$18 for a beer at the 2022 PGA Championship (Tulsa Oklahoma)

[Frank Cox]

And that's my original point. It's unfair to the customer, unfair to the bartender and it's unfair to the cashier.

[James Wyrembelski]

If anything I think more positions should be tipped.

We get tipped quite frequently here at the theater. I never accept them myself but any staff working gets them.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Countries like Japan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the UAE are pretty big on using desalination plants. The US has some desalination plants, but most of those are used to treat brackish ground water rather than ocean water.

The biggest desalination plant in the UAE, which I visited some years back, consumes about 3 GW of power... that's about 3 BIG nuclear reactors net-worth of power. Such a plant could provide fresh water for roughly 560 thousand average US households, not including industry or agriculture... just households. It's a VERY expensive way of generating fresh water supply. Diverting it away from somewhere else will, in most cases, be the cheaper solution.

I guess that freshwater management really has to become something that needs to be handled at national or even pan-national scale in the future. Eventually, there are lots of freshwater reserves and sufficient places that often have far too much freshwater. But getting the water where it is needed will require some major engineering work. Still, this may be more viable than desalination at the levels required for large-scale farming. The big advantage of water is that storing it is still pretty inexpensive, compared to electric energy.

And that's my original point. It's unfair to the customer, unfair to the bartender and it's unfair to the cashier.

It's also a bit of a cultural thing, don't you think? In a tipping culture, more people are more or less directly compensated, based on their performance instead of a fixed income.

More social oriented societies like many European states, for example, don't have such a "tipping culture" because in most if not all of those states, you're required to pay every employee a certain minimum wage, often even based on the work he/she is actually doing.

So, I guess it boils down to whether you consider DIRECTLY compensating workers based on their performance fair or not?

[Frank Cox]

Is it really performance based, though?

What constitutes superior (or inferior) service during that ten seconds the bartender spent taking my beer out of the fridge? "You didn't hold the bottle completely upright so you don't get a tip this time?" "You did a dance step when you walked to the fridge so here's a $20 tip for you?"

I think most of it is just social pressure and has very little to do with the actual quality of service received. If everyone else around you hands the guy a dollar when hands you the beer you're likely to do it as well, whether it's really deserved or not.

[Randy Stankey]

Why is it that a bartender spending ten seconds handing me a beer is worthy of a $1 tip...

Because they do a whole lot more than pull pints even if you don't think they do, just the same way people think that theater workers don't do anything but watch movies all day, even though they work their asses off for the benefit of the customer. People who work in bars and theaters do a whole host of things (which we already listed in detail) that most people don't even know about, much less give a crap.

The cashier at the store, mostly, rings up groceries and does chores around the front end. Maybe they'll answer questions or help customers find things but their main function is to ring.

The guy sweeping floors at the mall, sweeps the floors and takes out the trash. Again, maybe he answers the occasional question and helps a few people but his responsibilities are well defined, compared to bartenders and theater people.

I agree on some things. Bartenders and waiters shouldn't have to scrounge for tips all day. They should be paid a living wage and tips should be considered a bonus for doing good work. They shouldn't expect to be tipped, especially when they don't deserve it but that comes because, if they don't get tips, they only go home with peanuts in their pockets.

That bartender might only take half a minute to pour a beer but he is working the whole time you sat there, drinking, and, for that fifteen to thirty minutes, the guy only earns $2.85 ÷ (n/60) where "n" is the number of minutes you sat there. He didn't even get $2.00 while you just sat there on your ass swilling beer and he ran his ass off, the whole time.

People are biased toward over valuing themselves and under valuing others. It's basic human nature.

[Frank Cox]

As I pointed out above, around here the minimum wage is the same for everyone. So if they're both working for minimum wage the guy pouring beer is making the same amount as the guy sweeping the floor or the grocery store cashier. They're all three on their feet throughout their shift and none of them are sitting and watching the clock go 'round. But somehow one of these chaps is entitled to tips and the others are not.

I'm not saying anyone is or isn't working hard. I'm trying to point out the unfairness of this situation but somehow everyone else seems to think it's just find and dandy?

I don't get it....

[Marcel Birgelen]

There's always a "little" factor called luck involved, nothing will be 100% objective. But this is not the way I tip and I'm now probably oversimplifying by simply presuming that this isn't how most people will tip.

I, for example, don't expect a special show. I'm not bothered with how he or she takes the bottle out of the fridge, because I'm not there to judge my waiter or bartender, I'll probably have social company, which will get my attention.

In this day and age, I consider good service if I'm actually getting served and not just being ignored. I consider good service when I'm actually getting served what I ordered within a reasonable timeframe.

Personally, I think that everybody should earn a living wage and that tipping should be redundant. Every employee should have some kind of job security. Such basics in life reduce a lot of the stress that comes with the non-stop pressure to constantly perform on the edge. Then again, I can understand why you want to create performance-based incentives for those who give their best. If it really works is debatable, in practice, over the years, I've seen people that perform or outperform without financial incentives to do so, but also "forever slackers" that don't perform, no matter what you try.

[Randy Stankey]

The guy sweeping the floor makes $7.25/hr. (The Federal minimum wage for non-tipped employees.)

The guy tending bar makes $2.85/hr. (The Federal minimum wage for tipped employees.)

When I lived in the bar, my father used to pay $20.00 per day, right out of the till, which would have been equivalent to a $7.50/hr. wage when adjusted for inflation between 1980 and 2022. No taxes taken out. Not even a pay stub. Just do your work and take home the cash. All tips went into a fishbowl and got divvied up at the end of the night.

There were no tip-outs for bussers or barbacks because there weren't any. Bartenders washed their own glasses and did their own barback work. Waitresses bused their own tables. Cooks got the same $20.00 as the waitresses and bartenders but weren't tipped. Instead, they got steak dinner, on the house. The kitchen closed early so, with the dinner and the shorter hours, it all evened out.

Pay was above minimum for the time and working conditions were better than most but working for my father was...well...different.

If you were male and wanted a job, you walked in, shook hands. No applications. No W-2s. Just get behind the bar and start working. You had a week to prove yourself. If my father liked you, he'd say, "See you Monday." Otherwise, hit the bricks.

If you were female, your only qualification was your bra size. If you didn't like being felt up you could leave.

Things were different, back then.

[Leo Enticknap]

If you were female, your only qualification was your bra size. [...] Things were different, back then.

They sure were: nowadays, an ample bra size doesn't necessarily qualify you as (biologically) female...

[Randy Stankey]

I don't know whether he would have fallen on the floor, laughing or punched the guy in the face.

Probably both.