Today, we will be discussing the topic “Has The Tipping Culture Gone Too Far?”

So we got the idea for this podcast after watching quite a few TikTok videos and reels on FB and IG. Quite a few people were stirring the pot about tipping, and we wanted to chop it up and talk about tipping culture.

Tipping at restaurants is not what we are talking about – but all the other places asking for tips. We want to know if you think tipping is out of control, what places you have seen asking for tips that you like or don’t like.

We also learned that TIPS stands for To Ensure Prompt Service!

So if you get good service – leave a good tip!

Video Transcription

Yo, what’s up everybody? It’s Justin Live from b2 B Vault, the Payment Technology Podcast sponsored by Nationwide Payment Systems, hosted by this guy, the Steve Jobs of Merchant Services himself, Alan Kopelman, and today is FinTech Friday. Yeah. And we’ll be providing you guys with some educational informa information about FinTech, small business payment processing and the technology businesses are using in the world today.

And in today’s FinTech Friday. We start, we wanted to talk about the tipping culture. Has it gone too far? What’s your thoughts on it? There’s a lot of stuff in the news recently about. Just tipping in general. So we thought it’d be a good t good time to touch on it ourselves and give us, give our opinions about tipping in general.

And so anyway, man, we wanted to just lighten up the podcast a little bit instead of jumping right into, to the topics. We wanna check in, see, kinda like a wellness check, , see how everybody’s. So Rocky, how are you doing? Rocky is probably fine. He just farted and cleared the whole office out his intestines is cleared and he is doing well.

He’s ready for more treats. He’s got room. How’s your week going, Justin? My week has been pretty good. I cannot complain. No one would listen anyway. But yeah, for the most part we’ve been busy in the office. , new equipment, new podcast stuff set up new. We’re gonna have a whole new, it’s going to change, it’s gonna change the look.

Couple. Yeah, it’s gonna be very different. Other than that, my, we’ve been pretty chill. The house, my house is, Pretty good. My daughter just came, she’s down here, she relocated back to Fort Lauderdale, so that’s been cool. Trying to get her situated. , she’s gonna go take her driver’s license test tomorrow.

So that’s a, that’s exciting. That’s a huge thing. 21 year old finally getting her license. Thank you very much. , that happened with Jacob. You got his license later on. Yeah. And so I didn’t get my driver’s license until I was 26, so she’s ahead of me anyway yeah, man. Other than that work’s been good, been doing a lot of.

you’ve been busy. So when Alan’s busy, that gives me a chance to do stuff that I don’t normally get a chance to do. Like seo the analytic reporting, just checking out how, like the way that the, you know the way that the mechanics of the website really gets to function, that gets neglected sometimes, but,

So I had an opportunity yesterday actually to take care of some of that in between the meeting. We had a meeting yesterday in the office. That was cool. Shout out to those guys from Shoppes. Yeah, it’s an exciting product and we’re gonna interview them on the podcast soon. Yep. So that’s exciting.

I had a busy week. Yeah, I was your week. It was crazy. I had, Rebecca was in town with her boyfriend. They went to a, they went to a wedding down in Miami and then they were at my house for a few days. And Aaron is not from Florida. Okay, so he lives in I, who is Aaron? They live in Iowa. Rebecca’s boyfriend.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. That was cool when they came over. They saw the podcast studio giving us a few pointers on a few things. And so we’re gonna look into some of that. And then they were down here, so we had to do a little taste of Florida Dad’s cooking. I cooked up some brisket, cooked up a whole.

Big meal. I was making them breakfast every morning. I’m sure they enjoyed that. Got some fresh bagels, I guess the bagels aren’t that great in Iowa. We went to the bakery. Don’t be hating on all the bagels in Iowa, bro. Whatever they have one bagel place where she’s at. Yeah, where she’s at.

Okay. Cedar Rapids. There’s one bagel shop. So it sounds like a good opportunity. Yeah. It might be to, they don’t have other. The Jewish bakery goods like around there. You gotta ship the water from New York like they do. Like down here, the pizza for the New York pizza. They do that at the do at this?

No, they do that at the bagel shop down there on a one A There’s a bagel. Yeah. Few places do that. They ship the water in. , they get water or they put in a water softener. And we went to the holiday park alligator thing out in the Everglades, went on an airboat ride, saw some alligators. That’s cool.

Saw some cool birds. We saw some lady grabbing. Flowers out of the water, praying that she wasn’t gonna get bitten by an alligator or a fish, cuz that would’ve just totally ruined the whole day. We saw the Gator boys, which is his gator rescue. That was pretty interesting. I would not myself, get in that pit where the guy was and was like 10 alligators.

No, that was pretty crazy. He picked one up. Nope. Stuck his head in the mouth. Nope. Not doing that either. . He was cracking jokes. He was like, oh yeah, I’m gonna put my head in the mouth. And he’s he goes, oh, everybody’s getting their camera out. He’s he goes, at least put the camera down.

Right here, so you can actually watch me in case I get my head bitten off. And I was like, whoa. That’s nuts, right? Yeah. But the, but it’s interesting because I didn’t know this fact, so they, the guy was talking about let’s say an alligator shows up in your pool or an alligator shows up at your front door, which living in Florida, we.

