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Vader

Please tip your postmate

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Yeah that's not the same at all. In what city are there not enough department stores, drug stores, coffee shops, Sonics, pet stores, and whatever else that hire anyone with a pulse on a guaranteed minimum wage? Even the most podunk of places still have these, probably even more likely than restaurants. Hell you could be a greeter at Walmart and get paid more. I think you are living in a dream world.

 

If anything it's harder to get a waiting job. Bartending even harder.

 

If I recall in Christmas Carol, Scrooge wasn't stealing money from Cratchit and minimum wage didn't come into the tale. Again worry about minimum wage for everyone, not only tipped employees.

 

Every city. No market provides unlimited opportunities for unskilled laborers. Even if there were unlimited unskilled jobs out there, that doesn't mean that everyone would have access to them. In a world where some people have to walk 21 miles to get to their low wage job, it is wrong to assume that people have easy access to unskilled work.

 

Minimum wage for everyone is important, of course. It's just that people who work for tips are more vulnerable to abuse because of how they're paid.

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Oof  :unsure:

 

The only way to make a statement about illegal business practices or that tipped wages suck is to just not work there and tell other people to not work there and report the place if they are paying under minimum wage in tips on a W2. As long as people keep taking the job and minimum wage stays undesirable, it's not worth working there mad and screwed over all day.

 

It's the same with Favor/Postmates if not so many took these jobs they would pay more as an incentive but as it stands now, even if turnover is high they let anyone with a car and a phone come take the place of the last person. It's just not a good job to support a family on.

 

Every city. No market provides unlimited opportunities for unskilled laborers. Even if there were unlimited unskilled jobs out there, that doesn't mean that everyone would have access to them. In a world where some people have to walk 21 miles to get to their low wage job, it is wrong to assume that people have easy access to unskilled work.

 

Minimum wage for everyone is important, of course. It's just that people who work for tips are more vulnerable to abuse because of how they're paid.

Well again, if it's that dire of a situation where the company is stealing funds, they need to report it. The rest, like walking 21 miles is a public transportation and minimum wage problem. And that is definitely not a common case. Also the article states he is getting paid over minimum wage, otherwise I'm betting there's some gas station or something on the way that would pay minimum wage and not be such a walk. He's also not working unskilled labor because he's at a factory. Whatever the situation is, he needs the few more bucks an hour. It's sad, but raising minimum wage would probably bump his wage. The dude still has a choice. Plus at the end it says he doesn't want a car because his coworkers were going to buy him one, instead he likes his routine.

 

If anything it would be easier to make the case that a person is having a hard time getting hired anywhere because they are a convicted felon and only certain businesses would hire them.

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For some people, the options are making a statement about illegal business practices and keeping the heat on during the winter. It's almost like predatory employment practices are targeted at those among us who have already been robbed of their voice and are unable to speak up. Hmmm.

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Just trying to keep in sight of the big picture here, are we arguing about whether we should tip? Whether tipping is unfair? Whether we should support higher minimum wages everywhere?

 

To each question, yes we should tip. Tipping as a means of paying for labor is unfair. We should support higher minimum wages everywhere. 

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If you are getting paid under minimum wage, you can find somewhere that pays more and then have slightly more money to keep the heat on.

 

Just trying to keep in sight of the big picture here, are we arguing about whether we should tip? Whether tipping is unfair? Whether we should support higher minimum wages everywhere?

I wrote a lot about the math and the argument I have is don't worry about these Postmate drivers. Also as I explained earlier, because the way the business works, overtipping them probably doesn't get them over their minimum for multiple reasons, so it's probably pointless anyway. Just give them the 15% or $5 whatever is more (and you don't even have to do $5) to show them that you don't hate them, I guess. The problem lies in the payment structure of both Favor and Postmates, not the customer here.

 

The also all own cars and nice enough phones (which I put myself on a plan for so I could do this) so it's not like these delivery drivers are living a hard life the way a bagger at a grocery store who gets a ride to work might be.

 

It's a job where the flexibility is key AND they still make above minimum wage. The people who think they are going to be making big money per hour with Favor quickly learn they are going to be on the minimum for 75-90% of the time and leave to do something else where they might get paid more. Or they get in such a rush to complete orders they start parking illegally and got booted or towed, which is a big issue here in Austin. I don't really give a shit because I know I'm going to make the minimum, so I will park blocks away and walk and the customer can just wait.

