Quote:
Originally Posted by pdurrant
Sorry - recommended tip?
It's bad enough that the US food service industry is completely dependent on tips instead of proper wages. And I can see how that came to include take-out food delivery people.
But I don't like Amazon trying to introduce tipping on delivery of non-food items. Just make the delivery charge enough to pay your delivery people properly!
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Tipping is not limited to food.
The custom varies by region but it is not unheard of to tip providers in various service industries like hotels, barber shops/hair salon, etc as a way to express satisfaction/gratitude.
In my mother's region it is customary to "tip" the garbage collection workers for the holiday season.
I wouldn't assume Amazon is *introducing* the practice without first verifying whether it is
already customary to tip bike messengers in manhattan.
Different social contracts, remember.
It is like charity: traditionally, americans have preferred to give money direct to charity (and do so to a greater extent than most first world nations, according to THE ECONOMIST) than to pay higher "social charges" and have politicians and bureaucrats decide how to distribute the money. (Charity aggregators like the United Way even have mechanisms that let donors target their money at/or away from certain recipients.)
In fact, the fact that tipping is supposed to be a variable reward for above average service is why so many folks are unhappy that servers are paid sub-minimum wages and are expected to make up for it through tipping. It is a perversion of an established custom. As is automatically rolling a fixed tip in the restaurant bill.
It comes down to local customs.
Manhattan tipping customs are pretty broad:
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Travel-g6...ng.In.Nyc.html
Not sure about NYC but tipping bike messengers is customary in San Francisco.
http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/02/pos...ier-for-a-day/