Posts on Facebook, like for that stuff? Yeah. Every once in a while, if you call a alligator trapper, they basically pick up the alligator and then it’s cuz they don’t get paid and they make money from selling the alligator skin and the meat. But they rescue the alligators and then they bring them there to that place and they take ’em to other places where they can be safe because they can’t put ’em back in the wild.

Cuz apparently I didn’t know. Alligator is also known as a navigator, and they have like really good navigation. So even though you go drop ’em off hundreds of miles from where they were, they’ll find their way back to where they were. Yeah, that’s crazy. Like they have their own radar.

. Yeah. That’s just nuts. And like last week, Back here in the con, we’re in the conference room, we’re all having a discussion about what kind of topic to pick for the podcast. And I said, oh, let’s do tipping culture. And I started looking. online. I didn’t really find too much like articles talking about it, but TikTok and reels and, Instagram reels and all that Yeah.

Was exploding with people talking about, tipping culture and how do businesses handle tipping. And they even saw one talk show and they were discussing on the talk show, what does tip stand for? Which I never really looked it up, but. It said to ensure prompt service, and that’s what you learned something new every day.

Yeah. I didn’t really know that’s what to ensure prompt service. I didn’t really know that it actually was an acronym. For something. So that was pretty interesting. Yeah, I didn’t know that to find that. And and I think people are, everybody’s very sensitive now, we’re in this recession.

The economy is, a little crazy. Money is crazy. People aren’t, people, everybody’s economic situation is different for sure. And everybody looks at tipping in a different way. Tipping like in a normal thing is, like we, we, we were, like you go to a restaurant, okay, you’re expected to leave a tip.

So one of the videos I watched, the person was complaining about, tipping at a restaurant and she said to her friend, which was herself in the video, said, oh, maybe they should just, restaurants should raise the prices. , and then you wouldn’t have to leave a tip. And then she looks at the menu and goes, oh, the burger used to be $15, and now the burger’s $24.

Then the manager says, oh, we had to raise the prices because people didn’t like tipping, so we raised the prices and we’re paying their help more money. And so the tips that they would normally. That you would normally leave. There’s now included in the, included in the meal.

No tipping. It’s all over though. Already it’s still, yes, there’s very few places in the US that do that. Yeah. Like in Europe whenever you go to eat and then a lot of other foreign countries, there’s really, that’s what I meant. There’s really no tipping. But in the United States, tipping is, they’ll get offended if you tip ’em.

Yeah, they’ll get, yeah. They don’t really, it’s not a big thing. Not everyone, but I’ve heard. In some parts of Europe or something like that. And I’ve never been to Europe, but a friend of mine said he went to go tip after dinner and the waitress was like the way, tur was like, what is that for?

. I don’t need that. Like he was, he was offended. Yeah. It’s included in the price of the meal so that it’s they don’t really have tipping over there. Yeah. And he was like giving them five bucks. So he might have literally offended them. ? I don’t know. . Yeah. You don’t know.

And people come here from foreign countries, right? And they don’t know that they’re supposed to. . And then, waiters and waitresses complain, oh, somebody came here from Canada or from Italy, and then they didn’t, I don’t wanna pick on any countries, whatever country they’re from, they didn’t leave a tip.

. And now there’s no tip. And they’re, but they don’t understand that there’s. No tip, but you can’t, as a restaurateur say, oh, that person’s foreign so what’s the big tip? What’s the controversy about tipping? I don’t, the con, for me, tipping is you tip yo, like you get something done, somebody does something for you, you tip them.

I don’t care what it is. Shoe shines, car washes, tattoos. The list keeps going and going. You give me a service, you provide something to me that I am one unwilling to don’t want to do, or just plain out. I’m too lazy to do. Even my lawn guy, like he, yes. Tip my tip, my lawn guy, I leave him a tip.

The plumber, you give him a tip. Tip. What’s the, I don’t get it. What’s the deal? So the rub is that people are saying like, oh, I go to Starbucks. Was in several videos, and you go through the drive-through, you order your coffee, and then when you get to the front and it’s time to pay, they stick the credit card machine out the window.

Okay? And then you put in your card and it’s asking for a tip. What’s the big deal? There was no tip before. Now all of a sudden you go to a little, a cafe that’s not owned by, a conglomerate or something like, You’re gonna see a tip jar at that cafe. But I’m saying it’s gotten a little forward now where the screen is popping up and asking you for 15%, 18%, 20%, or even twen.

I was in someplace and it was like 20%, 25%, 28%. That’s a, I think that’s a little forward. Of the business. Someone said, I don’t, they go to a, it’s a, I think it’s a, I think it’s a, people feel pressured to leave a tip when they don’t want to. Maybe leave a tip in a, so the same people that are complaining right, are the people who don’t tip anyway, maybe.

They say they tip, but they’re not one of the videos was, what’s a tip to them? Two bucks on a $200 order. Yeah, but there’s people like that. But you go to, it’s terrible. But I’m just saying you go to a kiosk, right? That’s not a tip where these, okay, but this is where things are. This is where the tip, this is the things that people are complaining about.

