Can I get a sanity check here? This came up last night. If I'm picking up a dozen wings at Wingstop, is a tip expected? If so, how much?
When I used to make pizzas back in college, tips were for delivery drivers. So I never tip if I'm walking into a fast food place and picking up food. Am I being a dick?
I don’t think so, tips are for service and moving my bag of food from the shelf behind you to the counter in front of you isn’t service, that’s just your job. I tip waiters, bar tenders, and drivers (delivery, ride share, cab). That said I’d love to get to a point where we can largely get rid of tipping by forcing full wages for all jobs and not tipped wages.
As someone who has worked in hospitality within the last few years; nope!
Servers expect tips (they shouldn’t), bartenders expect tips (they shouldn’t), sushi chefs (counter service style, where they basically are your server) and other “show” workers expect tips (they shouldn’t).
To-go orders, regardless of the source, including counter service, are not ever expected to tip, and the people working host stand or to-go are making more hourly because nobody is expected to tip those people. If you do it’s a nice bonus but it is NEVER expected. If anyone tries to make you feel bad about it (literally a fireable offense in the vast majority of places), just tell them they make above minimum wage and if they need more that’s between them and their manager, not you.
For a sort of.. long-past personal anecdote that’s totally still applicable.. I used to do counter service at an airport and we had tip jars.. because airport. It wasn’t worth tipping for, but I wasn’t going to like… argue with tips on top of the shit wages we got (7.25/hr starting work at 3:30am)… I’d seed my jar with my own money every day and make 4x what the other servers made, or about $100/shift on top of my wages.. I did nothing extra or different or special, and if I didn’t get tipped it was very whatever.