 

EDIT: Okay, so there is one surefire way to make sure the Postmates drivers get paid well, and it's to give them a significant amount of cash. Don't tip in the app, so the tips never get reported to either Postmates or the IRS and then they can't use that to factor in the minimum per hour. So then you will be making the minimum guarantee per hour plus cash tips you can then choose never to report to the IRS. Favor forces you to tip $2, not sure if Postmates forces a minimum, but if they do, tip twice.

 

Also, don't do this.

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If you are getting paid under minimum wage, you can find somewhere that pays more and then have slightly more money to keep the heat on.

 

Are you seriously saying that everyone who feels forced to work someplace that doesn't pay minimum wage is just being stupid/lazy and not considering all their options? Because that's a staggeringly ignorant statement to make based just on your own experience. It took me literally fifteen seconds of googling to find an article that nuances the argument a lot more than "work someplace else if you're not getting paid enough."

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If you are getting paid under minimum wage, you can find somewhere that pays more and then have slightly more money to keep the heat on.

 

I think this is maybe the source of our impasse. The experience of both me and many people I know has been that it isn't always easy to find work that pays better than under minimum wage. In my case, this is rooted in as much of a struggle to find working hours as it is the base pay rate of those hours. I am compensated well for each hour I can work, but I can't get many hours. Thus, my weekly salary is less than what I would make in a full time minimum wage position.

And yes, I have applied for service jobs to supplement my other work. No, none have hired me. No, I don't have a criminal record. Yes, I do have a bachelor's degree and have been accepted into grad schools for two different disciplines. I know other people who have had similar experiences, including people much less privileged than me. 

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Are you seriously saying that everyone who feels forced to work someplace that doesn't pay minimum wage is just being stupid/lazy and not considering all their options? Because that's a staggeringly ignorant statement to make based just on your own experience. It took me literally fifteen seconds of googling to find an article that nuances the argument a lot more than "work someplace else if you're not getting paid enough."

That's not an article on tipped wait staff where they are being paid under minimum wage. We are partly speaking of W2 employees in that case. The drivers would be on 1099s here.

 

If you are trying to say that drivers not getting paid a minimum wage are a problem, as I said multiple times, that is also not a problem as both Favor and Postmates have hourly guarantees over minimum wage. If they didn't pay that, don't work there,. It's an easy job to get, the turnover is high. They just want you to have a car and a phone with a data plan. I also said this multiple times and laid out the payment structure in this thread. So yes, don't work there if you are getting screwed. Don't work there ESPECIALLY if you are making under minimum wage (which you aren't). The cities where these delivery/driver app jobs are are have a plethora of other jobs, they don't exist in small cities where this would be a problem. Plus all of these people can afford to have a car.

 

Again to repeat here, I chose the job because I can whenever I want and whatever hours I want. I realized very quickly you are barely going to make over the minimum and if I weren't needing a flexible job right now, I wouldn't do this. Also the work is so god damn easy and it's very low stress, so that is the other plus for the low pay. I am not in a situation where I need high pay at the moment, and if I cannot land a good job out of school, working full time at Favor is not a good idea to do help that situation. You aren't even guaranteed full time hours as it is. I worked at Starbucks last year for half a year and it paid $9.50 an hour on average, maybe $10/hr. with good tips some weeks and I didn't have to trash my car to do so, pay for gas, nor pay for a data plan. I made better money there but the flexibility was terrible and I was also getting way too much freelance work at the time plus my school work, so I quit. However they are desperate for full time employees plus you get good healthcare benefits at Starbucks, so if you wanted to support a family that would be a much better idea. Still the minimum wage needs to be raised.

 

If I'm ignorant, whatever. I laid out everything in multiple paragraphs way more nuanced than you want to shit on me for. I have typed more than enough on this if you want to just disregard me. I also actually DO this job you know. I also have major financial issues for so many reasons and I am trying to get myself through school again. I've also had probably 7 other shitty unskilled jobs in my life as well. I have been in a lot of bad financial conditions a lot in my life, probably a lot more than a lot of the bleeding hearts here on this forum. I am not ignorant of what's up.

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I've also had probably 7 other shitty unskilled jobs in my life as well. I have been in a lot of bad financial conditions a lot in my life, probably a lot more than a lot of the bleeding hearts here on this forum. I am not ignorant of what's up.