Like normally you wouldn’t be. going like a girl. One of ’em was, oh, I went to a restaurant that had a kiosk. I put in my food order and then at the end of the food order, it’s asking for a tip. No. And then I’m not giving you a tip. So the guy’s what am I tipping for the G? Or I’d placed the order for the food.

And that’s what the complaint is about. Or even my son said to me, he went to the food court at the mall. And they flipped the thing over. And then my son said to the guy, cuz my son works in the mall in a retail store, said to the guy at the mall and he goes, oh, do you get that tip money? And the guy’s I don’t know what they do with it.

That’s just wrong. That’s the whole thing. It’s and to be honest, that employee, yeah, probably should figure out what they do with the tips. Probably he should ask. Come. Yeah. And that’s also the reason why he’s working in the mall. But any , but I digress. Yeah, I think that there’s a tipping, I get it right?

There’s some situations where you asking me for a tip is outrageous. Like one of the things was a video of a girl. She said, oh, I went to, she goes to a coffee shop in her area, right? So she says, I ordered a bagel. I ordered a cup of coffee and then they flipped over the screen and they’re asking for a tip.

She’s like, why am I tipping? She goes, I had to go over to the counter. That was just my example. No, but she says she had to go over to the counter. She had to slice the bagel herself, put it in the toaster herself, toast the bagel, put the cream cheese on it, put it in all the milk and everything.

Sounds like they said her house. I don’t understand, but she says that’s how the restaurant is, and then they’re asking for, Nah. Yeah, I don’t know about that. You think that’s a little over the top? Me cutting my own bagel, I’m not getting you just, that’s like me going to a corner store.

That’s what I’m saying. How would you feel if you went to the convenience store and then the guy flips the thing around and you went and got everything out? Like I said, it there’s, for that situation, no, it’s not right. Of course. , if that’s like going to the gas station and you paying for gas and then them saying, do you wanna leave a tip?

That’s what I’m absolutely not. Yeah, but that’s what I’m saying. Tipping is starting to pop up in places where you normally would not be leaving a tip like a retail store. I was where certain people wouldn’t be normally leaving the tip. I wouldn’t go to a re, let’s say I went to a retail store.

I picked up a bunch of stuff off the. Took it up to the counter myself. They ring it up and then they’re asking for a tip that happened to me the other day and I looked at it. I have a, this is my argument to that same, okay, so I go into the, to the, let’s say I go into Brooks Brothers.

Okay. That’s different. How is that different? Yeah, because I’m explaining to you like nobody waited. Okay. Nobody waited money. It’s not like I went, so you go to Zoomies and then you go pick out a couple of Ts and a hoodie and some pants, and you go pay for it, and then they flip the screen and ask for a tip.

No. That’s what I’m talking about. Okay. It’s copping up in right places where there’s no service. Specifically perform. The plumber comes to my house, listen, I have some plumbers and I tell ’em, I go, oh, in the software, if you wanna put tipping feature on there, turn it on. Yeah.

Because your plumbers are going out to those houses. They’re going to do a job. Normally, the person’s probably gonna take out a 10 or a. hit the guy. Or even like the guys who do a apply, like I have some, another company, they do a, they install like appliances. And they, they usually collect a delivery fee.

Okay? And then people leave a tip. So I told ’em, turn on the tip. Because people don’t have cash. I think the amount, I very rarely carry cash. Even you go to a hotel now, right? . Most hotels today, they don’t even have belman. They probably can’t even hire a belman because nobody wants the job, because nobody has cash to give them a tip.

And what are they gonna do? Carry around like a. Put a QR code on their wrist and go, Hey, if that mob me some tip money. It’s funny that you brought that up cuz I’ve been feeling bad for the homeless people in the world because no one carries cash. And so all the people that you know depended on those corners.

For whatever amount of change that they would get. Yes, there’s hustlers and scammers out there for sure. But I do definitely feel bad for the, the people who are down and out and could use the dollar to get on the bus to go see their kid or whatever. Cuz I, I genuinely don’t ever have cash on me, so that sucks.

I only carry cash when I know I’m going to a restaurant. Or to an establishment that I know I should have some cash. Yeah, exactly. That’s what I mean. It’s but tipping people are, I think, getting sensitive to it. That it’s popping up in places where I think that’s probably a part of the reason that it’s popping up in reason, in places that it shouldn’t be as well.

Because it’s too easy to do it. It’s too easy to do it. And then people have like legitimately. have pretty much abandoned cash. There’s a lot of people that don’t carry cash. I’m, for the sake of the podcast, I carry cash. I, but I’m not always walking around with a wa of money on me.

I got $28 in my wallet right now. I just commented. , that’s that’s the, and I’m not going in that to give that away. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like usually in the car you would have . I used to have a change. Oh yeah. I remember there dollar bills in there. Yeah.

Maybe a five or a 10 or Stu stashed, oh crap, I forgot my wallet. Let me run in a gas station or whatever, but yeah, no, that’s a, that ended that for sure. Yeah. I remember those days when my kids were little. They’re older now, and they would take all my chains and they would put it in a jar, and they would save it up.

A toy or whatever they were doing, they would get everybody’s change. Grandma’s change, grandpa’s change for sure. Everybody’s change and save it all up. I remember once I took them to Disney World, we were planning a trip. . So I said, oh, save up all the coins. Everything that, they had a big five gallon jug and they put dollar bills.

