Observations from a Tipless Restaurant - <AUTHOR> http://jayporter.com/dispatches/observations-from-a-tipless-restaurant-part-2-money-and-the-law/ <comment><USER2> Having lived in Japan for the past few years, I'm so over the tipping culture it's pretty hard to stomach when I go back to the States. Besides the issues it causes for employers that this article covers, I really dislike the power dynamics that it causes for the customers: but maybe not in the way you would think.

While the customer may be financially powerful in the relationship, I feel that tipping culture gives power to the server to _withhold good service_ as a punishment or as an optimization strategy at their own discretion. It causes a server to judge you as soon as you walk through the door... will this person give a good tip? Should I ignore them and focus on this other table?

The worst part is that the tip happens at the end of the meal after all of the 'costs' of providing good service are already done. If the patron stiffs the server, then the effort was 'wasted.' It's far better to make an educated guess based on… what? the way they dress? their grammar? the car they pulled in with?

It's a terrible system.

<comment><USER3> As an American living in Europe for the last year, I have drawn the exact opposite conclusion about tipping culture. Many of the restaurants I have been to (in France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Holland, Belgium) have, by American standards, horrible service. The waitstaff is inattentive or rude. You have to call waiters over constantly to give them your order, ask for another drink, or get the bill.

I think that part of this stems from different cultural opinions on service (i.e. it's rude to bring the check preemptively), but some of it is just lack of incentive, I think. What incentive does a waitress have to give you good service if she's making a standard wage and no tips? Especially if the waitress has increased job protection in certain countries (it's harder for an employer to fire people in France than in the US).

<comment><USER4> >As an American living in Europe for the last year, I have drawn the exact opposite conclusion about tipping culture.

As a Brit when in America I find it awful how the waitress will pretend to be friendly. If we're just a group of guys or whatever I don't want you to be pretended to be interested in who we are, what we do. Putting a hand on my back isn't going to make me prefer the food I'm here for. If I wanted someone to pretend to be my friend, I'd be in a titty bar.

I think there is a good middle ground, in the UK tips are expected to be about 12.5% max. All staff share them, and front of house aren't so transparent in trying to get a bigger tip from you. People appear to take pride in what they do, rather than just being mercenary.

<comment><USER5> Is there a tipping culture in the UK? I always thought that the mandatory service charge in some restaurants (especially when one has a big party) made up for it. Now I feel slightly guilty.

<comment><USER6> 10-12.5%, but not if there's a mandatory service charge. Restaurants, cab drivers, barbers etc, but not in pubs (if you're mates with the landlord, offer them a drink on you sometimes...)

<comment><USER7> What does landlord mean in the UK?

<comment><USER8> Owner of the establishment (though, often the patron, manager, or person who runs the place).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Back when I lived in San Diego I took my parents to the Linkery. The service was so bad it actually reversed my opinions against tipping. The servers clearly didn't care much about making us happy, messing up almost every aspect of the order. They put meat in my food - I'm vegetarian. My father got his food 20 minutes after my mother and I did. The waiter forgot one of my drinks. We called over the manager who offered us a free dessert to make up for it. Guess what? The dessert was on the bill. I'm always happy to tip 20+% for good service, but being _forced_ (yes, we asked) to pay the service charge added insult to injury.

This is just one data point, but the Linkery was infamous around San Diego for having much worse service than other places in a similar price range. I'm convinced their experiment with tipping was correlated with this.

<comment><USER10> In that case you can pay on credit card and challenge the charge. Slightly unethical, yes. But no less so than what they did.

<comment><USER11> Is providing poor service _unethical_?

<comment><USER12> Offering a free dessert and then charging for it is outright fraud.

<comment><USER13> Or a mistake.

<comment><USER12> There comes a point where that is no longer a viable excuse. When the manager gets involved to rescue a situation after multiple screwups, you're way beyond that point.

<comment><USER14> I disagree. Charging a single person for a dessert that they were served never amounts to "outright fraud" as you think it is.

It can be a simple mistake, a boneheaded mistake, a major mistake or a colossally stupid mistake. But unless free desserts are promised systematically to a percentage of customers which are then billed for it, it's not "outright fraud".

<comment><USER10> It moves from mistake to fraud after the bill is argued over.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is an odd title. The article gives an interesting explanation for why, theoretically, a restaurant would choose to go with a service charge rather than a tip-based system, but doesn't contain many observations from the now- tipless restaurant.

The whole idea of mandatory "service charges," or "fees," in any business, is kind of bizarre. It seems strange that we've accepted that certain types of businesses (airlines, hotels, ticket brokers, in some cases restaurants) should list prices that differ significantly from the actual price charged. There does seem to be some backlash against this practice: Kayak, Hipmunk, and many other travel sites now list the full price of airline tickets (though, often, not hotel rooms, with their "facility charges," whatever those are). And today I noticed that StubHub now shows prices inclusive of all fees. I understand _why_ a business would like to list prices that are 30% lower than what the customer actually pays, but it seems a little odd that we're all OK with it.

<comment><USER16> Relevant to note that almost no American businesses include sales tax in their listed prices either. (Though it's required in some countries [at least in some circumstances].)

<comment><USER17> Yes as an European I find it really odd how Americans get to put up with consumer abuse, just because "this is the way things work".

And this is the country where supposedly everything is done in the name of consumer.

And listing taxless prices and hiding the cost of service from me by expecting me to tip waiters.

This is also the reason why I find this article distasteful. So if you are really that sure about your position, why the hell don't you raise your prices 20% or even 30% for that matter. And when people ask you why are you so expensive, you can tell them that you pay your people fairly.

<comment><USER18> The reason why prices are almost always listed as taxless is complicated. Sales tax in the US is weird, and varies a lot by product and jurisdiction. We have no national sales tax, but each state can levy a sales tax, also each county and each city can tack on their own tax to that. In New York City for example, there is a additional small sales tax that is a fraction of a percent that goes to the MTA. Each percent of the sales price can go to 2-3 or more different places. As a result a product can be taxed differently down the street. Each item is taxed differently, food isn't usually taxed, unless it is restaurant food. Clothes are in some places are aren't in some places. Sometimes clothes are only taxed if they cost more than a certain amount. Tax laws can change at any time, so it is easier to program a register than to reprice the entire store if tax laws change. Our sales tax went up recently.

<comment><USER17> That is not a reason, that is an excuse.

Here in Europe local community also gets their own share in taxes. They are merely levied in a manner that does not obscure the sale price.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I live in Denmark. Here tipping is almost not even heard of. Maybe our food just costs a little bit more, I don't know - because it doesn't say "\+ 10% tipping fee" or something anywhere. Here you just pay the prices noted next to the food and drinks that you order.

And the kicker, the service is always good. Because if the server isn't nice, they'll probably get fired. Because guess what, serving food and being polite about it is their job. That is what they're getting payed for. So demanding extra money to do their job with a smile just seems too weird for me.

<comment><USER14> _So demanding extra money to do their job with a smile just seems too weird for me._

It's funny how famous Americans are for disrespecting other cultures while Europeans feel free to call anything American that differs from their own cultures "weird" or worse.

There's plenty of things about Denmark that I find "weird" but I was raised not to insult other people's culture so I won't call them out.

<comment><USER20> Waiting tables is the extremely faint end of a spectrum that reaches to prostitution at the far end. Why pay someone to bring you food, if you aren't ill? Because you want to be made to feel good. More feelgoods, more money.

<comment><USER21> >> Why pay someone to bring you food, if you aren't ill? Because you want to be made to feel good. More feelgoods, more money.

I'm not paying someone to bring me food, that's not the part of the experience I'm there for. I'm there for someone to cook me food. That the wait staff are there at all is a convenience, but they're sure as hell not the main attraction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I saw an interview recently with David Chang [1] who implied that part of the thinking behind the design of his 12-seat, 2-Michelin star restaurant Ko was an experiment in ways to improve the wages of his employees. Because KO is so small and the kitchen bellies up to the diners, the cooks are also servers and can legally make tips.

[1] - [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Chang](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Chang)

[Edit - Whoops. As a San Diego resident, I feel bad for neglecting to mention that The Linkery was awesome and like lots of folks here I'm sorry to see it go.]