 

I think what the bleeding hearts here are saying is that we want unskilled jobs to be less shitty and we want fewer people to have to live in bad financial conditions. To that end, the only thing I am saying is compensate the people who bring you food. I realize tipping isn't the best possible system for compensation, but it's a complicated world. People who live on tips shouldn't suffer for any ideological stance I might have against the mode of compensation they rely upon.

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And I'm trying to tell you over and over, the fault lies with Postmates' payment structure not the customer. I already did the math and linked you to a similar article that details how similar the payment structure is to Favor. It seems the only difference is that with Postmates you can choose to ignore certain low paying deliveries to forfeit the minimum guarantee while on Favor you can't. Also in that city it would seem Postmates gives a slightly higher flat rate payment per completed order but these are often ultimately inconsequential because of the payment structure.  Again, unless you are very generously overtipping them or spending $30 and up on their order, you probably aren't putting them over the minimum guarantee.


I replied here with how the payment structure works because you seem to be very confused in your original message. I'm trying to tell you that customers not tipping a lot is not the issue with the payment scheme here. You can't expect customers to egregiously tip way over the suggested 15% to make up for bad corporate decisions you have no control over. That's more than people do at restaurants even, where everyone knows tipped employees are a silly set up. I mean MAYBE you should expect more because it's basically only rich people that use these delivery services, but I am personally finding people are usually tipping 30-50% of their order anyway on smaller stuff, which still doesn't really make a dent in the guaranteed minimum.

 

Plus this is not a hard job, it's not a ton of physical labor AT ALL. Maybe sometimes I lift over 15 pounds if I have a stack of huge pizzas? There's a lot of sitting and down time. I get a lot of Professor Layton puzzles done. In some ways it's preferable to sit in your care and wait 45 minutes for a busy restaurant to get the togo order together because you are getting paid $9/hr. to not even move or expend any gas. You don't have the grueling life as a truck driver where you are driving long distances to stay awake and are going across states alone away from your family.

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And I'm trying to tell you over and over, the fault lies with Postmates' payment structure not the customer.

 

On this point we are in vigorous agreement. The only stand I am taking here is one that asks everyone to pay the people who do things for them. I fully acknowledge that the payout structure of most companies is severely unfair, but refusing the tip doesn't change that and only hurts the people whose lives quite literally depend on them.

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I just want to say that I hear you syntheticgerbil. This business-model seems to depend on people caring more about not looking like a douchebag to the delivery person than caring about the math.

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You are basically giving your money away not to the driver but Postmates or Favor themselves when you overtip if it's not a major overtip. Plus even if you decided to tip them like $15 or something for a burger, that's probably going to only happen once during their shift, so the average per hour will probably bury that and you are back at the minimum given wage.

 

I just want to say that I hear you syntheticgerbil. This business-model seems to depend on people caring more about not looking like a douchebag to the delivery person than caring about the math.

 

That's what I'm saying, just tip them the $5 or 15% if you just want to show you appreciated their service as a gesture of good will, I'm not saying not to tip at all (to Vader). Although actually if everyone barely tipped or did not tip, that probably would force both Postmates and Favor to change their business model because then they are paying much more to make up the difference in employee wages to hit that guarantee.

 

And again, the only way to subvert this structure 100% is to not tip in the app and hand the delivery driver cash tips, so then the company and IRS can't track them. Then they become tipped on top of the guaranteed minimum.

 

If this were the norm, it'd be swell because I don't care enough to report my cash tips (dishonest I know), but out of the 200 or so orders I've completed, only two people have actually given me a cash tip, and it was $5 each time.

 

On a personal note, part of what I don't like about the insinuation about the tipping with this service is that basically it is putting blame on the customer in general, which is not fair at all. I might get annoyed when I have to go pick up a pack of cigarettes and that's it, but I have to tell myself to calm down, it's not their fault, they are using the business as it's intended and as hard as I try I'm not going to be making big money. It's really easy for the drivers to start getting mad at the customers when they have generally all have been pleasant people who say thank you and smile, and that's all I really want out of people, which is way more than I can say of restaurant staff in this job. Part of working with Favor is there's an official private Facebook group and some people start making threads blaming customers (sometimes getting in trouble for it too) and this stuff never ends well when you want to generate a bunch of overall bad will towards the customer. They can't possibly know how your business works and why it is bad and they shouldn't have to. I will text a special thank you note to people who tip over 20% when I'm on shift, but this doesn't make them a better person than the other customer just doing the standard.