Whatever the money they got, they filled it up. And I’ll tell you what, I was shocked when I took that thing to the. . They used to have that machine. You put it in there. Yeah. They stopped doing that too. They had 300 bucks. Nice. Oh, they had a party at Disney Worlds . Yeah. $300 back then was probably great.

Oh yeah, they got everything, hats, toys, food. I didn’t, that was like their spending money. My cousin, she just she didn’t just, but she’s living down here now and she was planning on taking her youngest daughter her daughters. and I said, yeah, have you looked at the prices lately?

Oh yeah, Disney’s outta control. And she sent me a text back. He was like, nah, we were just there two years ago. We only spent like 800 bucks. And I said, yeah, , you should go and look now. And she did. And the prices are like triple. Yeah, it’s nuts. Everything’s so expensive. Inflation is through the roof.

The Fed raised the rates. That’s probably another reason why people are complaining about tipping because there’s no. , right? People don’t have any money to tip, and so now they’re like, it’s in their faces. They’re blatantly, I like that though. So for instance, you’re talking about going to, to go get food and then tipping, right?

No, that’s the No. No, I’m saying But they’re not waiting on you or anything. That’s not normal. They typically pe most people don’t. So I was explaining to Alan off camera yesterday or the day before when we were arguing about tipping . I was like there’s this small Jamaican restaurant.

I’m not gonna say the na name because I don’t want it to get any more crowded than it already is . And I like my veggie chunks. So yeah, you guys are Sol. But anyway, this place, it’s a small, like family owned shop. . And I know for a fact they don’t get tips because their tip jar is constantly empty.

You know what I mean? That’s also an old trick, to keep the tip jar empty, to make people feel bad for you to put a dollar in there. It’s psychological type of thing, blah, blah, blah. But that thing, it never moves. There’s a quarter, you know what I’m saying? Like it’s just empty all the.

And so I tip that person, like I def like she, she’s either her or like her daughter or her grandson, they run that place, right? And so it’s like me. It’s like my duty, like the food is delicious. If you’ve ever been in any Jamaican spot, you’re gonna wait. And if they don’t have. Is on the menu.

They don’t have it. That’s it. Oh yeah. Like small places that happens. You know what I’m saying? But, and that’s not, but that’s so people get upset about that type of stuff, but I’m, that food is great. So I’m tipping in that situation. I don’t know. You said you probably wouldn’t because no.

I said if you go to a place like, and it’s like a counter service. It is counter, that’s what I’m saying. But also they probably have people that come out. bring you your drink. Nope. You have to get your drink out of the cooler. Yeah, a lot of places like that. A ask for a tip, but if the person’s like preparing your food for you and all that, like Yeah, like we went to a place the other day, a pita shop I’ve taken you.

Yeah, that’s a good shop. Where you get like the shwarma and everything. So the guys behind the counter, you’re getting all your stuff, he’s making your sandwich and all. And at the end they ask if you wanna leave a tip. Yeah, I’m gonna leave a tip. I’m not gonna leave 20 or 25%, but I’m gonna leave some kind of tip.

Yeah. That’s what I’m talking about, right? Yeah. I Just, I think, like we said, man, at the end of the day, most of the people that are complaining about this are probably the ones that Yeah, there’s some waitresses complaining like, oh, you come in to eat a meal, and then the person’s not leaving a tip.

They don’t know. The person might have came in, the food was priced twice, 20 or 30%, or it was terrible. No, but maybe the that’s, I don’t fall like the server. If I go somewhere, I’m not tipping. If the food is terrible, you’re not tipping. No. Okay. You know what, I take that back. I have definitely tipped a waitress.

I’ve tipped if the food, cause my wife will be like, it’s not her fault, . Exactly. But I’m just saying you, but I’m just saying the tipping thing also, like we were, we’re talking like then it’s the shady part of it. Like cuz. is the money going to the employees? Yeah. Are they really getting the tips right?

Are they, in the unusual situations, are they equally sharing the tips? Is there some BS involved to where oh, this guy gets a more percentage because, or whatever. Excuse me, I was talking to Alan when I was in college. I worked at Jimmy John’s, and at the end of the day of course I was a delivery driver.

I kept all my tips, right? Like I’d never. You didn’t have to share unless you were nice and you helped somebody on a really big corporate order right? Then you could share a tip, you would, nah, I would, you’d be obligated. Like otherwise you’d be a p os . They wouldn’t give you those orders again? No. Nah.

Yeah. No. You’d be fighting for ’em. But yeah, so and then at the end of the night, if you worked in the shop, there was a tip jar and then, You would split it equally? The manager wouldn’t get any, the assistant manager wouldn’t get any, whoever. The people who were there working, the regular people, making the sandwiches, working the, they got the tips.

But I’ve heard, because I know, a lot of younger people are forced to work in this type of job. Some businesses they don’t get the tips or they don’t even see the tip. They don’t know how much. . Yeah. Cuz there’s no tip jar with the money in it. There’s just in tip on the electronic circumstances.

Yeah, on the cash register or on the credit card machine, people are hitting the tip and the employees don’t know where is that money going? Is it going to the employees? I think businesses should put up a sign if they’re gonna have that kind of tipping. . And it’s not clear that the money is going to the employees.

