Oregonians Freaking Out About Having To Pump Their Own Gas

benjs said:

PJ_Soul said:

KC138045 said:

PJ_Soul said:

HughFreakingDillon said:

even when I'm at full serve, which I pretty much always am (co op membership), I still get out and pump my own gas and tell the attendant to take a load off. they always look at me like I'm an alien. 

Do people still tip gas station attendants (I know I tip the guy who fills my propane tank)? Maybe that is why they look at you sideways.... you're robbing them of a potential tip.

Waiters/waitresses and barbers are the only people I tip

I don't go crazy tipping - like, fuck off with those tip jars by the register in coffee shops and retail stores, lol. But, besides servers, bartenders, and my hair stylist, I also tip anyone who does manual labour for me specifically. I.e. mattress and furniture delivery men, movers, and the guy who lugs my propane tanks around. Also people who I rely on to keep my stuff safe, i.e. coat check attendants. They really will take better care of my stuff if I tip them a little bit. And valets of course - I am car free, but I'll tip on behalf of my car driving friends. And if I was fortunate enough to be able to afford maid service, I'd certainly tip them.

I don’t fully understand tipping. I receive a salary (fixed compensation per time period with core expectations), and I have a bonus structure based on set measurements of excellence, which my employer incurs. Even a production job (again, fixed compensation per time period with core expectations) can have a measure of excellence, and I don’t know why a client has to incur what’s essentially a variable priced product due to them providing a bonus on behalf of an employer. That is asking your customer to subsidize your employee’s pay, which I just can’t wrap my head around. I wish that entire culture was gone, as I feel it would increase fair pay from employers, and would increase accountability and communications between production workers and their direct reports.

benjs said:

PJ_Soul said:

KC138045 said:

PJ_Soul said:

HughFreakingDillon said:

even when I'm at full serve, which I pretty much always am (co op membership), I still get out and pump my own gas and tell the attendant to take a load off. they always look at me like I'm an alien. 

Do people still tip gas station attendants (I know I tip the guy who fills my propane tank)? Maybe that is why they look at you sideways.... you're robbing them of a potential tip.

Waiters/waitresses and barbers are the only people I tip

I don't go crazy tipping - like, fuck off with those tip jars by the register in coffee shops and retail stores, lol. But, besides servers, bartenders, and my hair stylist, I also tip anyone who does manual labour for me specifically. I.e. mattress and furniture delivery men, movers, and the guy who lugs my propane tanks around. Also people who I rely on to keep my stuff safe, i.e. coat check attendants. They really will take better care of my stuff if I tip them a little bit. And valets of course - I am car free, but I'll tip on behalf of my car driving friends. And if I was fortunate enough to be able to afford maid service, I'd certainly tip them.

I don’t fully understand tipping. I receive a salary (fixed compensation per time period with core expectations), and I have a bonus structure based on set measurements of excellence, which my employer incurs. Even a production job (again, fixed compensation per time period with core expectations) can have a measure of excellence, and I don’t know why a client has to incur what’s essentially a variable priced product due to them providing a bonus on behalf of an employer. That is asking your customer to subsidize your employee’s pay, which I just can’t wrap my head around. I wish that entire culture was gone, as I feel it would increase fair pay from employers, and would increase accountability and communications between production workers and their direct reports.

PJ_Soul said:

benjs said:

PJ_Soul said:

KC138045 said:

PJ_Soul said:

HughFreakingDillon said:

even when I'm at full serve, which I pretty much always am (co op membership), I still get out and pump my own gas and tell the attendant to take a load off. they always look at me like I'm an alien. 

Do people still tip gas station attendants (I know I tip the guy who fills my propane tank)? Maybe that is why they look at you sideways.... you're robbing them of a potential tip.

Waiters/waitresses and barbers are the only people I tip

I don't go crazy tipping - like, fuck off with those tip jars by the register in coffee shops and retail stores, lol. But, besides servers, bartenders, and my hair stylist, I also tip anyone who does manual labour for me specifically. I.e. mattress and furniture delivery men, movers, and the guy who lugs my propane tanks around. Also people who I rely on to keep my stuff safe, i.e. coat check attendants. They really will take better care of my stuff if I tip them a little bit. And valets of course - I am car free, but I'll tip on behalf of my car driving friends. And if I was fortunate enough to be able to afford maid service, I'd certainly tip them.