 

The best way to get into my heart as a delivery driver is not the tip, but to just come down to the front lobby of your Richie Rich condo/loft security fortress so I don't have to waste 20 minutes figuring it out. Or just live in a house and not one in a gated community. That's always pretty cool.

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That's what I'm saying, just tip them the $5 or 15% if you just want to show you appreciated their service as a gesture of good will, I'm not saying not to tip at all (to Vader). Although actually if everyone barely tipped or did not tip, that probably would force both Postmates and Favor to change their business model because then they are paying much more to make up the difference in employee wages to hit that guarantee.

This is where we part ways. I don't believe that you are giving the money to Postmates or Favor when you tip, you are giving it to the employee. If tips were free money for the company, they would make the tipping process far more intuitive and do more to actively encourage tips. Yeah I guess it's possible that if people unanimously boycotted tips maybe the government would raise the minimum wage for tipped workers (though probably unlikely so long as congress is chronically deadlocked), but how many people are you willing to hurt in the process while providing absolutely no real consequence to the abusive corporate practices?

Just please don't be a Buscemi

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The tips are part of the app, the tips are subsidizing their minimum guarantee per hour. When you go into your transaction history, it shows where they had to top you off. They pay out what you get after tips are factored in. If your tips equaled over the minimum per hour, sure, you wouldn't be giving to Postmates or Favor and instead directly to the driver, but again it will generally get buried in the average on the whole shift. Your tip might be killed by 30 minutes of no active orders two hours later, or multiple low cost orders, or some order that takes a lot of driving or waiting. These are all very likely things and at least one happens on every single one of my shifts, killing any tip overage. These companies set this up this way because it is in their best interest to make the most profit this way and then falsely advertise a rate per hour on Craigslist which you MIGHT hit. Just seems like you are ignoring the facts of the matter here because you want to feel you are doing a good job, but I am saying just save your money and do something else with it. If you want to help people, maybe throw it towards a charity of your choice instead.

 

And you are calling me a Buscemi and yet again misunderstanding me here. I said you could NOT TIP FAVOR OR POSTMATES and they might change their business model (again for all of the math I keep doing for you and you keep ignoring). Not restaurant tipped employees or bartenders or whoever is on the $2.13/hr. scheme, it's completely different. Favor and Postmates offer an hourly guarantee independent of the federal minimum wage because they are 1099 not W2. They don't have to offer this guarantee but I am guessing it's there because no one in their right mind would work there if that were the case.

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Yeah I guess it's possible that if people unanimously boycotted tips maybe the government would raise the minimum wage for tipped workers (though probably unlikely so long as congress is chronically deadlocked), but how many people are you willing to hurt in the process while providing absolutely no real consequence to the abusive corporate practices?

 

Eh, I don't know. If you are saying that the situation is hopeless and therefore it is the customer's duty to tip appropriately to ensure fair wages are being paid I completely disagree. That is just perpetuating a broken system. It's shitty to think that some people are theoretically stuck in a job where they bring home less than minimum wage and have absolutely no ability to change that situation, but extending that to say it is the customer's job to fix that problem is just wrong. The cycle has to be broken somehow and I think the single most valid way to do that is for everyone to stop tipping entirely, forcing companies to address these shitty business practices. Continuing with the narrative that we all need to be tipping well to make sure these people are making living wages just continues to put the onus on the customer and continues to breed a situation where companies see this as a viable business practice, creating an even larger market of employees that are underpaid and rely on the generosity customers to pay them a living wage. It is a vicious broken system. Tipping is the worst and everyone would be better off without it.

 

I'm with Synth on this one.

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On a whole other level, and I think I may have said this on the other tipping thread, don't tip percentages on delivery. It doesn't really make sense. A small cheese pizza and an extra large 5 topping pizza take the exact same work to deliver. When I delivered pizzas there was this one guy who always ordered five 2-liter bottles from us on Grub Hub, and always left a 15% tip that came out to basically nothing. Giant pain in the ass.

 

Tip smart. Think about how hard it is to find your place, or if there's parking trouble, or if it's far, or if it's snowing out or raining. How many bags the delivery person will have to carry. How heavy they will be.

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I don't think pizza places generally give me a tip suggestions, but these app companies have tip suggestions on checkout, usually $5 or 15%. They say that it suggests more if you have to drive a long distance, but I've never seen it reflected in the tipping.