I think they should put up a sign and say, all tips go to the employees one, so the employees know. And two, so the public knows. I agree. That’s a, because that guy, the kid, my son asked, he’s oh, do you get the money? The kid goes, I don’t think so. Oh, he said he didn’t know. Yeah, he didn’t know.

But he didn’t think so. I’m just saying like the other day I went into a deli to get some bagels. I don’t believe that guy. I’m sorry. No, I don’t know if he’s, if he looks on his or check, he guarantee there’s gonna be a little section in there that says tips. I’m just saying I would a section, it says tips.

Yeah. I would feel more comfortable as a cons consumer. If I saw the sign and it said, all tips go to the employees. Yeah, next to the cash register or on the window or something, then I would say, okay, boom. But that would make me more comfortable to tip, but that’s not gonna prevent me from tipping.

Hello everyone. We like to take this time to thank our sponsors Nationwide Payment Systems and NPS Printer. We’d also like to shout out the listeners and everyone that subscribed to our YouTube. Thank you for tuning in. If you’d like to reach Alan or myself, head over to B2B vault.info where you’ll find two forms, one to contact us, and another if you’re interested in becoming a sponsor.

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Thanks again for listening. If they knew where the money was going, true. So I think it’s be more upfront. I’ll give you an example. I used to go to a clothing store in my. To get like business shirts and all that business shirt went out the window with the coronavirus whole thing.

Everything got a little more casual little company shirt with a logo. I’ve been rocking graphic tees for 20 years now. No, but I’m just saying, things got a little more comfortable. Even when we were like, we went to a networking. Last week. Yeah. Even the guy that came to work with us was

Yeah. He was way over dressed. He was wearing a sport jacket with a dress shirt and then a pair of jeans, and I was like, yeah. The women were all super, like some of them were dressed up supermodels. No. Some women were like super dressed up. Yeah. And some people were super cash. Oh yeah.

The older women were like super dressed up. For sure. Yeah. Some of the professional. Salespeople. Yeah. And some of the realtors were dressed up, but some of the people that worked like at the booths, they were wearing, they were rocking their polos. Nobody was the, those kind of got, people were not really dressed up.

Even the guy who put the event on had at Polo on had a polo. Most people were wearing like a logo polo, I think like Polos was about as, as corporatey. We’re going now. Suits are for an occasion, right? Like an event, or if you’re going to go strike a 10 million deal with, I don’t know, some, listen, the biggest client, one of the biggest clients I exactly, I had, I’ll never forget.

I was like, oh, I gotta go meet this guy, right? This was years ago, right? It was back like 2002, 2003. I didn’t go meet this guy. He owned a bunch of restaurants, right? And I’m like, oh, I gotta get dressed up. So I put on a dress shirt and a tie. It was summer, it was brutally hot. A hundred degrees outside, right?

It was a hundred degrees outside. It was so hot. I was sweating bullets, walking at a park far away. , I walked over there, right? And here’s this guy he owns. . He’s probably a multi-millionaire, right? Multi-millionaire. And the guy’s wearing shorts. He’s wearing shorts. He’s got on a cash shirt. He’s got on a baseball hat and he’s wearing flip flops.

I’m like, wow. Yep. And then the guy says to me, he goes, oh, you need to loosen up a little bit. He goes, lose the tie. He goes, I’m getting uncomfortable. So I remember I took the tie off and then we talked how long ago was. like that was 2003, something like that. Exactly. So he told me to lose the tie and as Suit’s been outta style for 18, for 20 plus years, he told me lose the tie.

After that, I pretty much did not wear a tie to another net at all going out for business because that kind of taught me like didn’t, nobody wants to see that. They don’t. people were not like super impressed cuz you had on a tie in a certain night. So I never wasn’t like you come to my a business meeting.

I don’t care. You have on a, your power suit and your red tie, bro. No, I’m just saying get outta here, . So then I remember wearing that when I was in the hotel business. My boss was like, oh yeah, you gotta have on a red tie, blah, blah, blah. To go to meetings and we would go to meetings with banks that was, ex you gotta be dressed up.

But I remember like banking, I guess I could see you wearing a suit everywhere. But now, like I was just at Wall Street though, like I was just at a banking convent. . Everybody was wearing polos. Everybody, the whole band, there was nobody. Some of the women were dressed up, but majority of the guys were all rocking polos.

What are they wearing on Wall Street? No, like very casual, casual pants, casual shirt, maybe a sport jacket. Oh really? Yeah. Maybe. See what I’m saying? It’s a little cooler in new. than it is in Florida. Yeah, you definitely were getting, man, I remember when I first got down here, I went to an event and I put on my sport jacket.

I said, man, I don’t know how people are doing it. There’s no way. No, I took it off. I didn’t, I knew a guy when me, when when I first got into this business, there was this guy named John. I’m still friends with him, and he used to sport a three piece suit and it would be 90 degrees outside and I would see that guy somewhere and he would be sweating bullets.

Let’s just get back to the, the tipping thing. One thing is for sure, like if businesses are collecting tips and they’re not giving it to the employees, there’s a three letter. It’s illegal. There’s a three letter company. There’s a three letter government organization called irs, and they’re gonna, they could possibly come look into that because all it takes is one, I can’t tell you how many lawsuits there have been over.

