Do You Tip Every Time You’re Asked?

Have you noticed how more businesses are asking for tips these days? If you’re buying a coffee, you can’t pretend you don’t notice the tip jar like you could in the old days of 2017. The rise of point-of-sale digital kiosk transactions means you have to actively choose whether to give an extra 15 or 20%, all while the barista or food service professional is waiting for you. And they see what you clicked. It’s a lot of pressure, and many people seem to just click, “Sure. Whatever. Make it more expensive.” Industry research indicates that on-screen tipping can drive tips up by over 20%.

It can be particularly jarring in situations where tipping has not traditionally been the norm—at least there’s a cultural history of tipping in food service, but when you’re asked to tip the cashier at a hardware store, it feels predatory, like everyone has their hand out. Or like a sneaky way of raising prices.

Enter the corporations

Huge mega-corporations like Burger King or Starbucks expecting customers to supplement their employees’ income at the counter raises a different set of issues than a mom-and-pop shop adding a digital “tip” option. Tips are supposed to go directly to employees, so in a way, you’re giving money to another human instead of whatever creatures run big corporations. But you actually have no idea how your generosity (or lack thereof) is being factored into the base pay rate for counter people. Someone at MegaFoodCo is definitely doing the math though, placing customers in a financial and sociological minefield when they just wanted to buy a McRib. It’s no wonder people are getting resentful.

Lifehacker published a comprehensive guide to who you should tip and how much back in 2019 (did you know you are expected to tip your tattoo artist?), and the conclusion about buying a cup of coffee or picking up some takeout at the counter is “you are not expected to tip, but you can if they go above and beyond in some way.” But that was before, when it was just a tip-jar you could ignore unless you felt like to dropping in the coins you got as change.

Things have changed enough that there doesn’t seem to be an agreed-upon etiquette, so I’m throwing it to you, Lifehacker reader: Let us know how you deal with being asked for tips in new and unexpected places in our comment section below.