Theres a self serv fro-yo place near me that has employees whos sole job is to clean and refill the candy buffet... no cash, you just make your thing, put it on the scale and tap your card. They dont even have to speak to you the entire time... fucking machine asks if you want to tip 25% 30% or 35%
I've also been told most places don't include taxes on price tags. No wonder everyone's going crazy there. No one knows what they're supposed to pay for anything. Must be getting ripped off constantly.
oh man, I had a handyman from Facebook get pissy for not tipping. he came over, I asked how much, he told me, I said fine, he did the work, I gave him the money, he was not happy. struck me as so strange. did you want 20 bucks more? just say 20 bucks more, it’s your price!
America is going towards a culture of tipping everyone. I guess it's not that bad to tip blue collar workers that are on a payroll. For contractors I would say it's a bit stupid.
I’ll tip them if they were really nice and did a good job.
I had a guy come out and fix the wax ring for the toilet same day. While other places I called were saying 150, he asked for $70. I gave him an extra $20 because he communicated everything he was doing, was very polite, and fairly fast.
I feel like that’s different though because most of those places have an owner that pays the people hourly and aren’t getting the full profit of the job they’re doing.
A tattoo artist has limited overhead costs and is already charging a fuck ton of money for good work. Only way I’d ever tip an artist is if the price for the tattoo was cheap and/or the work was really good.
One rule of thumb in the US is to tip someone who has to pay some of their earnings to the actual business owner. It is common for tattoo artists and hair stylists to "rent a chair" at a salon. The owner pays rent, utilities, salary of a receptionist, and possibly some supplies. The tattooist or stylist pays a monthly fee to set up shop in the salon. They may also have to to pay a percentage of their income. In this case, tipping is often expected.
Of course this has bled into always tipping your hair stylist or tattoo artist, even if they own the salon or are straight-up employees.
Frankly, those are trades that deserve a bit of tip room.
They're visiting your house, dealing with your stuff - lots of room between "just a guy that might fix something" - and a truly respectful professional - and someone who might go overboard and answer off topic questions or resolve issues "off the paperwork".
My only problem with tattoo artists is that they generally set their own prices - if they are underpaid, it's 100% on them.
Trade folks are generally better paid than a server, for example - but there's a huge range there between an aspiring teen working at Sears for near minimum, and self employed contractors and such... and an even wider range on the outcome of their services.
Tipping is not expected to an owner. If the tattoo artist owns or rents the space then not tip should be expected if they are an employee of the shop then a tip is nice. Same for hair stylist.
I’m not defending the US ripping culture at all, but maybe add BF some context. “Professionals” do not usually fall into top category. The idea is that there is (theoretically) a code or objective standard of the work that all should be adhering to. There should be very little variance between one qualified and professional electrician and another. The end result should be pretty similar with little creativity or individualism involved. It’s a skilled trade, not an art. They’re also not expected to provide good “customer service”. They’re expected to be factual and professional, not adding value to the service by the interpersonal dynamics. Sometimes that’s not true but that’s the idea.
People like hair dressers, barbers, tattoo artist, masseuses, servers, valets, etc do fall into tip category because there is an element of artistry or individual execution. There is not an objective code of what it means to be a good server or to serve a table “correctly”. Each massage client is different. The subjective experience of the person being served is the only metric of success (beyond basic safety and reasonableness).
There is a spectrum at play where a tattoo artist may fall closer to electrician as a skilled trade than they do a server and you see a correlation in the pay structure. Something like a tattoo service that has significant elements of both would have a flat fee predetermined for the execution of the trade and skill aspects. But to the extent the experience is subjectively superior to that base level due to an exceptional delivery of that trade to the person.
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u/weshallarise 7h ago
do you tip plumbers? or electricians? where is the line. my tattoo artist doesn't accept tips because he said the price is the price and he sets it.