Tips, tips, sharing. What happens to the tips? I read another article about businesses Tell, you told me crime one 12 had a big glass. Let’s not mention, yeah. There was several restaurants, several hotels that I know there was a huge lawsuit in Miami where this guy basically started in New York City and he started, he sued, a hundred or 200 restaurants.

Then he came down to Miami and he started suing hundreds of restaurants on Miami Beach. Really? Oh yeah. It was a class action lawsuit. Wasn’t, they didn’t just target one place. Oh, they went after all the restaurants on Miami Beach because they were doing shady stuff. They. we’re accusing them that they were pooling the tips and all this stuff.

So you gotta be, businesses have to be very careful with that cuz all it takes is one employee to be smart. They go complain, they go get a lawyer, and then there’s tipping lawyers. And even, I was reading a thing today, I got an email from a payroll company and it says, oh, can you deduct. , and I’m sure they put this in the payroll newsletter, right?

Because probably some restaurants were asking them how to handle this. So the article talked about can you deduct the cost of credit card processing out of the tips? So the answer was yes and no. So the part that was yes, the waiter has a hundred dollars worth of tips. , you pay 3% for credit card process.

Let’s just say that’s what it is making. You could deduct the $3. That’s terrible. Not every restaurant does that but you. That is messed up. I’m just saying legally you’re allowed to do that. That is messed up, dude. Okay. And any, if I find out that the restaurant is doing that, I’m gonna put you on blast.

I would say probably the restaurants that are higher end are probably deducting a little bit of money out for credit card process. That’s totally unfair, like hot places where these employees don’t own that company. I know. I’m just explaining to you what I’m upset. I’m upset because it’s yo, like dude, That’s like you charging us for your lights.

Listen, I talked to somebody who told me that they worked at a dentist office and the dentist was charging them for the protection equipment during Covid. And I was like, how can they do that? You work, it’s not like you’re an independent contractor at the dentist, but I’m just gonna tell you that higher end restaurants, where the waiters might be making, they’re always doing shady stuff.

500, a thousand bucks a night in tips. They are. I would say some of them probably do that. Now, here’s where the part went. No, and you could tell the way the guy wrote the article. , right? The way the guy wrote this article that more than one person asked if they could do this, so they wanted to deduct the total cost of the sales out of the waiter’s salary,

So let’s say the sales, the waiter got a hundred in tips, but let’s just say the sales on the a hundred dollars in tips was a thousand dollars. So then that would be $30 in credit card sale and. Let’s say at 3%. You can’t deduct that. It’s terrible out of the waiter, but I’m sure they wrote it the way they wrote it because somebody asked could they do that?

It’s terrible, man. No, it’s, so Go to your restaurant tip. Leave cash don’t. I would say never tip on a credit card. We’ve talked about the tipping threshold before, so you can’t leave big tips even if you, unless they do tip at the time of the sale. One of the other videos that I saw on TikTok was a waiter going somebody and I, somebody was filming the receipt, right?

And the person was complaining that the person didn’t leave a big enough tip. So the person, instead of $5 and 48 cents, they made it 1548. That’s ter, that’s why I’m, that’s another reason. And then they’re gonna go do a tip adjustment on the god’s bill. The customer card holder’s gonna do a charge back for 10 bucks.

The restaurant’s gonna get lose the 10 bucks. , maybe lose the whole thing, plus get hit with a 20 or $30 chargeback fee, right? And the waiter already got their money because that chargeback, people have up to six months, but that chargeback might not come in for a week or two because if you saw that somebody added money to the bill, different than what your bill said, right?

If you’re managing your money like that, but I’m just saying today people are really watching. , that’s why restaurants should be using like the pay at the table so the customer can just put the tip in and you don’t have that, plus, you don’t have to deal with that 20% variance, which we talked about in the podcast where people, that’s the other thing when you’re doing tip at the time of the sale, you don’t have to worry like, oh, it’s my favorite waiter, Justin’s my favorite waiter.

And I wouldn’t be, but let’s, for the sake of, let’s just say for the sake of the, what we’re talking about, and I come in there all the time and. , and I know Justin and it’s Christmas time and I go, you know what, Justin waits on me every single week. Boom, here’s a hundred dollars tip. I wanna make sure Justin’s getting the whole a hundred books.

I want to make sure he doesn’t have to tip share, and all that because, and that’s the thing that’s important. Like I think consumers should know that the waiters are getting the tips. Every time that a waitress tells me that, Sharing the tips. I always slide it to her and be like, you don’t tell anybody you got this.

Yeah. Cause and then she says, I have to because I’ll get in trouble. No you won’t. Cuz loose lip sync ships and even whatever. Sometimes I try to, sometimes I try to tip cash because, . I want to make sure the person’s getting the money. That’s why I, that’s why I said, don’t, I don’t ever, I don’t put tips on my credit card, on my debit card at all.

It’s hard because, sometimes you go into place and you don’t, maybe you’re not expecting you’re, you didn’t plan that. Particular stop. Stop. I don’t live that lifestyle, so I’m very calculated and I don’t go out to eat. So when I do, I know that I’m gonna be tipping. Okay. But I’m just saying I get it though.

