The system IS messed up. Restaurants just need to pay their employees like any other business and stop laying the burden of paying people's wages on everyone else.

It's easy to forget that it's not the customer of the restaurant doesn't leave a tip who is the villain, it's the restaurant owner that is the one not paying its employees.

I'm not depriving anyone of anything. The restaurant is depriving its employees of their wages.

If there were signs up in the restaurant saying "DO NOT TIP OUR STAFF" (regardless of how the staff was compensated) I would go to that place every chance I had. Doesn't matter to me if the staff gets 15% of the bill or not, but if they're being paid fairly in their eyes, that's great!

No YOU'RE fine.

You just blew my mind.

Not at all.

This was beautifully put.

Tipping's optional, *that's* the reality.

That may be more effective at keeping the person employed or getting them fired, but they're still not going to pay the employees more!

No I'm not young in any stretch of the imagination, however I'm an idealist so maybe that's leading me to sound youthful and dumb. The patronizing and dismissive response you just gave sure sounds like a defeatist standpoint though.

Even better - a new industry standard like ISO-XYZ that states that people are paid appropriately, and we only go to restaurants that have that accreditation.

They will quit if they can't pay their rent. It happens all of the time. It's not pleasant and I've been there myself, but things work out or people die or go to jail, but usually they work out in this part of the world

The reason why there are articles like this is a symptom of a big fucking problem. These college students busting their humps are doing so because they HAVE to due to the fact that they're not compensated fairly. And we're all feeling guilty because we don't give enough or we give too much or we have to be invested…

I want boycotting to work, but they'll simply close the restaurant and reopen in a new market (the largest chains will, anyway) since they won't have the opportunity to self-correct. Then everyone is out of a job. Not tipping is the lesser of two evils I'd say. But I'm not sure, maybe boycotting is enough.

A good response, thanks for writing it. Although it doesn't convince me that continuing to tip as we always have is the key to a solution, it reinforces the fact that something drastic needs to happen.

I'm trying to take responsibility for correcting the industry the only way I think is reasonable.

You make a valid point, it would be better for the employees short-term for the public to just boycott the restaurant.

Fair enough!

I see your point, but you understand of course that this will act as a further stimulus to eventually force industry corrections.