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Oof, this is really painful for me to hear, but I think we're at a bit of an impasse because there are some core assumptions we seem to disagree on.

One is that anyone paid less than minimum wage because of tips could leave and get a better job easily anytime. This, I believe, is categorically false.

The second is the assumption that refusing to tip will put any onus on the companies to pay more. If they cared about their workers, they would be paying them more to begin with.  As well intentioned as such a boycott might be, I believe it would also be wrong. It would help no one and only hurts those most economically vulnerable. There are better ways to advocate for higher wages than refusing to give workers the only possible sufficient means of income they have. I doubt many in these difficult situations would appreciate your activism.

For those who hold these two assumptions, I think I have said all I can to refute them and if I tried to refute them further I fear I would only be repeating myself. Your minds are made up, and so is mine.

 

I simply hope that people will read this conversation and come to the conclusion that the just and compassionate thing is to tip, AND advocate for a better payment structure. That is all I ask.

For those who live in countries that have this better figured out than we do State side, difficult as it may be please appreciate that when you live in a shitty system, doing the right thing means descending into the muck a bit. To simply not engage is to let the sewage fester.

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Well when you go and use Postmates again are you going to call corporate and tell them you want a better payment structure? Are you going to stop using them and tell them it's because they should pay their employees better? It's not the same as W2 tipped employee types, so you can't really help on some mass protest and law changes in that case, because they aren't protected under federal minimum wage laws.

 

When it comes to Postmates or Favor, as a customer the only compassionate thing you could do is not make small orders so you don't waste their time and gas, so no more buying a burger meal just for you. Otherwise you could always give them cash tips only. Anything else is just pointless unless you want to start egregiously tipping whatever their minimum rate is and up each time you order, which is simply a silly waste of money and encouraging these companies to pay a crappy wage. See all above messages why this will not work for these app delivery services.

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Job setups where tipping is an integral part of your income structure suck. I feel like we're in the general orbit of agreement about that?

 

One of the messages that gets broadcasted when people say "tipping is bad" is the followup "so don't tip". This is horrible, and my sentiment is communicated in the thread title. Please tip! Trying to erode the structure in this way doesn't do anything except fuck over the person who is working with the understood expectation that their wage is funded through your gratuity. We need to find a better way to figure this out than scuttling the service industry workforce and losing the trees for the forest. Boycotting services that operate this way is one way to protest, but there are likely better still.

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Well when you go and use Postmates again are you going to call corporate and tell them you want a better payment structure? Are you going to stop using them and tell them it's because they should pay their employees better? 

Those sound like good places to start  :tup:

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The easiest way to change the W2 tipped jobs to change is to get laws changed. Although that might take forever, as it already seems to have. The other choice is for employees to not work there, customers to not eat there, and not to tip over a bunch to encourage restaurants and all that this is a great system. Try to take your businesses to places that don't require a tip or restaurants that pay their employees well and don't allow tips if one is in your area.

 

Favor and Postmates, corporate is probably not going to change unless people aren't using them or people aren't working there. Favor did indeed pay more on guaranteed rates a couple of years ago when less people were employed there. These tech industry "garage startups" are generally about some sort of cheapass exploitation. They don't have to follow any kind of federal laws so aren't under the same pressure. The more people use them, the bigger they get, the more they get to call the shots. People SHOULD NEVER work at Favor or Postmates if they are trying to support a family, especially if you are using the only vehicle available to your family. There are just a lot of similar jobs where you use your car that pay more, like the plethora of other delivery services and hotshot drivers in the city, all of which don't rely on tips. They are just usually full time and not flexible and not anywhere as easy since you don't just handle one order at a time or sit around and wait. As I've explained here multiple times, tipping over can make just as much impact as not tipping at all because of the unfavorable math involved. The way for this job to pay well is to raise the guarantee much higher and then get rid of tips. Don't feel bad you just gave a Favor driver 15%, that is fine. It communicates that you don't hate them, and that's about it.

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You have definitely made your point clear, and it is not so much that I don't understand but simply that I disagree. My message, clearly laid out in the title of this thread, doesn't change.  I think others can read what we have already said along with other sources and experiences and decide for themselves at this point. 

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One is that anyone paid less than minimum wage because of tips could leave and get a better job easily anytime. This, I believe, is categorically false.

 

To be completely frank, this isn't even an opinion. It's an actual fact for a significant number of citizens of the United States. I'm honestly flabbergasted that this is even up for debate.

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