Yeah. Can happen. The same thing, like somebody, your lawn, like my lawn guy comes to the house. I’m know how much it is for the lawn. So I. I always give him extra. Yeah. He’s oh, you don’t have to gimme extra. And I’m like, yeah. Yeah, because he does a good job, he comes and he does a, does that, does the same way, does it more, he is keeping everything clean outside.

I don’t have to complain or tell him like, Hey, you didn’t. Do this or do that, you have to do it. So let’s hear some comments from people. We’re even gonna post a few things in social of the different thing. Like one of the things I saw was a sign next to a register and it has, he thinks this is so contr It’s edgy.

That’s what you, it’s not edgy. It’s just what do people think about it? I saw a sign next to a register, right? Had the people’s names on it that worked there and what they were gonna do with the tips, car insurance, health insurance. I don’t know. I thought it was a little bit. I don’t know. Does that give you that?

What did you think about it? You genuinely didn’t like it. What I thought about it was that it was one a little bit over the top. Why? A couple of, I’m gonna tell you because a couple things on the list. Disturb me about the person needed to buy a car, another person needed to buy a car insurance.

Somebody needed tires. Listen, if my employee needs some tires and they say to me, Hey Alan, I need tires for my car. I’m not gonna tell you to go wait for the tip jar to come in. And I go, here, let me load you a couple books. So you get tires for your car. That’s, I’m just saying like you’re good.

Being a good person and being, and then one of the things was like night and day, bro. No, but I’m just saying then it said, someone, a girl wanted to get her nails done. Someone wanted to get their hair done. I’m just saying In my opinion, Alan, I think I get where you’re coming from, but I think that you’re looking way too.

I think it was more so as a joke. I thought it was funny, but there I get it, man. I thought it was funny. But then I asked the girls and they go, no, that’s serious. And I was like, but I’m saying I felt bad for the employees. That’s what I’m saying. Dude, you go to anywhere that no one’s making any money, Alan, bro.

Come on, man. Like people are broke. People are broke. Oh, that’s because if you ask too high, if you ask any of my 20. 25 to 21 and 19 year old kids who are out there working. Yeah, they’re gonna put the same things on that list. No, I understand that. I’m just saying I think it was funny. I didn’t think it was, I kinda, at first I thought it was a joke and then the girl said no, that’s serious.

and I was like, okay. I’m just saying I think what Alan’s trying to say is that restaurant owner needs to pay his employees more. Yes. That’s one thing. Of course, that living wage, we don’t, that’s a whole podcast that you and I will end up fighting over, like we’ll have a big fight but yeah, the living wage thing that needs to be fixed, like people are broke and there’s an obvious reason.

Stuff costs way more than it did. 50 years ago, it’s not the same. People need to, I don’t think people, anyway, I don’t think people understand about like inflation and how it works. We looked at things like what’s in the news. So wanted to give a couple of news stories at the end of the podcast.

Dick Durbin’s trying to get his credit card competition act out there again. I don’t think it has a chance to be passed because yeah, he’s trying to put it in a different bill. They try to slide it in a bill. It’s not gonna, it needs to, if it’s so good, he needs to put it on its own. Here’s one thing that’s helped for consumers.

That story, Justin Fam, where they want to cap late fees. That the banks can charge when people don’t credit pay their credit card. When they don’t pay their credit card bill on time. Yeah. Not their, not your overdraft fees. This isn’t for credit cards. For credit cards. Credit card. When you don’t pay your bill on time, they want to cap it at eight bucks, which, that’s a good thing because I don’t, I don’t know.

Fortunately I haven’t. been late on a credit card, but I do know you don’t want to do that. Yeah, you don’t want to do that because it’s going to, the fee is at least 40 bucks from what I remember. Yes. The fee’s $40. And also the other thing is the credit card company can raise your interest rates.

Oh yeah. Through the roof. And then, and they close your card. And they close your card and then they put you into collections. The other thing is the. raise the rate again. And this has gotta stop because inflation people don’t understand inflation. I’m gonna explain something about inflation real quick.

And so just to give a little bit of how I look at it and what, how I understand inflation. , when we talk about money is just almo. My stepdad used to tell me, Jerry, bless his soul and he is gone. , you know here. So God bless him, but I still love to talk to him about money all the time. And he used to tell me, money’s just numbers on a piece of paper.

And I started to think about that one day and I was talking to him and I go, what are you talking about? And he goes, listen. He goes, when I, when he was younger, and you go back to the 1950s and the 1960s, like I was trying to explain to one of my friends and I was like, you just don’t understand. If you were back in the 1950s, sixties, early seventies, before we had all this crazy inflation, it’s all that was all related to the US coming off the gold standard.

Okay. You’re good. You’re getting into a very heavy conversation here. But I’m just gonna explain. A lot of people during the, that time period in the United States were able to create, generational wealth because they were making. The average salary back then was like maybe 10, 12, 15 grand.

A year. , right? Yeah. But a cost of a house was what? A cost of a house was 20 grand. So this guy was my, he could buy a hundred acres for 20 grand. My stepdad was explaining to me, he is oh, during the, That time period. He goes, people who were making like a hundred thousand dollars a year, he goes, they were able to go out and buy all kinds of land and buildings and do all sorts of things.