</comment><comment><USER23> I thought part 1 ([http://jayporter.com/dispatches/observations-from-a- tipless-...](http://jayporter.com/dispatches/observations-from-a-tipless- restaurant-part-1-overview/)) was particularly insightful:

"A certain small number of very vocal men (and it was always men) resented that we were not letting [them] try to exercise additional control over our team members. This was true even though compelling research has shown that servers do not adjust quality of service as a result of tips; instead the idea that the restaurant was not offering our servers up as objects of control, was heresy. For these people, the primary service they wanted from the restaurant was the opportunity to pay for favors from the server..."

<comment><USER24> dont really agree with his analysis.

I think the vocal group probably felt if i have to explicitly pay a separate line item for service then I want explicit control of that... the whole 'primary service is control' angle feels to me like newspeak

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> If there is a flat 18% service charge, why not just add 18% to the base prices and get rid of the service charge? Or does a restaurant have to 'hide' these costs as an added percentage in order to make their prices seem reasonable?

<comment><USER26> _Or does a restaurant have to 'hide' these costs as an added percentage in order to make their prices seem reasonable?_

You hit the nail on the head here. Some places "hide" this charge better than others. I once had another patron at a place let me know that my check already included tip so I wouldn't double tip, as my check just had a total on it. It wasn't itemized at all. _That_ seemed pretty dishonest to me.

<comment><USER27> I have a friend who worked at a chain restaurant where they circled the total on the receipt with a black sharpie.

It was the standard practice of all the servers there to make sure the circle went through the item showing the included gratuity for parties of six or more.

Apparently, as a result, they'd get double tipped for large parties about 50% of the time.

<comment><USER20> I would love to see that story hit the local news or a racketeering suit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I've never understood why I need to pay the wages of restaurant employees directly, when just about every other business seems to figure out a way to fund employee wages by selling products or services.

<comment><USER29> Because real life isn't as consistent as engineers would like.

<comment><USER24> uhh... I think your missing the point

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I have had consistently worse service from restaurants that I know share tips. There is no reason for a server to do better than their coworkers which brings everyone down to a common denominator.

This is in Massachusetts that does have a tip credit and where servers rarely get paid the statutory minimum wage if it is a slow night (against the law but it happens). Just for reference, the server minimum wage is $2.63/hour. If you can't make enough in tips because its a slow night and one of your coworkers is bringing the tip average down, your incentive drops off dramatically as well.

For something like this to work nationwide, the tip credit has to go.

<comment><USER26> Do you routinely tell anyone in the restaurant about bad servers?

Maybe it's possible that it is a coincidence that restaurants with tip sharing have bad servers. Your feedback could be valuable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Coming from the UK, added service charges always annoy me (unless it's for large parties). A tip is something that I volunteer to express gratitude for a good experience. It is also something I can refuse if the experience is bad. Forcing a service charge assumes I will pay X% more than the price I have been shown regardless of experience.

However, that view is based on the UK system where minimum wage for the serving staff is enforced and where tip pools are allowed.

<comment><USER32> Also, in the UK it's nothing like the restaurant in the article. I have the rule of asking, if there is a service charge, who gets the money from it, and so far in 100% of the cases, the money goes to management, which is ridiculous.

<comment><USER33> By management, do you mean the managers, or the business?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> If you missed part 1, here's the first half of the story:

[http://jayporter.com/dispatches/observations-from-a- tipless-...](http://jayporter.com/dispatches/observations-from-a-tipless- restaurant-part-1-overview/)

</comment><comment><USER35> Tipping is fairly rare here in Italy, and the food is "pretty good" \- some might say excellent - even if there is a tragic lack of good Mexican food in this country.

<comment><USER36> Lack of mexican food (or anything properly spicy) was the worst part of being in Europe.

<comment><USER37> Have you considered trying Indian or Sichuan? At least in the UK, it's easy to find a vindaloo curry or some kung pao chicken, which are rather spicy.

<comment><USER36> I love Indian food, but I spent most of my time in Germany, where the spiciest thing to be found is the occasional sausage that accidentally brushed up against a pepper.

<comment><USER38> Having spent time in Bavaria, I know they really enjoy Kren, which is horseradish. Generally you can buy a plate of cold meats with grated Kren. It will set your eyes watering.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I like this quite a bit.

2 places have no tipping in New York City: \- Sushi Yasuda - considered by some the top sushi spot in the city. (Certainly one of the most expensive) \- The tap room at Whole Foods - let's just call it a little more lowbrow.

My budget hasn't encouraged me to visit Yasuda in several years, but I will say that I like not having to pay tips at the tap room. It certainly makes an inexpensive place seem even cheaper, and their service hasn't suffered for it at all.

<comment><USER40> Yasuda eliminated tipping following the custom in Japan, where there is no tipping anywhere and the service is arguably the best in the world.

<comment><USER41> Japan goes beyond that. In many 'tipless' cultures they will accept tips anyway. In Japan, they will give it back to you. I have heard stories of Japanese waiters running after customers as they leave, to return the tip.

<comment><USER42> Ha ha, this makes me laugh a little. The only time I've ever had any waiter chase me after I had left was at Decibel, a Japanese sake bar in the East Village (New York). My friend and I had ordered two small glasses of sake, totaling about $25. My friend, being new to the city, tipped the waiter in the customary bar fashion: $1 a drink, because the waiter did nothing except pour us our sake (and was slow in arriving) and never followed up except to take our bill. The waiter (who was most definitely of Japanese ethnicity) angrily demanded if we had a problem with his service, and if we didn't, why did we only tip him $2.

I don't know how closely this sake bar hews to any Japanese convention (my guess is that it's be the Japanese version of hipsterism), but it was an amusing episode that led me to never revisit that bar again, as much as I like the place.

<comment><USER39> Decibel is a quirky place by any stretch. I've never seen a bar where the workers sample so much of the product.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> It makes sense. Good servers are compliance professionals, whether you or they know it or not, and their pivotal role in the experience means that the good ones can make good money.

But I know that I've not gone back to restaurants precisely because I didn't like interacting with the staff, or I didn't like how they interacted with my guests.

And looking back, the most specific I could be about it was "well, the waiters were kind of intense." You know what I mean. They were professional, they did their job, but ... they were intense. And they didn't need to be; we're going to give them 20%, but they don't know that. So they're ... slightly intense, forward with their presence, so you won't dare undertip, instead of melting into the background and letting the food and ambience dominate.

In a restaurant like this guy posits, waiters aren't compliance professionals.

On the other hand, in a tipless restaurant, they aren't paid based on merit, so maybe they won't be as motivated to do a great job in the parts of their work that require concentration and diligence.

But they're doing a job that a robot should be doing as soon as possible, and a whether my server is good, great or okay isn't going to affect how my food tastes.

<comment><USER44> > Good servers are compliance professionals

I hate it when people use terms without defining them.

<comment><USER43> Sorry -- it's a reference from the book "Influence", which is a fascinating and, dare I say, influential tome. It doesn't mean anything more complicated than it reads as.

<comment><USER45> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influence:_Science_and_Practice](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influence:_Science_and_Practice)

      > Compliance professionals often play on this trait by
      > offering a small gift to potential customers.

      > Compliance professionals can exploit the desire to be
      > consistent by having someone make an initial, often
      > small, commitment.

      > This trait has led compliance professionals to provide
      > fake information on what others are doing.

...sounds like it's psycho-babble parlance for "sales people" or maybe a broader definition meant to include social roles such as actors, spokespersons, and celebrity endorsements.

<comment><USER43> The book is chock-full of fascinating, real research, much by the author.

It's a classic.

It's not psycho-babble or, as another comment thought, a "business self-help guru" book.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> English pub food is paid for at the bar with your drinks, that you yourself walk away carrying. They often give you a number on a wooden spoon and if you hate the food, you just don't go there again.

<comment><USER47> "and if you hate the food, you just don't go there again"

If?

With love, Frenchie

disclaimer: not French, but having spent time in both countries it's clear that tipping is nowhere near as prevalent as in the States where 20% is pretty common.

<comment><USER48> In pubs in England it's traditional to tip by offering to buy the staff member a drink. They'll charge you for a nominal drink - often saying that they'll save it for later/when their shift ends as the explanation for why they're not pouring themselves a drink right then, and the money goes into the tip pool.

