Over the past few years, tipping culture has gotten out of control in America. It used to be you tipped around 15% to 20% if you sat down and ate at a restaurant. Now, the credit card machine prompts people to leave a tip when buying a cup of coffee, slice of pizza or an ice cream cone.
Even exterminators are asking for tips these days.
Charlotte Muller (@breathe_strength on TikTok) shared a video recently where she claims that she was tip-shamed by a card reader while purchasing an overpriced smoothie. What made things worse was that the card reader asked her for a 20% tip. Now, the $10 smoothie becomes a $12 smoothie.
The video must have resonated with people because it has received over 1.7 million views in just two days.
“But I’m literally paying … top dollar for this smoothie, so I click, ‘No tip.’ Then an alert comes up on the credit card machine all in caps, it says, ‘BAD TIP.’ When I tell you, I stood there and waited for my smoothie, embarrassed. I literally got shamed from a credit card machine,” she shared.
Most people feel a little guilty when they don’t tip, even when it’s inappropriate to ask for one. But then for the card reader to add to that by shaming the customer is tipping culture run amok.
How about business owners pay their workers enough so their customers don’t have to subsidize them? That would solve a lot of point-of-sale embarrassment for people on both sides of the transaction.