I don’t fully understand tipping. I receive a salary (fixed compensation per time period with core expectations), and I have a bonus structure based on set measurements of excellence, which my employer incurs. Even a production job (again, fixed compensation per time period with core expectations) can have a measure of excellence, and I don’t know why a client has to incur what’s essentially a variable priced product due to them providing a bonus on behalf of an employer. That is asking your customer to subsidize your employee’s pay, which I just can’t wrap my head around. I wish that entire culture was gone, as I feel it would increase fair pay from employers, and would increase accountability and communications between production workers and their direct reports.

Well most people earning tips have pretty much zero benefits, so that is a big factor IMO. But also, we subsidize pay either way. Most people who earn tips make minimum wage, but work hard enough to deserve more than that if they are doing their job well, and that is what's good about tipping. Sure, businesses could pay them all more and add the extra costs to the price charged to customers, but that doesn't encourage the workers to do their best. Tips are incentive to do a really good job, because if they don't do a good job they don't get tipped, or not as well, and it is left up to the customer to judge if they did a good job or not, which makes sense to me, as they are the only ones qualified to judge on a case-by-case basis.

HughFreakingDillon said:

PJ_Soul said:

benjs said:

PJ_Soul said:

KC138045 said:

PJ_Soul said:

HughFreakingDillon said:

even when I'm at full serve, which I pretty much always am (co op membership), I still get out and pump my own gas and tell the attendant to take a load off. they always look at me like I'm an alien. 

Do people still tip gas station attendants (I know I tip the guy who fills my propane tank)? Maybe that is why they look at you sideways.... you're robbing them of a potential tip.

Waiters/waitresses and barbers are the only people I tip

I don't go crazy tipping - like, fuck off with those tip jars by the register in coffee shops and retail stores, lol. But, besides servers, bartenders, and my hair stylist, I also tip anyone who does manual labour for me specifically. I.e. mattress and furniture delivery men, movers, and the guy who lugs my propane tanks around. Also people who I rely on to keep my stuff safe, i.e. coat check attendants. They really will take better care of my stuff if I tip them a little bit. And valets of course - I am car free, but I'll tip on behalf of my car driving friends. And if I was fortunate enough to be able to afford maid service, I'd certainly tip them.

I don’t fully understand tipping. I receive a salary (fixed compensation per time period with core expectations), and I have a bonus structure based on set measurements of excellence, which my employer incurs. Even a production job (again, fixed compensation per time period with core expectations) can have a measure of excellence, and I don’t know why a client has to incur what’s essentially a variable priced product due to them providing a bonus on behalf of an employer. That is asking your customer to subsidize your employee’s pay, which I just can’t wrap my head around. I wish that entire culture was gone, as I feel it would increase fair pay from employers, and would increase accountability and communications between production workers and their direct reports.

Well most people earning tips have pretty much zero benefits, so that is a big factor IMO. But also, we subsidize pay either way. Most people who earn tips make minimum wage, but work hard enough to deserve more than that if they are doing their job well, and that is what's good about tipping. Sure, businesses could pay them all more and add the extra costs to the price charged to customers, but that doesn't encourage the workers to do their best. Tips are incentive to do a really good job, because if they don't do a good job they don't get tipped, or not as well, and it is left up to the customer to judge if they did a good job or not, which makes sense to me, as they are the only ones qualified to judge on a case-by-case basis.

Yes, there is that end to it. but why only the service industry gets tips? there is a whole boatload of industries where people make peanuts and have no benefits and don't get tips. 

my guess is, since historically most servers were women, that it had more to do with it being a practice among pig men hitting on hot waitresses by giving them money and probably a smack on the ass. 

HughFreakingDillon said:

PJ_Soul said:

HughFreakingDillon said:

PJ_Soul said:

benjs said:

PJ_Soul said:

KC138045 said:

PJ_Soul said:

HughFreakingDillon said:

even when I'm at full serve, which I pretty much always am (co op membership), I still get out and pump my own gas and tell the attendant to take a load off. they always look at me like I'm an alien. 

Do people still tip gas station attendants (I know I tip the guy who fills my propane tank)? Maybe that is why they look at you sideways.... you're robbing them of a potential tip.

