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Diamonds, oil, paper towels, Applebee’s… what will the ravenous millennial monster kill next? Well, according to CreditCards.com, the answer is tipping etiquette.
They polled a group aged 18 and older on their tipping habits and found that millennials are the cheapest tippers out of every age group. Bashing millennials is an easy-catch all for many underlying business issues these days but the survey does find some interesting data points. I was raised in a standard Midwestern household where giving anywhere between 15-20 percent based on the quality of service and experience was acceptable, regardless of your age. The benchmark for an average tip in this survey is 20 percent, so I’m not taking all of the conclusions they infer from the data as gospel.
Let’s break down a few of the biggest findings, per The Chicago Tribune.
10% of Millennials Don’t tip at All During a Dining Experience
In a civilized tip-friendly society, this number should be hovering around 0%. The only possible reason I can think of for you not to tip is if you get berated by a server, get a saliva-infused burger, or the restaurant has adapted the outlandish “European” style of including gratuity in the overall cost. There are very few times where this is the case. Yeah, this doesn’t look good for the 18 to 27-year-old crew, especially compared to the only 3 percent of older generations who blank on their bill. The only wiggle room I can see here is if someone bellies up for the bar for a liquid dinner and forgets to tip afterward or decides to tip in cash after tabbing out. Still, that’s a slippery slope.
Verdict: C’mon, folks.
Millennials Leave An Average Of 15% Gratuity
Knowing that the quantified age range of a Millennial in the survey ranges from teenager to seasoned PGPer, this average really isn’t that bad. I have vivid memories of raiding Applebee’s for half-priced apps following a high school football game. We ate like kings off deliciously dry boneless wings and excessively salty cheese dip, but we probably tipped like peasants. Mostly because we would tip based on the final bill total where everything was half-priced, not taking into account the full menu prices. Am I ashamed about that? Hell no. If an 18-year-old or college underclassmen is going to put down a fair and honest 15 percent tip, I don’t think there’s much to scoff at given their presumed limited finances. Now, once you get into post-grad life, the range of 18-20 percent is more acceptable, but balances out with the younger folks. Of course, Baby Boomers are “more generous,” dolling out 18-20 percent on average. I would be too if I had guaranteed Social Security and Medicaid coming my way.
Verdict: I can live with this.
Millennials Should Tip Better Because The Typical Restaurant Worker Is A Millennial
Okay, this one kind of got to me. The CreditCards.com guy even went as far to call it “self-defeating,” because apparently, millennials exist in a completely isolated economy from the rest of the American population where only millennials pay and charge millennials for goods and services. I can guarantee you I don’t care what the age of my waiter is, as long as they provide decent service, they’ll get a good tip. Saying that millennials should be guilted into tipping more because they should presume that the guy with the curled mustache serving them IPAs all night might be 24 instead of 34 doesn’t seem like the right approach to me. This is just a lazy argument that helps feed the “America’s youth are cheap scoundrels” narrative.
Verdict: I don’t buy it.
Yes, we could probably tip better at some occasions – I’m not excluding myself. But being over a certain age range doesn’t guarantee a good tip. It should be based on the service and dining experience, and you should tip accordingly – free of guilt. .
[via The Chicago Tribune]
Respond
@TaylorLaabs
@taylor1laabs
As someone who’s been waitressing for over 10 years as a side hustle I am going to call complete bullshit on this. A. Senior Citizens are the worst tippers ever (especially after church) B. Millennials are typically my favorite people to wait on because they’re typically going to be the most understanding and patient during a rush.
Agreed. I have been a server at three different Applebee’s (lol) in MN and IA, and it was the same in all three locations. Older people were rude as shit and didn’t tip. My 83 year old grandpa thinks a $3.00 tip on a $50.00 meal is standard. I completely agree that if service is shit, tip accordingly. The only time I didn’t tip was when I was insulted by a hipster server in Minneapolis.
I saw the word bullsh*t in your post and that’s kind of like what I seei n my toilet right now. Jeez.
Why are bulls shitting in your toilet?
If you notice, I got over 50 downvotes. You only got 2 upvotes. So, this means that your comment really wasn’t that funny. MEANWHILE, I’m getting EXACTLY what I want. Making you angry, little monkey.
But you didn’t answer the question. Why are bulls shitting in your toilet?
It’s honestly fucking hilarious how you’re trying to counter-troll me lmfao only 6 upvotes LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Take a breather buddy. Maybe sit the next few posts out.
