This is the correct understanding. Management is pitting labor and the customers against each other with this system, for the purpose of screwing them both. The correct answer is to tip zero and leave a comment to the effect of "You need to pay your employees more, not pass that responsibility to me." Employees may not be thrilled with this but it will direct at least part of their ire toward management. Putting as much pressure on management from as many parties as possible is the only solution.
But the question is now: What is an appropriate amount?
Is it the amount that was appropriate for generations, i.e., in a full-service restaurant, 10% for mediocre service, 15% for excellent service, and 20% for truly outstanding service? Or is it the 20/25/30% scale, or the 20/30/40% scale I've seen at a lunch counter, where previous appropriate was nothing or if they had a tip jar, toss a couple bucks? It's an open question, and a screwed-up interaction either way.
Agree, but, if we have to acknowledge it while it is still the norm, how will the norm ever change states? The ongoing acknowledgement and practice of it will continue it perpetually.
How to break the cycle? Comments alone will not work. Put yourself in the chair of a sociopathic corp executive. From that seat, they're still getting maximum profits, still paying the employees the minimum, the suckers\\\customers still pay the outrageous tips so the employees aren't rebelling or quitting, and the comments are mere noise (if they are ever even read at that level).
As much as it sucks for the workers short term, it seems that the only way to effect change is to universally reject the bogus tipping 'culture' superimposed on us by the corporate overlords, which sucks for the workers. It has to suck so bad for the workers that they universally quit. Only then will the executives see any problem and the need to adjust their policies on pay, pricing, and tipping.
I don't like to make things suck for workers either, so if you see another way, please let us know!
Theoretically this may be true, but it's not how it will play out in practice. A few people will not tip in protest, the staff will think they're jerks (which they arguably are), and nothing will change.
If you're looking for an easy magic happy way to enact social change where everyone likes you at every step of the way, you'll be looking for a long time.
All you can really do is raise a stink and encourage others to do the same. Fortunately, it takes fewer complaints than you might think to get even a large business to pay attention.
If we don't want businesses to passive aggressively pass their labor costs to their customers, here's a plausible course of events.
1) Angry customers, encouraging each other over social media, start tipping zero and writing angry comments about why. (A sibling commenter's idea to underscore in your comment that you're going to take your business elsewhere because of the policy is excellent.) Because of the people who refuse to tip, angry employees also start making noise, sometimes to the customer, but just as often to to their manager because the manager is there every day. Now everyone's angry, the negativity is spreading, awareness is being created.
2) A news outlet picks up on the trend because news loves everything negative. They trump it up and claim it's an epidemic across the nation of Americans rejecting tipping culture because greedy corporations took it too far. It's now in the news cycle and it's a real PR issue for some corps.
3) A clever corp that likes to make a big deal about treating their employees right realizes that their policy of passing off labor costs to the customer is generating more bad PR than it's worth. They realize they can generate GOOD PR for themselves by changing this policy. Maybe some smaller business owner is gutsy enough to use this trend to actually pay their employees a living wage and stop asking for tips altogether. That gets headlines, generates more attention for the trend, and helps them get more customers.
4) The revolution is in full swing at this point, because the issue has entered the public consciousness and at least some businesses have changed their ways under pressure. Does tipping culture get abolished nationwide and replaced with businesses actually paying people what they're worth? Probably not, but it becomes harder for businesses to pass their labor costs to customers via the deceptive practice of tip inflation. The world is improved because people were angry and unreasonable.
If you think about it this process happens all over the place within our society. It doesn't take 100% of the people shouting to compel action. Outcomes are a function of the number of people who shout multiplied by how loudly they shout. So yeah customers are well within their tights to tip zero and be explicit about why. Because it won't just be the customers shouting at that point, it will make labor shout too. It is an unreasonable action but the willingness of someone to be unreasonable is frequently what change depends on.