For more on Pub culture see the fascinating "Passport to the Pub: A guide to British pub etiquette" \- [http://www.sirc.org/publik/pub.html](http://www.sirc.org/publik/pub.html)

<comment><USER49> hmm, I've never done/seen/heard of that and I've lived in London my entire life. Is it common in other parts of England? Or am I just a stingy bastard?

<comment><USER50> Even in America, part of polite bar culture is buying an especially good bartender a shot or a drink. It also makes you a quick friend who might conveniently forget a couple drinks on your bill :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Isn't the real problem that the industry has driven itself into a corner by charging unrealistically low prices and giving consumers a distorted view of how much restaurant experiences should cost? A well managed restaurant should be able to pay its staff a decent wage and turn a profit based on the prices it charges for its dishes, end of story. If a 20% tip is basically mandatory in the USA why don't all restaurants unilaterally up their prices 20%. And then that would allow the odd generous guests to tip/overpay in the somewhat rare scenarios where the establishment has genuinely excelled. Sounds like you got yourselves into a right old mess.

<comment><USER52> I have both run and worked in food & beverage businesses and that is exactly the problem. Even here in Austria where service personnel usually gets paid much fairer wages there is still the problem of simply not being able to pay them those really fair wages because perception of prices by customers is broken. The reasons for that are similarly complex to why no iOS dev I know could likely make a living from selling apps on the Apple app store.

E.g. one woman/man food cart or bar owners who offer services for dumping prices don't know and/or value how much their time and energy is actually worth or simply feel the need to take the risks to get a competitive edge.

It's a true race to the bottom. In 2013 actually very, very few individuals and companies are still generating _profits_ (thinking about Amazon, Salesforce.com, etc).

So profits are drying up for most of us, it's a shame really that a lot of capitalism critical thinkers seem to have been right all along.

How can we get to a more even distribution of authentic wealth without throwing out the benefits of capitalism?

Realizing how far I've digressed already, this interview is very relevant IMHO if we talk about our own industry and the fairy tales in connection with it: [http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3488-i-talk-to-jason- calacani...](http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3488-i-talk-to-jason-calacanis- about-groupon)

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> In his scenario the servers make $22, the cooks $14. Is that typical? There does not seem to be much incentive for a long time occupation as a cook.

<comment><USER36> I was also shocked by this. Surely your servers aren't worth almost twice what your cooks are! And with the "no-tips" model , I don't understand why pay wasn't more even.

<comment><USER50> It sounds reasonable in a racist society. The cooks are probably immigrants, possibly illegal, and can be paid low wages to perform a rote task. The servers have to smile and be nice and handle customer complaints, and will determine whether people come back more than the food. (Just look at Yelp reviews... people don't care about the food, they care about the service)

<comment><USER54> Let's not play that game. As a former cook, I can tell that yes, there are lots of immigrants. Most of them work unbelievably hard, and really, really depend on these jobs to survive.

There are also a _lot_ of addicts, psychopaths, morons and other assorted human detritus, of ever conceivable hue competing for these jobs, which also depresses wages.

Furthermore, restaurants don't have any damn money. Restaurants are on razor thin margins always. Usually a bad week or two from going under.

Qualifications for working in the kitchen consist of:

1\. will you work for very little money? 2\. can you work ok when you're high and/or drunk? For fancy places: 3\. can you safely handle a knife? 4\. will you toil endlessly for no apparent reason?

That's pretty much it.

<comment><USER50> Yeah, what is it with drunks and addicts going hand in hand with cooks? All the chefs i've known would down a bottle of vodka a day, if not more. The Betty Ford Center would probably get 3 Michelin stars.

<comment><USER55> There's hardly any other place that will hire a known drunk, addict or felon. Even garbage men and roughnecks get random drug tests these days.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> For just some interesting historical context, around the turn of the last century, new middle class in America were very against tipping in restaurants, viewing it as un-democratic and un-American.

> Anti-tipping advocates often championed an egalitarian vision of capitalist > consumption in which both consumer and employee would benefit. Tipping, they > maintained, undermined the dignity and independence of citizens in a > democracy. "Let us not congratulate the servants on their gain," one writer > admonished, "for no servant takes a tip without losing something of manhood > or womanhood." Another argued that to accept a tip "is to enter into a > relationship of dependence to the giver and by implication to acknowledge > his superiority." Frank Crane, a syndicated columnist, contended that the > tip put waiters "into a class with the beggar, or the receiver of a bribe." > And Alvin Harlow, a historian popular at the time, wrote: "What, may I ask, > is more un-American than tipping? It doesn't belong in American society; it > doesn't belong in a democracy. It is a product of lands where for centuries > there has been a servile class." > [http://www.tufts.edu/alumni/magazine/summer2012/features/tip...](http://www.tufts.edu/alumni/magazine/summer2012/features/tipping- > point.html)

</comment><comment><USER57> "So, the two servers make a total of about $26/hour each, while everyone else in the restaurant is stuck at $8/hour."

My first jobs were as a busser, dishwasher, prep cook and line cook.

As a customer, I hate tipping! Tipping is an absurdly unfair practice. I never tip over 15%, usually 10% and sometimes nothing at all. Waiter/waitresses are overpaid for what they do.

If the food is good, tip the kitchen, not the person who brought it to the table.

</comment><comment><USER58> I never really understood the point of tips instead of just charging everyone the service charge. If it is some kind of feedback mechanism to the server for doing a good job, then why can't the restaurant just implement reviews?

<comment><USER59> Or sack staff who don't perform well, as happens in every other job.

<comment><USER58> Are tips customary in European countries and elsewhere outside the USA?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> I never understood why servers need an extra incentive to do their job well. It's their job - shouldn't they have some sort of entitlement to do perform well, even without the extra cash? There are so many other professions in the service industry, where the tip culture is nonexistent, yet there never seems to be an outstanding issue.

The cashiers at Safeway, McDonald's drive-thru, flight attendants, and anyone in the workforce for that matter, don't whine about tips. They do their job, and they get paid for what their services are worth from their employers.

I'm not opposing giving tips if you received amazing service and you truly feel like giving one. I just hate the fact that the 18% tip is almost taken for granted nowadays, and you become the cheap one if you tip less. The tip system, if at all it should exist, should work so that the extra money customers pay actually reflect the service they received - not be socially forced down their throats.

<comment><USER60> If restaurants really wanted to insure prompt service, install bells at each table that would silently notify the staff members when a customer presses it. This is how it's done in Korea, and in every airplane, and it works perfectly.

No need for waving and trying to make eye contact on that part, and no need for servers to constantly interrupt your conversation. Not to mention this is also more convenient for the servers as they can monitor a single screen rather than the entire room.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> I've eaten at this restaurant several times, and I should say the service was always excellent, contrary to what you might expect when the service charge is fixed.

<comment><USER62> I suspect that skillful, attentive management (such as the author's) makes tipping unnecessary to ensure quality service, but also that tipping is one way to compensate for the lack of such management.

<comment><USER24> naw not really... i mean bottomline, if you pay someone more to do a good job they are more likely to do a good job

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> It should be noted that the restaurant now charges a mandatory "service charge" in lieu of accepting tips. I put service charge in quotes, because in some jurisdictions[0], there is a legal distinction between a "service charge/fee" and "auto gratuity". If a restaurant automatically charges you gratuity (many do this for tables of 6 or more), you don't legally have to pay it. You _do_ have to pay anything labelled as a "fee" or "charge" though.

[0] I have some knowledge of this in the mid Atlantic states, but the author is speaking about the West. Maybe it is different over there, maybe it isn't.

</comment><comment><USER63> Fixed service charge is very common all around Europe.

<comment><USER16> Is it common to refuse an additional tip if offered? In my limited experience, only once has an additional small tip (such as rounding up 18.50 to 20.00 EUR) been refused.

<comment><USER64> The first time I hear someone refuse a tip.

While in Europe service is included in food prices, it's rare for a tip to be refused, specially when "rounding".

<comment><USER16> I found it rather strange as well, but it was a pretty strange circumstance: Small restaurant, late at night, simple food, owner was just hanging out with a friend playing darts for most of the night, so probably didn't care much one way or another whether I was there eating. On top of that, it was clear I was an American and therefore might have thought tipping was effectively mandatory as in the states.

