Epic WTF

"Stuff they don't want you to know" podcast did an episode on tipping recently

Was quite interesting, how it is uniquely American and it originated with slave labour.

They've started doing it over there. That thing where they give you the card machine on the "add tip" screen. Get to fuck!

I guess my point is more comparative to other jobs (admin, cleaners, supermarkets, etc.) and for context I'm meaning restaurants rather than all eateries.

$10p/h + tips

Google says an average of $42k p/a.

But I find that hard to believe as $10p/h is roughly 20k which then means if they worked the standard number of working days (which I'd expect averaged out) the they're only making $160p/d on tips...

... which is what I struggle to believe as ime they'd be getting >$100 per table of 4.

Not saying my maths is fullproof though.

That makes sense. TBH I've only got experience of a few places, and none were drought stricken. And it was a while ago now.

Restaurants in the US are fucking annoying with the menu price having no resemblance to what you'll actually be paying.

Had a colleague who forgot to tip and they followed him down the street to tell him. Another who didn't tip after shit service and when he got his card statement it turned out they'd added a 20% tip on anyway.

I often find, beyond the faux friendly stuff, the service is terrible as you end up stuck with one waiter rather than any of the serving staff being able to serve you.

@ColinTheBald Was more the idea of if the producers (the film) were made today how many scenes/deals would be made on the course.

For some reason my brain links all musicals/musical theatre to the producers creating a scam.

Wimpy exist, not sure about going strong.

@EstelleGetty Yes still served on wimpy branded plates. The two that I know are in Orpington and loughton. The one in Orpington is like a 70 throw back while Loughton is very moderne.

There's a few in London, most central one is Bermondsey I think.

The screen of guilt. I hate it.

I’ve seen the various online retailers are asking if you want to round up your purchase to the nearest pound and donate to charity, which sometimes I do depending on the amount.
I popped into Toolstation the other day to pick up a £1.49 hose fitting and their card machines now the same, 33% to charity pls?

Rounding up to charity, or tip, is fine with me. It's the whole "that'd be £14,35 please" and then I have to add it AGAIN into the machine to avoid tipping

I’ve seen the various online retailers are asking if you want to round up your purchase to the nearest pound and donate to charity, which sometimes I do depending on the amount.

I used to do some consulting work for pennies.org that is the charity that delivers this service for a lot of online and card retailers, matched to charities. The basic premise is to replace the collecting pots that you used to put your change in, back when cash was thing.

lovely people and a really nice ethos.

There used to be one on Roman Road, no idea if it was legit.
2008 and 2011, looks like it closed after that.

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Seems to be loads of them over this side of London! Teddington Wimpy closed late last year because the owners decided to retire and not renew the lease. The one on Ashford high street (Middlesex) is still open afaik. Both of them had re-fits a couple of years ago and looked quite flash inside.

There's a Tonbridge Wimpy that just opened last year. Never been in, but always looks empty.

It’s a great idea and I fully endorse and use it when shopping online. I just find it awks on a card reader in front of people when I feel a social pressure to donate. Maybe it’s just me.

I got that screen of shame thing on the card reader somewhere recently and it was one of these places that you collect stuff as you along! Can't remember where it was but it had like a bean2cup coffee machine that you served yourself from, cakes out on display that you had to put on a plate and so on. I had literally done every damn thing myself and the card machine was asking for a tip!

"This is asking me a stupid question, make it show what I actually owe for the beers!"

What is it with booking fees these days? I was in Bury last week and had some time to kill so, prompted by an ad on a bus, I went to the cinema. ‘Any day any time £5’ turned out to be a fib. With two ways to book - online or via a touchscreen in the foyer, both of which had a booking fee to add to the £5 ticket price - there was no way to ask a human being for a ticket the old fashioned way and get a ticket for the least cost.

What is it with booking fees these days?

Gigs - a tenner or so added for no reason every fucking time.

Been to a few pubs where they have a tip option when you go to pay at the card machine and you can't pay until you've selected something. Just ends up making a long wait as people stand around trying to pay without realising they've got an extra step. People often cancel the payment by accident by pressing the wrong buttons too so adds more time when they need to set up the payment again (something I've done). Seen a load of bar staff just type in the amount and mash the button to skip the tip themselves then hand over the machine to the person paying.

The amount of people that still add their pin as the tip and then wonder what’s going on.

" A man who planned to assassinate the late queen with a crossbow drew encouragement from an AI chatbot in the days before breaking into the grounds of Windsor Castle, the Old Bailey has heard.

Jaswant Singh Chail, who was 19 at the time, also exchanged thousands of often sexually charged messages with Sarai, his AI girlfriend, before scaling the fence to the royal estate on Christmas Day 2021, the court was told. "

What makes it even more Black Mirror is that the chatbot was from a service called Replika, which (ostensibly at least) creates an AI simulacrum/avatar of the user, trained by feeding it their conversation history/social media content.

And that service has its own macabre backstory: https://www.theverge.com/a/luka-artificial-intelligence-memorial-roman-mazurenko-bot

AI endorses assassinating the monarch?

Given the available information it would have been fed, I'm not surprised that a violent insurrection is it's logical conclusion and I have a newfound confidence that our networked overlords are a force for good.

To the barricades!