And he goes now, and my stepdad’s passed away for almost 15 years now, and he said, I read an interesting lu, I’m sorry, but I read a really interesting article about the attorneys in New York. The Christian attorneys wouldn’t perform. divorces, but all the Jewish lawyers would, and so the Jewish lawyers made a killing, right?

In the early twenties, thirties and forties. Probably for a long time in fifties. Yeah. So the thing is so when he was explaining to me and he is back then somebody had a hundred, 200 grand. He goes, that’s like today in today’s money. That’s like billions. One time.

Millions. Yeah. 20 million. 30 million. He goes, because the money’s not the same. Like we talked one time, me and Justin about we paid somebody to do something online. They were in another country. And the guy charged. I was cuz we saw this service for, remember for all kinds of stupid prices from 25 bucks up to a couple hundred bucks.

What were we talking about? What service? We had somebody make us like a little video one time. Oh yeah. And so we end up, Doing, we end up going with, we wanted to find someone that could do a quality job on it, and we found a guy and it was a few hundred dollars. And I was explaining it to Justin later.

I was like, their money like that, that $200 to pay their rent for a year. Yeah. That guy was like probably on cloud nine, that he got a $200 job, but the guy was doing a high. Quality was way higher than everybody else. Oh man. Yeah, like someone in the US would probably charge five grand for that. . And but the, but that’s the thing is that the money in that country just hasn’t changed.

Like their money has not changed. So that’s the whole thing. The same thing I know people from here, they go retire in Mexico. , or they retire in Panama. , right? Because the money down there, the, there’s the inflation is not like the inflation in the US right? Inflation in the US and especially right now, we’re in double digit.

I don’t care what they say on the news. I could tell by the price of everything we’re in depression. We’re in a double digit inflation that needs to get reversed. Quickly, and there’s a lot of slack going on there. There’s a lot going on with that, and that’s part of why sometimes people are upset with the tipping thing or they go into the restaurant and the prices are way, way higher than what they were.

Everybody’s tight right now, man. Everybody’s tight. Dude. Gases up again. You go to the grocery store, I don’t care what you tell. , every item is $5. You. If you go What I buy, I don’t you. It could be a jar of peanut butter that is over $5 now, hour. No, everything is priced super high.

Then my daughter was talking to me, she’s oh, I went to the grocery store. Eggs was this much money, and I was telling her, I said, you guys got it. I told you guys before, you guys gotta get a Costco card or a BJ’s card or a Sam’s Club card, and then you have to go there and the items that you can purchase in bulk, that much cheap, cheaper there.

This might be time to little put up a little chicken. Where in Iowa I would my daughter grows vegetables. There you go. She grows vegetables. A lot of people, I’m not gonna lie, dude, I talked to my dad about it and he’s gonna talk, I’m gonna talk to the owner of a house and I’m pretty sure we’re gonna buy some chickens.

Yeah, because we haven’t. Why not? We can. Our neighborhood, everybody has chickens in their neighborhood. Everybody. Dude, there’s if the windows weren’t like hurricane proof, I would definitely be. Woken up by the rooster at 5:00 AM Wow. That’s crazy. It’s amazing. It’s cool. I like it. like it makes, that’s why I tell everybody I like, dude, I don’t live in the United States of America.

I live in a place called Florida. It’s only country. South Florida specifically is like just different. That’s all I can say. It’s very, it’s pretty different coming from the Midwest, the down. is very different. I can’t explain it. I don’t want to, but stay away. In Iowa, in Iowa, pretty much like all my daughter’s neighbors and everybody at work that lives in a house, pretty much, they grow vegetables, they do a garden, and they grow a ton of vegetables and they buy.

My daughter learned how to pickle stuff. That’s the Midwest man. I’m just saying that’s how it is up there. It’s a style, it’s a style of life. We’re always trying to find ways to. Save some money. Because especially during the wintertime, it’s a tough, it’s hard on people, you can’t do the same stuff.

So we want to hear your thoughts on tipping. Yes, please. And leave us, I’m interested. Yeah. We are interested and we wanna know what everybody thinks. Is it over the top? Is it not over the top? I always think of the scene on Reservoir Dogs. Yeah. When they’re sitting, when Mr. Pink is sitting at the table.

When they’re all sitting at the. And Mr. Pink says, cough up a buck. You’re cheap. You know the rest . Yeah. It’s that’s my thoughts on tipping. Leave a tip. Don’t be a cheap dirty dick. Yeah. Listen, leave a tip, Warren Terry Cash for that situation. If you know you’re going to a restaurant, put a 20 in your pocket.

that whoever the waiter or waitress is gonna be super at the bartender. Yes. Yeah. These restaurants are way understaffed and sometimes that frustrates people too. Yeah. They’re not getting the level of service that they want. And things like that. Also, if you’re a waiter or waitress, and if I don’t get my water filled up at least twice you’re gonna get a terrible tip.

So you should be checking on your people. But just remember, what does tip stand for? To ensure prompt service, and there you have it. If you’re doing, if you’re in a job and you’re giving service, then you should expect to get tip. . Do it. You get a generous tip. Get a generous tip. Exactly. So that’s our podcast for FinTech Friday.

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