Still, it was strange. Just making sure it wasn't some larger pattern that I was unaware of and that the author's refusal to accept tips at all was truly unique, or at least atypical.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> Apparently this model didn't work so well, since they are now closed? [http://thelinkery.com/blog/](http://thelinkery.com/blog/)

<comment><USER66> Not sure why it didn't work out exactly. If you/we want to find out apparently we'll have to follow his blog. I do know that the same people who owned another restaurant here in SD closed another of their restaurants (El Take it Easy) where they did have tipping. I'm guessing they might have found the changing food market in San Diego hard to bear. Everyone and their brother has a 'Farm to Table' restaurant now, so unless you are something very special I imagine competition will be very, very strong.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> > _Our servers' total pay rose to about $22 /hour, most of the cooks started > making about $12-14 depending on experience, and the diswashers about $10._

Can someone explain to me exactly why servers make 2x that of cooks? I certainly appreciate service, but I go to a restaurant to _eat_ after all.

On a technical level, I also appreciate the skill (and occupational hazards) involved in cooking, perhaps more so than the interpersonal skills displayed by servers.

<comment><USER55> Being a line cook in most restaurants is very repetitive and doesn't require much skill. You basically just enter a zen state and become a sort of robot for whatever kitchen station you are manning. That said, the restaurants where being a cook requires more skill do not usually pay a better wage, which is unfortunate.

<comment><USER68> Being a server is also very repetitive and doesn't require much skill (sorry if that insults any servers, but I don't see how server is a more skilled job than a cook)

<comment><USER55> It involves a bit more, you have to take orders, keep tabs on the dining room, run around balancing a bunch of stuff, interact with people, smile at patrons and smile at the sous chef who calls you a whore or a queer every time you pick up. In contrast, being a cook in most kitchens is like being an assembly line worker. The "grill cook" literally just stands over a grill flipping stuff. You don't have to ever speak to anyone or even need to know english. (I was a grill cook in a busy restaurant once)

I'm not saying being a server is worth 2x as much as a cook but I can see how they could get paid more. In the same vein a bartender makes hella ducats more than either a server or a cook and most of the time they are just serving beer or vodka & cranberry drinks.

<comment><USER67> > _In the same vein a bartender makes hella ducats more than either a server > or a cook and most of the time they are just serving beer or vodka & > cranberry drinks._

I literally don't understand why opening a beer warrants a (basically mandatory) $1 dollar tip. I've come to viewing it as essentially a bribe for future service, which has caused it to leave a bad taste in my mouth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm an Aussie living in Phoenix. I try not to get too opinionated about whether a tipping culture is better or worse.

I see comments here from Americans who say that when they eat out in other countries they're amazed at the poor service and figure this must be because of no tipping. Back home in Australia if a restaurant doesn't deliver good service they'll go broke. So most places I ever ate at back home had (what I would call) good to great service. This isn't to say I didn't receive some very rare bad service.

Here in the US I've had about a similar experience. Mostly good to great service, and some rare bad service.

The one big difference I've noticed is that here in the US (and I believe this is because of the tipping culture) I've had to "suffer" through "overly attentive" service. When the server constantly asks if everything is satisfactory, constantly topping up / refilling drinks and (I gather) thinking that they're giving us excellent service....... But in reality they're just infringing on our enjoyment of a night out.

</comment><comment><USER24> the tipping phenomenon only occurs because the resturant industry gamed the system to legally pay their wait staff below minimum wage. So now I got to tip the wait staff because you can legally pay them 4 bucks an hour? OK... Ohhh and tip pools are illegal most places because why?, ohh yeah because management consistently takes the wait staffs tips and takes a cut or redistributes as they see fit to incentivize their business. so thats why its illegal many places, so instead they call it a service charge to get around the law AND take a cut or redistributes as management sees fit to incentivize their business...

the whole reason for tipping is because management can pay the wait staff less than minimum wage, cooks dont get tips because cooks cant legally be paid lowball rates, so why is it good that this guy is STILL paying his wait staff under minimum wage and then not allowing them to be tipped so he can incentivize his other staff?

Why dont you just charge me for the food however much it takes to make your business stay profitable and not force the customer to worry about the details?

<comment><USER69> Did you read the article? The writer states that waiters made 22$/hour, cooks 12 to 14, and dishwashers got about 10 when he brought in the system, all of which was higher than their base pay before. Do you have proof that does numbers went below minimum wage?

<comment><USER24> \-- 'So, the two servers make a total of about $26/hour each, while everyone else in the restaurant is stuck at $8/hour.'

the waiters would have made 26 dollars an hour under a tipping scheme instead they make 22 dollars an hour under his scheme...

thats really all he is doing here, taking tip money from the waiters and dividing it among the employees as he decides too... and thats fine EXCEPT why doesnt he just put the menu prices up by whatever % he needs to and then run his business how he sees fit? RIGHT because then he cant advertise those low prices (on his menu). Why is that legal? ohh yeah because america has a tipping culture for dining, and why is that? because wait staff is explicitly exempt from wage laws to a large extent

i read the article, thought about it, looked at the numbers and applied critical thinking, and came to the conclusion that this scheme benefits management of the resturant more than anyone else

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> On a side note, if you have a waiter or waitress that you particularly like and want to provide a tip that will not necessarily go into the tip pool, just leave a cash tip. This gives the waiter the ability to choose how much of the tip they report at the end of their shift.

Conversly, leave a tip on a credit card bill if you want to ensure that the entire tip is subject to any tip pool.

<comment><USER71> I usually tip by credit card to ensure it's reported to the IRS - serving is an industry that needs to stop thinking of itself as above income tax law.

<comment><USER72> I do the opposite and always leave tips in cash but not just to give a bonus to the server (if they don't declare/share it).

It also makes it so that my receipts, credit charge email alerts, and monthly bill all reconcile. Otherwise you can have a transcription error when the server or restaurant owner misreads (or mistypes) the manually written tip line of your receipt.

<comment><USER73> >It also makes it so that my receipts, credit charge email alerts, and monthly bill all reconcile. Otherwise you can have a transcription error when the server or restaurant owner misreads (or mistypes) the manually written tip line of your receipt.

To make sure it reconciles correctly, make sure you fill out the Total line legibly/correctly, not the tip line. That's generally what systems have you input at cash out, and they calculate the tip amount from that difference. The vast majority of mistypes/misreads stem from the Total field being left blank and the manager does the math on the fly, or the customer didn't do the math right when they wrote in the Total (so they end up tipping $4.50 instead of $3.50, or $1.50 instead of $2.50)[1].

[1]Restaurant manager for two years.

<comment><USER72> I do that as well. It's a belt and suspenders approach.

Also, by leaving cash there's never any math involved either as the pre-tip total is the final total.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> While interesting I really don't like articles that are setup with entirely hypothetical scenarios which are constrained in such a way to make the entire premise seem more valid.

>if one job gets a $2/hour raise, that most likely means that another job will have its wage reduced by $2/hour.

This statement right here sets up half of this posts argument here and isn't realistic at all.

<comment><USER48> As the article mentions, the margins on the restaurant business are slim enough that the wage pool is effectively fixed - it's not a hypothetical scenario, it's a practical constraint.

<comment><USER74> Wages/margins/costs/expenses are far more elastic than the zero sum game the author presents.

If you need to pay somebody $2 more an hour the money can come from more places. Increase a drink price, decrease tomato quality, steam clean every 3 weeks instead of 2, wash the bathroom yourself instead of hiring, call the newspaper and ask for a reduced rate, etc etc etc.

<comment><USER75> _If you need to pay somebody $2 more an hour the money can come from more places. Increase a drink price, decrease tomato quality, steam clean every 3 weeks instead of 2, wash the bathroom yourself instead of hiring, call the newspaper and ask for a reduced rate, etc etc etc._

Of course, you are also assuming that decisions like these (aside from the newspaper one) don't affect the revenue of the restaurant in the long run.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> Seems like there are a lot of comments about whether or not tipping promotes good or bad behavior from the servers. Seems pretty divided to me, opinion wise.

