrot, take away the cash. You just have better paid McDonald's workers.
I disagree completely. For one thing, many McDs employees in countries with a higher minimum wage also have a better attitude, but there are also standout employees at McDs in the U.S. The issue isn't just that the workers at higher minimum wage places are paid more, it's that they are better employees because the managers there can't afford to hire a mediocre one (especially since it's harder to fire them), so they get good employees and train them. And the instances where I've had really good service from McDs in the U.S. are often cases where there's an economic downturn and you have alot of overqualified people taking that job as it's better than nothing.
Service in any restaurant is more a function of the kinds of employees you can attract (through wages) and the amount of training the manager puts into their staff. Tipping is only important in that it allows some restaurants to pay a fairly decent amount of money to attract higher quality workers for only a couple of nights when a straight wage would require a larger time commitment to get the same amount of money. However, a (necessarily higher) straight wage would also allow more workers the opportunity to make a decent full time living as a waiter or bartender, which means you could have really good servers even on less busy nights of the week, but fewer servers on the busiest nights as there's less flexibility in hiring and firing.
Sorry but I worked in a variety of non tipped customer service jobs and I was always polite even when abused because that was my job. If I didn't do my job I would lose my job. It's really not all that draining either. I can't imagine requiring bribes, oh sorry, tips, to do my job.
The biggest difference in customer service in all the establishments I've worked in was management. Training is extremely important and can't be winged, there has to be a procedure in place. Having the highest expectations of your employees and component staffing are a must. And don't be scared to fire anyone who is not meeting your standards.
Poor customer service is mostly a result of poor management. Good customer service is a result of good management.
Anyway over friendly servers make me very, very uncomfortable. I went out for food with my companions not for a social experience with a stranger.
Being nice to assholes isn't something I consider necessary for good service. If anything it's bad service for all the other polite customers who have to listen to their bullshit.
I'm gonna hand wave some more: most Americans when they think of good service beyond just being quick on delivery. Good service is about having a friendly conversation and building rapport with another person. It's may be weird for those of us with introverted tendencies, but this is Middle America with big smiling teeth.
Now.. by giving me an immediate incentive (tip) to smile through a bad customer's rudeness (or even harassment--please don't ever hit on people paid to serve you, ever), I'll continue to smile and pour on that syrupy niceness even when I just want to tell a person that they're an asshole and never have to deal with them again.
Personally, I have absolute no problem with tipping, or paying higher prices to pay restaurant workers a better wage, but I think people who are pushing no-tip don't understand the complexities in place.
In the restaurant world, at the end of each night, you'd get a huge wad of cash, and you felt you had worked for it (even though it can be argued people tip consistently). So even though the carrot may not be real, it still convinced people to act a certain way.
Now take away that carrot, take away the cash. You just have better paid McDonald's workers.