Decades ago, restaurant workers were paid "regular" wages, and got tips. A single mother could feed 3 kids AND buy a small house with those tips. Greedy restaurant owners hated the idea of their workers getting "money for nothing" (except busting their butts!) and changed the laws so the workers are paid obscenely low wages and then have to share their tips with EVERYONE employed at the restaurant whether they bust tail or not. It's disgusting. Especially because "tipping is optional", but those workers don't get their wages supplemented if diners don't tip!

Ah great usa with it's low salaries for those who work the hardest. What a sad way to treat people.

About 15 years ago I went to Hard Rock Cafe with a friend and she had a bunch of people with her visiting from another country. Service was horrid and they were aggitated. When the server said beforehand an auto tip would be applied-as he finally was raking orders-they got up and left. (We followed.) I am torn..I want to give gratitude and I would love it if I received tips, too, but I also disagree with tipping for several reasons.

In Italy we don’t have separate invoices quotes for service, that usually raise a flag, heard several americans asking if the service was included in the total.

This practice needs to be stopped. Wait staff are usually obligated to share tips with busboys, dishwashers, hostesses etc sometime s even MANAGEMENT.

As an American I totally agree this is a crock of BS, when visiting Japan I realized that it wasn't normal to have to tip and that by following this system, WE the consumer are paying for the food we eat and paying the wage of the person serving us! Which allows the owner to profit in two ways, 1-when we buy the food and 2-when we pay THEIR employees wage!!

Yeah, that’s what’s wrong with restaurants these days? Just pay your workers, it’s not that hard.

I've been drinking in Europe a few times and let me tell you not one bartender ever returned said tip(especially in Italy). All were very appreciative of the gesture. Yeah it's a scam that most approve of when they're on the receiving side. Wait till the rest of the world finds out we Americans tip others outside the food industry. I tip my barber more than 50% every time.

I made REALLY good money in tips when I waited tables. I kinda likethetipping system.

Has anyone done the math/economics? How much do they make now vs how much would they make with just the wage? And would the concurrent offset to the price make it the same for the patron? Send me a link if you have it. I don't mean this as a troll, it's a legitimate question

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Wow I thought you lot who frequent bored panda are intelligent. Most of these comments show just how brainwashed you are.

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I paid for all my expenses during 2 years of college through tips. First year I took out $10,000 in loans to cover dorm and meal plan. I still worked to cover incidentals and entertainment. Next two years, I waited tables and accrued no additional debt. That wouldn't have been possible without tips.

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Not really a scam. If the restaurant paid the wait staff a living wage(which I support), the cost for the food would be proportionately higher

Did you hear about Vatican???

Two things. 1) Citizens in most other developed countries don’t have to pay thousands of dollars out of pocket as Universal Healthcare provides. 2) Americans hospitals are businesses so they will try to charge more if they can.

If you've ever traveled outside the United States (and, sadly, only a small percentage have), you will quickly find out that the United States is not the greatest country in the world.

Right name, connections, or education and you can get through life with good money and almost no actual work.

It's working how it's supposed to, it just isn't designed to benefit the patient.

I love using the “...other countries manage it though?” argument on businesses. New Zealand has a terrible sick leave allowance so our progressive party poked Jacinda with a stick about it and she agreed to up it. She’s coddling the effing HELL out of the businesses but a bunch of them are still like “How are we supposed to survive if we give our employees a less pitiful amount of sick leave?!?!” And I’m like “the same way companies in other countries do it?”

Any job over minimum wage now requires a college degree. Even for an interview. The exceptions are few.

Employers like this fail with diminishing returns. Their employees are too exhausted to work efficiently, and unable to come up with good policies to increase efficiency. You end up with people doing four hours worth of work in a twelve hour day because they're just too broken for more.

Most harmful american myth.

Totally f****d up. Should be a blind trust. The way lawmakers sold off stocks and bought others after coronavirus briefings in February is disgusting. Looking at you Kelly Loeffler. Gross.

Right? Our obsession with exact time is just so weird.

Its literally only one party at the top of the heirachy, devided in two, to give you the illusion of having a choice

This is America in a nutshell. People who think hard work matters aren't being objective. The hardest workers make the fewest dollars, and they're desperately praying for the day when their "American Dream" finally begins. It's incredibly demoralizing.

Reagan messed up so many things, long term.

Highly recommend the Youtube channel "Ask a mortician" to learn more - Caitlyn Doughty there offers some great education and information (and fun, too!).

For some reason, New Zealand is the only other country that does it. Even though we have effing public healthcare. For what it’s worth, I always just kind of assumed that everyone finds those ads as boring and annoying as I do.

When they could all be elecronic and updated for minimal fee.

'murica

It depends on your provider. I pay $35 for unlimited everything on two devices.

That just says 'merica all over.

It frustrates the HELL out of me when Americans blame their schools and say “Schools should teach kids how to do taxes!” Or, and hear me out here, the IRS could do what New Zealand does and calculate that stuff themselves. Even as a nonstandard worker who does have to do a tax return, it’s a short process where I just fill in how much money I made that year and set my provisional tax for the following year.

when you are a foreign student, you pay a fee to your American health provider for overseas care, then the Euro hospitals bill the heck out of it because they love American re-embursments. In fact they jump americans ahead of all the lines and give higher care, especially in places like france, because they want the American Insurance money.

Stop the insurers completely and replace them with Private Healthcare. It's almost the same thing only cheaper, and you're guaranteed to get help paying for your medical costs. Better still, use some of the tax millions being frivolously wasted on falsely overly inflated costs for mundane things, and you could fund a free at access public health service.

Never understood overdraft fees or overdraft protection. Money isn't there, just decline. It is all done electronically, not like they're paying someone to look at each and every transaction to approve or deny. Money there? Transaction goes through. No money, no transaction.

I could have started doing the job I do now, 3 years earlier without debt had I not gone to uni. and I have friends who finished school at 18 and now own houses and are very comfortable. Uni is not the only way to succeed.

Everyone knows this is a scam. If people are resorting to rent to own, it is generally because they don't have a better option. If it takes you 3 years to save up for a bed, that is three years sleeping on the floor. Not really conducive to getting the sleep needed to work the 3 jobs you need.

I paid $10000 for a front tooth implant in Australia. $2k to have the broken tooth removed, $800 for the fake tooth, $5k for the metal implant (surgery, hospital, anesthetist), $700 for the new fake tooth plate, $2k for the new tooth

This is not cheese.

Use credit unions. Don't just use the 1st bank you find. Get the best deal for your life. Every credit union we've used has bent over backwards to help us with fraud.

New Zealand is godawful about drugs too. Our organisation that helps addicts is absolutely furious about it.

Co-pays were utterly alien to me as an Australian.

I have a good friend who works in the insurance industry. Every year their entire work group goes somewhere (Hawaii, Mexico) for a week all paid by the company. I'm guessing for 50 people it probably comes up to $150,000 (airfare, accommodations, etc.). When I explain to her that their trip is paid for on the backs of people/companies paying their insurance coverage premiums. She's adamant that it's paid for out of the her boss' "profit" for the company. There are million examples like this that inflates the cost of health insurance. And, speaking of the boss' profit, he lives in a multi-million dollar home and drives a Maserati. Capitalism is good to point ... until it leads to gross excess and severe income disparity.