I think that's part of what the article was saying. Regardless of whether or not the server behavior was good or bad, the tipping culture created complex and unnecessary social dynamics that were difficult to control in a predictable, effective manner.

My take away is that tipping was an inelegant, overly complex solution, and that simplifying it made the social context much easier to deal with, so that the owner could produce consistent, high quality results.

After that point, I'd say that servers or employees that are good or bad become the same issue you have with any other customer facing job. You address it through culture, disciplinary action, ranking, scheduling, perks, reviews, wage increases, or any number of other methods (I'm not endorsing any of those specifically). The incentive structure becomes a job more or less just another retail job.

</comment><comment><USER77> Why not just up the prices and the wages instead of the sneaky service charge? Is that too honest in the restaurant business?

</comment><comment><USER78> The blog post makes reference to a 9th Circuit case, Cumbie v Woody Woo[1] and the Department of Labor policy purporting to overrule it.[2] The latter is full of incredibly weak legal reasoning. It's so bad, I forced to wonder if John Yoo[3] has taken a job with the Department of Labor. I'd go so far as to say that a lawsuit filed on the basis outlined in the memo would be frivolous and sanctionable.

[1] [http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2010/02/23/08...](http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2010/02/23/08-35718.pdf)

[2] [http://www.dol.gov/whd/FieldBulletins/fab2012_2.htm](http://www.dol.gov/whd/FieldBulletins/fab2012_2.htm)

[3] The author of the infamous torture memos, that argued that it isn't torture unless it's as painful as losing a major organ.

</comment><comment><USER79> >This time, I wasn't excited; I was terrified. If I didn't learn to code, we were done. I would have to crawl back into the world of finance.

I wonder if this is a dying breed? I think this is an interesting juxtaposition to the kid graduating HS who goes on to:

      1. Dual major in business and C-S when they do their undergrad
      2. Intern at big corps while in school (make $15-20/hr and have no debt)
      3. Work at a startup or two for 2-3 years after graduating
      4. Start their own startup.

I run into more and more kids with the above game plan and it seems so much more solid to me. I realize folks who already have careers can't do the above, but as the number of young people who have done the above increases I wonder how it will change the game.

<comment><USER80> You're in the wrong story. You want this one: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6127246](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6127246)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Notice that amongst all the discussion of money and wages, one thing that is completely avoided is any thought of operating on a lower profit margin. All the hand-wringing about poorly paid staff, but never once any thought about taking less money for himself to aid their plight!

<comment><USER81> Did you read the top of the article? He opened with a section about how hard it is to actually reduce profit because many/most places don't have any! I agree that in many industries, this is an option, but I don't think most restaurant owners are rolling in cash.

<comment><USER25> He doesn't go into much detail about his quoted 4% margin. Is this the average including all unprofitable restaurants? If so, then they will drag down the average of all the others, and there's no point worrying about the wage structure of a restaurant that is doomed to go out of business as it is losing money.

If we sampled just the restaurants who were viable, profitable concerns, or simply those that had been around longer than (say) a year, you'd find that the average profit margin would be much higher.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER82> Only the last paragraph was about tipping, the rest about how silly legislation get silly effects.

</comment><comment><USER83> The rather excellent Fabarnak in Toronto doesn't accept tips.

Their 'tip jar' next to the register has a big sign that says something like "Fabarnak staff are paid a good wage. Any money left will be donated to the 519 [community centre]", which Fabarnak is housed in and is generally affiliated with. I think their is a similar message on the bottom of the menus if you choose to pay by card at your table.

The food is excellent, and the service is always pleasant. The lack of tips doesn't seem to be upsetting their staff.

[http://www.yelp.ca/biz/fabarnak-restaurant-and-catering- toro...](http://www.yelp.ca/biz/fabarnak-restaurant-and-catering-toronto)

</comment><comment><USER84> Does anyone know the reason as to why this is true:

"However, to give the tip money to every worker would be illegal. The law is historically very clear — the $220 in tips belongs to the two servers only, and cannot be distributed to any other employees." ?

<comment><USER85> I would assume to stop the restaurant owner/manager taking some (or all) of the tips.

<comment><USER84> I don't think that is valid reasoning. I would bet you are probably right, as that is "why", but I see no reason why an owner shouldn't be prevented from gathering up all the tips, and distributing them to the staff in any way they please (provided it is above the min wage).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Is there an inherent disconnect in being anti-tipping and pro-pay-what-you- will? How is a restaurant letting you pick your own price for service with the expectation that you will be fair different from a humble bundle letting you pick your own price with the expectation that you will be fair?

I'm not trying to be difficult or argumentative, I'm genuinely wondering. I'm pretty anti-tipping and pro-pay-what-you-will myself, and I'm just wondering if I'm fooling myself now.

</comment><comment><USER86> It sounds like profit sharing may also be a solution to the inequity of wages between the back-of-the-house and the servers.

It seems to me that if everyone in the restaurant (or perhaps just those in the kitchen) made a percentage of the profits of the restaurant, that productivity would increase all around and the sidebar between the kitchen and the servers wouldn't carry nearly as much weight.

Is profit sharing prevented by regulation?

</comment><comment><USER87> Freakonomics[1] did a show on tipping. There's a few different arguments against it presented, but I find the discrimination one particularly interesting.

      [1]: http://www.freakonomics.com/2013/06/03/should-tipping-be-banned-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast/

</comment><comment><USER88> I know I'm almost OT, but let's consider for a moment the topic of "tipping taxi drivers". I find it completely unfair to tip cab drivers, and yet, they give it for granted it all to time. The couple of times I tipped less then expected I had to meet angry reactions.

</comment><comment><USER89> Not to mention that there have been some studies showing that tipping is discriminatory.

[http://tippingresearch.com/uploads/customer_racial_discrimin...](http://tippingresearch.com/uploads/customer_racial_discrimination10-30-06.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER90> Slightly relevant scene from Reservoir dogs [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-qV9wVGb38](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-qV9wVGb38).

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The Linkery was in my neighborhood in San Diego. It was a great place, and really influential in revitalizing a culture of good food in that area of SD.

</comment><comment><USER91> I found this enjoyable enough to read that now I want to go to the restaurant. Too bad I don't live in SD.

</comment><comment><USER92> When a very rich guy tries to improve the situation of quite poor people, one should be very, very careful.

</comment><comment><USER93> Another thing after reading these comments, so many people practically worship waiters? Honestly, what? They're servants, they bring you food, they clean up messes, they're there to fix things when they go wrong, not spend their every moment trying to decide whether to shine your shoe or flip you off; It's like they're celebrities or athletes or something from the way some people talk about how they need tips or they'll start doing this or that thing to make your stay unpleasant. They have a job, if they don't do it well, they should lose it, they have a fixed income, if you don't want to pay it, you should know ahead of time what it's going to be and be able to decide whether to eat there or not, not judging after the meal.

<comment><USER57> In most establishments its the bussers that clean up the messes and many wait staff won't share tips.

</comment></comment><comment><USER93> I really like this article, he raises points I hadn't thought about. As someone who is American and works in a restaurant, I still think it's a terrible system. Waiters do not do more or better work than the rest of the staff, they are just like everyone else and the fact that they get paid double or triple their coworkers is insane. It's certainly not about their attitude, because people who get paid $8/hr behave just as well (or often do because it's their job and they don't want to lose it), and waiters are just as often rude and inattentive. It mystifies me really that restaurants in 2013 havn't been relegated to the same model every other business follows, just tell me the price and be done with it; tipping is a terrible system.

<comment><USER54> Hear hear. When I was cooking (at a fancy place) years ago, the waitstaff used to walk home with $500 in (unlikely to be declared) cash after a 4 hour shift on a good night. I walked home with $90, for my 11 hours of humping shit, and paid taxes on every penny. cooking sucks. hard. still miss it though.</comment></comment>


Why Some Men Pretend to Work 80-Hour Weeks - <AUTHOR> https://hbr.org/2015/04/why-some-men-pretend-to-work-80-hour-weeks <comment><USER2> My first reaction when reading the title of this article was to think of a variation of the punchline for an old _macho_ joke: "because other men pretend to care".

In my experience, and granted I haven't worked in the US, the number of hours you spend in the office is always expected to be in line with what your manager has committed to paying you for.