Waiters/waitresses and barbers are the only people I tip

I don't go crazy tipping - like, fuck off with those tip jars by the register in coffee shops and retail stores, lol. But, besides servers, bartenders, and my hair stylist, I also tip anyone who does manual labour for me specifically. I.e. mattress and furniture delivery men, movers, and the guy who lugs my propane tanks around. Also people who I rely on to keep my stuff safe, i.e. coat check attendants. They really will take better care of my stuff if I tip them a little bit. And valets of course - I am car free, but I'll tip on behalf of my car driving friends. And if I was fortunate enough to be able to afford maid service, I'd certainly tip them.

I don’t fully understand tipping. I receive a salary (fixed compensation per time period with core expectations), and I have a bonus structure based on set measurements of excellence, which my employer incurs. Even a production job (again, fixed compensation per time period with core expectations) can have a measure of excellence, and I don’t know why a client has to incur what’s essentially a variable priced product due to them providing a bonus on behalf of an employer. That is asking your customer to subsidize your employee’s pay, which I just can’t wrap my head around. I wish that entire culture was gone, as I feel it would increase fair pay from employers, and would increase accountability and communications between production workers and their direct reports.

Well most people earning tips have pretty much zero benefits, so that is a big factor IMO. But also, we subsidize pay either way. Most people who earn tips make minimum wage, but work hard enough to deserve more than that if they are doing their job well, and that is what's good about tipping. Sure, businesses could pay them all more and add the extra costs to the price charged to customers, but that doesn't encourage the workers to do their best. Tips are incentive to do a really good job, because if they don't do a good job they don't get tipped, or not as well, and it is left up to the customer to judge if they did a good job or not, which makes sense to me, as they are the only ones qualified to judge on a case-by-case basis.

Yes, there is that end to it. but why only the service industry gets tips? there is a whole boatload of industries where people make peanuts and have no benefits and don't get tips. 

my guess is, since historically most servers were women, that it had more to do with it being a practice among pig men hitting on hot waitresses by giving them money and probably a smack on the ass. 

Yeah, maybe that history has a lot to do with it. But I also think it's just because it's one of the only industries where the workers are literally serving their customers for an extended period of time, which therefore makes the customers much more able to judge the quality of service, given that such a judgement doesn't require any special knowledge of the work being done. Tips are based on the customers' immediate emotions/happiness rather than on some kind of quantifiable service at the time it's performed, as opposed to work done in the trades or the financial sector or something.

unfortunately, as we agreed on earlier, the "quality of service" shouldn't be judged by the server alone. but most times it is. so the quantifiable service isn't actually based on something entirely they are aware of. 

PJ_Soul said:

Can't you just judge it by seeing how much they get in tips? All tips are reported, so it should be pretty clear. Tips definitely reflect the quality of service of pretty well, generally. And if a server worked his or her ass off on a table and didn't get tipped anyway because the customers are assholes, that is something the entire staff finds out about immediately. Not that I'm against customer feedback cards, but the problem with those is that the huge majority of them are only completed when the customers have a problem, not when the service is very good, and those problems are often related to things that have nothing to do with the quality of the job done by their server. Plus the majority of customers just don't feel like giving feedback because they are too lazy. I think tips are actually a more reliable gauge than customer feedback cards are.

benjs said:

PJ_Soul said:

Can't you just judge it by seeing how much they get in tips? All tips are reported, so it should be pretty clear. Tips definitely reflect the quality of service of pretty well, generally. And if a server worked his or her ass off on a table and didn't get tipped anyway because the customers are assholes, that is something the entire staff finds out about immediately. Not that I'm against customer feedback cards, but the problem with those is that the huge majority of them are only completed when the customers have a problem, not when the service is very good, and those problems are often related to things that have nothing to do with the quality of the job done by their server. Plus the majority of customers just don't feel like giving feedback because they are too lazy. I think tips are actually a more reliable gauge than customer feedback cards are.

Sorry PJSoul, maybe I didn’t express my premise properly. I’m stating that I feel that the impetus should be on the employer rather than the customer to reward an employee’s excellence. If gauging excellence is the concern, that’s where I felt that feedback would be necessary. 

Nothing is certain, but I have a feeling that a restaurant which tells its patrons that it provides bonuses for its staff based on customers’ feedback so that customers don’t have to, will get the twelve second (and honesty) investment out of their patrons. The incentive to the customer is very clear - they no longer have to pay a tip, and get to help the growth and development and fair compensation of the restaurant’s team.