In countries like Germany or Holland, if you consistently stay over-time in the office you might be surprised to find that you will be called upon justifying your behavior since the local belief is that you are either incompetent and can't finish the work assigned to you in your normal work schedule, which will cost the company money to train you or hire a replacement, or your manager is incompetent because he over-assigned your time and it will cost the company money when you finally burnout or start taking shortcuts in your work.

Other European countries have established rules that forbid employers contacting their employees (mail or phone) outside of business hours to avoid the pressure of having to do work on your personal time.

I don't want to start a "war" about US vs insert-European-country-here productivity but, honestly, do you know anyone who actually does measurable quality work for 16h straight in a consistent way?

<comment><USER3> US engineer here. Agreed on not wanting to start a "war". Allow me to share the rationale that my manager in a previous job shared with me.

This is not an exaggerated quote, it's taken from the notes I wrote immediately after the incident.

"engi_nerd, we at $MEDIUM_SIZED_AEROSPACE_COMPANY expect our engineers to work at least 15 to 20 hours of unpaid overtime each week. This is the minimum of what you need to do to demonstrate that you are ready for a promotion. During that extra time, we'll assign you duties that are beyond your normal job responsibilities. Carry those out well and you'll prove that you're ready for a promotion."

I swear I am not making this up. When I stated that I refused to do what he asked, the manager said, "Then you'll never have a chance to be promoted from what you're doing now." That very day I went home and began updating my resume; my final day at that job was less than 4 months later.

<comment><USER4> Good on you. I would refuse to work at any company that places such ridiculous standards on its employees. I'm surprised you even stayed for 4 months I would have been out of there much sooner.

<comment><USER3> It took that long to get to where I wanted to be -- I had to arrange to sell a house and move, etc. But the actual "find a new job" process took a single email to a key member of my professional network.

It pays to know good people.

<comment><USER4> That it does! Glad you're out of there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> None of this has anything to do with productivity or swindling clients, it's about control.

If you want to be at the table, you need to be in the cool kids club. If you want to be in the club, you need to sacrifice your identity to the club. Membership requires that you look, think and act like a member. In exchange for your sacrifice, you'll be financially rewarded, and usually become a member of a little fraternity that will be a tight social network as your career progresses.

It's all about what you want. In this case, you make a decision to become a management consultant to banks and Fortune 50 companies. In doing so, you're trading cub scouts for the prestige and rewards of working with those clients. You're not going to be super-dad, you're going to be the cartoon character dad who is never around and fucking around with your iPhone when you are. They tell you up front that they own you -- it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.

If you're in this situation "Take a pay cut" is a ridiculous approach. If you're in a business like that, you're a type-A predator type, and doing that will just marginalize you. "Be strategic in picking a career" is the advice you should follow.

<comment> saiya-jin Nicely written. Most of us are not in this league, and personally, I am so happy for that. Companies, and world probably too, needs some people like that. But it's a big fallacy to think everybody should be, act and work like that. This world already has enough unhappy people chasing careers that won't make them happy. What we need more of are balanced, happy and strong personalities (that can create stable and loving environment for their kids for example) to counter-balance these perceptions. One can be a great performer, not despite but exactly because he has a life apart from work. Seems to me like a failed management practices that hurt companies in long run.

Raising a happy well-functioning family is freaking hard, I would say it's by far the hardest task one could endeavor on. I have big respect for every man who achieves that. What one has in CV is marginal and really unimportant compared to that. But I am far from stating everybody should have this drive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I recently worked for a company that expected employees to stay well pass 5pm. I was personally working 13 or 14 hours a day and having to occasionally volunteer my time on weekends. My salary in comparison to hours worked went down significantly.

Anyway, I did what most of the men described in the article did. I learned how to work without working. It was easy to copy the kind of workaholic appearance expressed by many of my peers.

The strange thing was that most everyone was pretending. Everyone was just lying. It was like there was some secret unwritten rule that we should pretend instead of talking about the obvious elephant in the room. Which was that we were asked too much of us and that needed to change.

When I was first starting out (way before I took that job) I was told that the idea is to "manage perception" and that appears to be true of a few places.

<comment><USER7> > When I was first starting out (way before I took that job) I was told that > the idea is to "manage perception" and that appears to be true of a few > places.

I have been giving this advice to quite a few people lately, both inside and outside my company.

As a manager I feel that my team's productivity benefits more from "work hygiene" than from long hours, but we have a few team members who have come under scrutiny because of perceived short hours.

My advice to them is always, "I trust that you are doing your best as a part of the team. But remember, the teams perception is what matters. And when you leave at 3 it looks like you are slacking. No one knows you got here at 6 because they weren't here. So rather than changing your behavior, work on changing their perception."

<comment><USER8> So you spend 4h extra away from your family to look good to coworkers? That seems a symptom not a cure.

<comment><USER7> Agreed. Luckily I am 28 and don't have kids yet. Hopefully I will get to a point before I do have kids where I can be a little more free.

<comment><USER9> You could spend that 4 hours developing a side project. 4 hours a day is a LOT of time.

<comment><USER7> Often times that is what I am doing during my breaks. Resolving github issues or answering side project emails. So it really all does work out.

<comment><USER10> There is potentially a big legal difference between tinkering on your side projects at work, compared to carving out time for them at home. Unless you have a specific exemption in your contract, then your employer owns all your work that you do in the office or on their equipment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is what happens when the reward culture does not match reality. In school, every time you value grades over learning, you foster a classroom of _cheaters_.

The company is looking for _cheater_ types because:

1) they clearly can't cope with employees telling the truth, that is, there are priorities other than work.

2) they reward _looking busy_ over _being productive_.

<comment><USER12> It's a consulting shop. They want to give their clients the impression that they're always working, always available, and to bill the maximal hours possible. So it may be rational for the firm (at least in the short term) to encourage this cheater culture -- it's the clients they are cheating, not the firm.

<comment> loup-vaillant In this case, they should tell their consultants how to… "communicate" with the client. They want cheaters? Then cheating the client should be part of the contract.

Except, well… that might be illegal.

<comment><USER13> Exactly. Show, don't tell.

Telling people to cheat the client is illegal and unethical, but creating a culture where people behave in that way is only unethical.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> When I read this

> You know it's tough to say I can't be there because my son had a Cub Scout > meeting.

I felt a sharp disdain for the managers. Seriously, children growing up is a onetime thing.It's fucked up beyond reason that people accept this, and I'd gladly take a lower paying job so I can be there.

<comment><USER15> You have to wonder at the mentality of someone who wouldn't be there for their kid. I know you can't be there 100% of the time, but you've got to make some effort and stand up for yourself. Take a pay cut, do less hours.

I loved the book Red Mars in which children were quite uncommon, so whenever a child was about all the adults would pay them lots of attention. This included bosses.

<comment><USER16> I have twice taken pay cuts so that I could be there for my kids and have given up on businesses so I could be there for them. I have always been of the belief that nobody on their death bed ever says "I wish I had spent more time at work".

<comment><USER17> [http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/feb/01/top- five...](http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/feb/01/top-five-regrets- of-the-dying)

<comment><USER16> This certainly fits with my personal experience.

Now all I need to do is figure out how to live for a 1000 years so I can just do some of the things I still want to do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> "I studied a global strategy consulting firm with a strong U.S. presence"

That's the problem right there. These kind of consulting firms are the worst kind of soulless, dysfunctional, corporate sweatshops, preying on the ignorant management of other companies. They desperately try to compensate for the essential mediocrity of their expensive solutions with a veneer of marketing, overwork and crassly macho professionalism.

When a company is built on bullshit, and everyone knows it, even if they won't admit it, then the same falseness and bullshit eventually pervades every corner of the company, and produces the kind of poisonous atmosphere that makes them such a nightmare to work for.

<comment><USER19> A classic article about this: [http://tech.mit.edu/V130/N18/dubai.html](http://tech.mit.edu/V130/N18/dubai.html) "The story BCG offered me $16,000 not to tell"

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Back after I finished uni, a friend of mine with the same degree went to work in investment banking.

We lived together. Sort of. I basically had the whole house to myself outside of midnight - 0700. Some nights he'd check in with me as I was lying in bed about to sleep. Quite often we'd go a whole week without seeing each other, the only sign of life from him being that his door was closed when I went off to work. Weekends were precious, sometimes we could get a meal in together. His Blackberry would ring, but he could push some things aside to after the meal. The initial rush of getting a prestigious job was soon replaced by complaints about the insanity of the system: sit around from morning to evening doing nothing, wait for the MD to make some work that you can do before the next morning.

So one day his boss decides he's had enough of everything and ends it all. This was a guy of similar background to my friend, similar culture. Just 20 years down the line.

I think it caused my friend to have some thoughts about where he wanted to be, how he wanted to live. He's changed jobs now, much happier, married, got a kid.

<comment><USER21> This was the impression I got from friends who worked in that industry after college. They were definitely at work for 80 to 100 hours per week, but it seemed like a lot of that extra time was stuff like waiting around for someone else to finish something, eating dinner at the office, or just hanging out because a higher up hadn't left yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> So much of this is framed around working less to spend time with your kids -- which is perfectly admirable. But, how about working less to spend more time for yourself (personal hobbies, interests, etc) or more time with your spouse? These also seem like equally admirable and important reasons to not work 60-80 hours a week.

<comment><USER23> The focus on kids drives me nuts. I worked in a web dev shop that billed itself as "family friendly." Flexible hours, work from home, etc.

The reality was that the childless developers never got to use the flexible benefits. Your child has a soccer game? Is sick? Sure take the afternoon off, the childless devs will cover for you. We wouldn't want you to not be there for your child. Oh you want to take a two hour lunch to go out with your girlfriend. Too bad, so-and-so needs to pick their kid up from school so we need you to sit here and babysit the server while he's out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is why people need unions. Because while an individual can say "no" only at the expense of their career, the entire united workforce can force the boss to the negotiating table.

<comment><USER25> Exactly. In the U.S., we've _done_ this already, and then essentially undid it in the name of free enterprise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Summary: bosses promote based on butts in seats. By working remotely, with a mobile device , you can fool your boss into thinking you work 13-hr days by working only mornings and evenings.

<comment><USER27> Butts in seats they can see I think

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> _" We kind of have a shared agreement as to what work–life balance is on our team. We basically work really closely with each other to make sure that we can all do that. A lot of us have young kids, and we've designed it so we can do that."_

Quote from OA itself quoting a statement made by a member of a team that self- organised their work-life balance. Later in the quote the team member points out that their team is regarded as highly effective. Just wondering if a positive work-life balance might be correlated with that high performance! Perhaps the company is missing a trick there.

</comment><comment><USER29> > expectations that one be an "ideal worker"—fully devoted to and available > for the job, with no personal responsibilities or interests that interfere > with this commitment to work—are widespread

Wat? Is this a thing in the US? If so, I'm incredibly happy I live in Sweden.

> many men experienced these expectations as difficult to fulfill or even > distasteful.

No shit?

<comment><USER30> I'm an Australian who spent 6 months last year in Sweden. I definitely got the impression that companies needs came second to the needs of individuals. Here in Australia, it is much more balanced, depends on your circumstances. My American friends tell me the US is the other way, the company comes before the individual.

If you are in the driving seat for your career, I certainly feel that the USA provides more opportunity. However for the ~70% (random guess) of people who don't have the luxury of being selective with their jobs, the Swedish model looks extremely appealing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> An extreme example of this is South Korea. The basic idea in most medium/large companies being that underlings must be present whenever their bosses are, so people will turn up really early in the morning to greet the boss, and leave really late at night, often just waiting for the boss to go home.

Hierarchy is a very important cultural concept in SK, socially and professionally, and generally companies are far more layered than they would be in most western countries, resulting in lots of bosses. Because of this you have a trickle-down effect of "work more than the boss" hours, with people at the bottom working completely ridiculous hours.

This has two interesting consequences.

The first one I call "gold star sticker promotions", whereby people get promoted on a regular basis, often without a pay rise, sheerly for "working" more hours than the next guy. While the promotions often mean very little by themselves, they tend to result in slightly less work hours.

The second consequence is that people, as described in the article to some extent, actually end up doing very little work despite occupying a seat for so many hours. A friend of mine actually plays Diablo 3 while seating at his desk, and everybody's ok with that. In fact, he got promoted three times just last year. The point is not to get work done, it's simply to show that you're willing to give your soul to your employer.

<comment><USER32> What exactly happens if you just refuse to work more than forty hours a week? I mean, obviously you won't get promoted, but promotion at that price isn't worth having. Do you get fired? The reason I ask is that I've heard in countries like that it's very difficult to fire an employee, so I was wondering how those two aspects of work go together.

<comment><USER31> You would be made absolutely miserable, be assigned the most menial of tasks with ridiculous deadlines, tasks that are often largely made up and of no benefit to the company. Your boss might call your parents or your spouse and shame you, might even insult you to your face. If that doesn't make you fall in line and you finally decide to jump ship, you may be ridiculed publicly, potential employers will be contacted and told about your "work ethics", making it really hard to be employed again. You'll essentially be shunned for the foreseeable future, which in SK is generally not culturally acceptable. It's pretty harsh, but it's also important to note that this is not a culture based on individual interest.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> What struck me the most about the article was the employee who was denied a promotion because of his 6-weeks of unpaid FMLA leave. That's not only unethical it's also against the law (as is denying FMLA). I can understand the lure of the huge salary but having to work in such a toxic culture would never make it worth it to me.

</comment><comment><USER34> I can see what the author is saying, but... It's not necessarily about everyone working 80 hour weeks. It's about a corporate culture of 80 hour weeks. Cheating, if you get the job done, and maintain the image, doesn't discourage that culture. Acknowledging that some people are working 40 hours does.

80 hour weeks are important. It gives 40 hours for work, and 40 hours for personal growth. The former is a short cycle, and the latter is a long cycle.

1\. If you trim down the growth part, your employees won't be competitive in the long term. Growth compounds, and sometimes superlinearly. If you know more, you learn faster.

2\. This may be less relevant to management consulting, but if you trim down the work part, product part falls apart. I've seen organizations killed when work-life balance management stepped in. You go from 20 employees at 80 hours per week to 80 employees at 40 hours per week. Knowledge becomes much more distributed. Communication channels grow. Hiring standards slip.

In addition, if it's an 80 hour week, it becomes your life. It may sound like just 80 hours, but it dominates your life. You think about it in the shower. You dream about it. When you spend time with family, you're distracted with work and want to go work.

In practice, if I can get the same quantity of output from 20 employees as from 80 or a hundred at a higher level of quality, I can pay those employees at least five times as much. Many high-performance organizations try to make this trade-off.

But when society demands work life balance of employees with salaries starting at $300k and going into millions -- that falls flat.

Part of the obscene salaries go into making sure kids and families are healthy, even with a parent out of the house.

<comment><USER35> The premise that 80 hour work weeks are somehow more productive than 40 hour work weeks is known to be false in the typical case. It's not the hours which determine your productivity, it's the engagement and motivation. Most people who do 80 hour work weeks slack off during a majority of that time and probably realize lower productivity than if they had stuck to a 40 hour work week.

Making your workforce do 80 hours instead of 40 does not make them more productive. Motivating workers and putting them in control of their own work is what gets stuff done.

<comment><USER36> > The premise that 80 hour work weeks are somehow more productive than 40 hour > work weeks is known to be false in the typical case.

How do you know this for sure? Not saying you're wrong, but I can think of many exceptions to this rule.

<comment><USER37> An 80 hour work week implies 16 hours work during the workdays or 10 if you work weekends. If work takes 16/10 hours for your work, when do you sleep or eat or socialize?

<comment><USER38> Firstly, 80:00:00 / 7 = 11:25:43

~ As for those other things you mentioned, the remaining 88 hours in the week would allocated as follows: 56 hours for sleep, 10 hours for meals, 3 hours for personal hygiene, 2 hours for exercise, 16 hours for a personal side project, and 1 hour to socialize. ~

~ You'll have plenty of time for friends and relationships when you're dead. If you really cared about the company, you would abandon your personal side project and work 96 hour weeks. If you spent less time eating, you could also spend less time exercising. And some of your co-workers do get a bit ripe at times, so you're probably over-allocating time to hygiene. It takes me 3 minutes to shower, head to toe. That's how you get ahead in this business: effective time management. Also, I survive on a nutrient slurry that allows me to consume an entire day's worth of meals in only 30 seconds. And since I don't have time to actually buy anything, almost all my earnings go straight to savings! ~

The real answer is that you either sacrifice some sleep or you don't have any leisure time. That previous schedule breakdown intentionally ignores the time cost of transportation between activities, and little things like bathroom breaks.

Calculating from my own life, if I worked 80 hours per week, I would have approximately 4 hours of disposable leisure time left. That would only be possible if 95% of my weekly fun requirement was met by work. The likelihood of that happening in any workplace that expected 80 hour weeks is abysmally low.

<comment><USER39> If you are just 30min away from work, you can already remove 5 hours per week assuming you work from Monday to Friday. And that's an absolute minimum, you just cannot live normally and work 80 hours a week.

<comment><USER38> The schedule assumes that the employee sleeps at his or her desk.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> 1) Not so stealthy ageism. So someone your age should be out of the trenches and on his way up the management chain and we're not saying you're fired because you're 30 yrs old because that would be illegal but you are going to work 60 hr weeks or get fired for not working enough, and not being sustainable is not something we care about because our pyramid says up or out in a couple years, so if you insist on staying 20 unsustainable years its not our problem, you're only supposed to sustain it for 6 years not 20. And we don't care about the large fraction who are kicked out either. Aren't we just the most lovable human beings ever?

2) Management is expected to falsify / adjust metric reports and manage appearances in this number driven company from the lowest to the highest levels because we're crooks and we know it, and this is how we train the front line to groom them for mgmt, and the 1 in 20 who get promoted (the other 19 in 20 will be ageism fired) will rely on their experience pretending to work to pretend to produce great numbers.

3) We all know we're lying to the client and upper mgmt and maybe the .gov, and you'll keep quiet about that or we'll have to notice that you're only putting in 30 hours of "real" net positive productive work per week even if you're on paper butts in seat 75 hours per week. You're productively working 30 hours per week and you'll shut up about the other issues or you'll only earn credit for the 30 instead of being the 75 hour "hero" you currently are. Now shut up or we start auditing your internet access logs too.

4) I hate my wife and kids and being a provincial idiot of a manager with no empathy for other human beings (hey, someone has to be the failure, after all) I assume all others are the same as me because I'm great so why don't you hang out at work for 80 hrs per week just like me? If my whole family hates me the problem can't be me because I've got an ivy diploma so whats the problem with staying at work all night? I actually worked for a guy like that and this is a paraphrase of a couple conversations I had with him. A sad, sad dude.

</comment><comment><USER41> Sites with static header bars like this one need to die. Vertical space is a horrible thing to steal, given that most of the world are using 16:9 monitors.

Even worse when they're applied in on mobiles / responsive-design.

</comment><comment><USER42> This is just a technique for mostly pointless management structures to keep power over the technical workers who are actually providing value. Technical workers are paid well, but managers of technical workers are usually paid more, even though their role is frequently limited to telling the technical workers what to do (when in fact the technical workers are quite capable of figuring out what to do). A better manager acts as more of a facilitator of communication, but even then that puts them at best on even footing with the technical workers, which is not reflected in compensation. A manager of a technical team is a glorified secretary, and meritocratic compensation would reflect that by paying managers less than technical workers.

In order to keep this structure, companies create an environment of "this is just how we do it". The whole pretense of long hours is part of this. A few more examples are covered in Bob Black's _The Abolition of Work._

[http://www.inspiracy.com/black/abolition/abolitionofwork.htm...](http://www.inspiracy.com/black/abolition/abolitionofwork.html)

</comment><comment><USER43> In client-service industries, the hours are unavoidable. Your client doesn't want to talk to two people each doing half the work. At the same time, the artificial expectations are just self-abuse. When people hang out around the office when they don't have work to do, it really is money out of the company's pocket.

</comment><comment><USER44> Is it really people passing of as 80-Hour Workers, or is it that they just solve the tasks given to them without creating additional work for their bosses?

Are the successful guys fakes or are they doing something that we could learn to be more successful hourselves?

In any case I would be interested in more in depth stories of these successful guys to learn from them. Choosing the right tasks to work on, for example, seems to be a very important strategy. I would love so much to read more details about how to do that. And especially in this case, if I would be the boss, I would appreciate people with that skill more than people without that skill. Someone with that skill will be able to pick most of the low hanging fruits and might also be more able to solve the really necessary ugly tasks, because he cares about getting it done.

</comment><comment><USER45> Thankfully, I haven't see too much employer imposed long hours, but I have seen self imposed long hours. I read a different article about 6 months ago from a professor that I'd love to read over again. I can't seem to find it. The premise was that they worked extra hours because the regular hours were filled with "procedure" like meetings, time cards, and getting interrupted. It only left a little time each day for doing the interesting stuff; the reason they chose that profession.

I and others have talked about how much more productive we are when working early or late in the day and are compelled to stay late to finish something because it seems to take longer to pick it up and finish it the next day.

</comment><comment><USER46> Kind of surprised that no one has brought up the Gervais Principle.

It was even covered on this site a few years ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=881296](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=881296)

The guys who pretend are Losers, the true believers who don't are Clueless. As the subjects of the HBR article are consultant types, I'll bet many of the Clueless there think they are Sociopaths. Anyhow, my hat's off to the Losers who manage to score a solid paycheck without working/drinking themselves into an early grave.

</comment><comment><USER47> >At this firm, people believed that success indeed required ideal-worker-like devotion.

The word "success" seems like a misnomer here. Success is not possible under these conditions. Killing yourself for transient business projects designed and managed by others, for the adulation of peers whose only accomplishments in life are, similarly, killing themselves for transient business projects designed by others, is no success at all.

Perhaps the monetary compensation is decent. But what are you going to _do_ with that money?

</comment><comment><USER48> I love that the desire for developer talent is so great that many employers will bend over backwards to accommodate your desire for work-life balance.

</comment><comment><USER49> I pretend to work 40h week.

In fact, when I have - out of pure boredom - attempted to work, get something, whatever, done, the initiative was quickly destroyed by managers.

The illusion of work, pretending, we are all adults here playing on a theatre, must be maintained, and nobody is allowed to step out of line. When I look at it that way, that we are just adults but playing like when small children play that they are adults, so are we playing that we are working, then it all makes sense.

<comment><USER50> Hey kids - important lesson here. You don't realize how hard it will be to receive permission to do work at work. Of course, you will still be expected to look like you are working and to even put in overtime pretending to work.

My recommendation is to find things to do that look like work. If you are a programmer, learn new languages or develop your own projects. If you are expected to write, work on your own blog articles. If you sometimes work offsite or in different parts of the building, go sleep or read in your car (away from where you could get caught.) If you are writing or programming, nobody can tell over your shoulder if it is work related or not. Hell, your manager probably has no clue what you are supposed to be doing anyhow and is just pretending to do his job too. Help the guy out and give him the warm fuzzy feeling that you are working. Telling everyone you meet how much work you have to do and how hard you are working on it won't hurt either.

I know it sucks but you can't fix it. The ability to look like you are working while not losing your mind is a critical survival skill. The sooner you cultivate that skill the happier you will be.

<comment><USER49> I wish there was a way to fix this. Not easy.

One guess is, its just not in human nature, its not possible, to be productive 8h between X and Y hours of the day. Not for you, programmer, not for the manager either.

So we start learning how to pretend and eventually all we do is pretend. Thats just one of the reasons.

To fix the problem - an organization and contract which is not time or space based, you dont have to sit there in that open space, or be there between X and Y.

But then we woudl've been back to quite radical economy, quite radical model of society than we have now - where you dont sell your labor, where you would sell your produce. And thats problematic because we cant really measure or quantify "what programmer/manager produces". So we end up in this circus of pretending to know what that value is of programmer when in a cubicle on a timeclock, and pretending to care, and then come the backstabbing and office politics.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> People need to stop worrying so much about what their boss thinks of them. If you get fired, it's probably a sign you shouldn't be working there in the first place. If you don't get a promotion or raise, who cares? Your life won't get better if you make slightly more money.</comment>