The millennial hating is getting real tired. Imagine how much more productive the older members of society could be if they spent less time analyzing how lazy and awful we are.
Preach! Had a good argument with a coworker after his “just buy a house and use your money wisely” comment. Simple, except for the fact that when he was 28 houses were 50k not 250k. They ruined our economy and the way we work/save/spend now. They should be scrutinized, not us, we’re perfect
$250k is a steal, my dude….houses around me in Boston go for $800k and they look like bird shit riddled abandoned suburban wasteland homes. We’re the most productive we’ve ever been as a species due to technology but wages have flatlined since the 80’s while debt has skyrocketed. Basically, we’re not getting paid close to the amount of work we output in a society that has monetized output/labor. So even more basically, passive aggressive indentured servitude has become systemic and stopped discriminating and hides behind shiny new tech and corporate swag until they don’t need us anymore…but please, old people, please continue to shit on our lives like you haven’t done so already forever into infinity and beyond lol
I always wonder what taking an edible and listening to Nived talk would be like.
Yeah I can’t wait to start looking at starter homes that would be about $70k back in Michigan but are somehow about $600k here. For a starter home. I might just go homeless to save money idk yet.
Here in the DC area a starter home is a 500-600k condo.
Good luck ever owning anything ever
This is one of the reasons I love living in KC. $250k-$300k will buy you a nice 4 bedroom house in the burbs
Yeah but then you have to live in KC.
Depending on your age and marital status, you should be able to cover a $250k house (down payment aside). If you don’t have the 20%, pay PMI and dump as much into your mortgage as you can so you get over the threshold ASAP. I know the $50k figure is an exaggeration, but I know I’m making much more than my parents / older coworkers were at my age.
Here in KC, many of the starter homes are being bought up by management companies to rent them out. They’re paying over asking price with cash. It’s hard to compete against.
same here in Atlanta (and as a real estate attorney I speak from experience). everything semi-affordable goes above asking price, mostly from investors
Also many times you can pay off the PMI with a much smaller lump sum, I bought out my PMI when I got my house for something like a grand-$1500, and it would have cost somewhere upwards of $20k by the time I got it paid off.
Just remember to ask whoever is doing your mortgage paperwork.
Hey buddy, the second part of your username is “Hole.” You know where this is going there, champ.
You’re a bag of shit but this made me laugh…touché
Thanks, bud.
I was visiting a client a few weeks ago and we sat down to dinner (small mom n pop oil and gas company in the south). He started telling the whole table of 50+ year old men (their engineering team) and myself that the reason they don’t employ millennials is because they’re lazy and don’t have any loyalty and how when they did have some younger employees he tried to work with them in a way that would accommodate their slouchiness but people still wouldn’t stick around… Uhhh, buddy, your entire company is going to go out of business if you don’t stop talking down to any new hire you have. SMDH.
I mean… millenials do a lot of realllllyyy dumb shit that is just cringeworthy to most respectable people. Maybe if we kept the dumb shit out of the public eye (IG, Snap, FB) people wouldn’t hate us as much. But then again we wouldn’t be millenials if we didn’t gloat about our fake lives all over social media.
I agree but as someone who works a lot with a population between 50-90, they continue to do and have done just as much dumb shit as our generation does so I definitely get tired of the constant ragging.
I think everyone in general should just stop complaining. Nobody likes complainers whether they’re 18 or 88. We all have our obstacles to overcome, theirs just different than ours. Just put your pants on and go to work every day and work hard and ignore the h8ers and life will get better eventually (hopefully) as long as wage growth exceeds inflation and now we’re getting into the weeds so I’m gonna stop there. #StayWoke
Please see below lol
They did equally as cringeworthy stuff based on their environment at the time, they just didn’t have the internet to broadcast it to the world.
It annoys me when people don’t tip on delivery pizza. They knead the dough.
Your pun game is A1, as is the pup photo. thank you on both fronts
Whale thank you, kind marine mammal. I don’t get to make puns on porpoise often and have always been a fin.
Millennials didn’t kill tipping – the iPads with the Square app that all local businesses use that allows you to select the tipping level for even the most banal transactions killed tipping.
My general guideline:
10%- Absolute trash service
15%- Not great, but whatever
20%- Average, typical service
25%- Really good, can tell they at least kind of care about their job
30%- Above and beyond, best server ever
Over 30%- I got too drunk to do math
“Let’s see here…$52? Umm, yeah, $18 is probably fine…”
25% -the waitress is really attractive and I’m trying to impress her with my ability to round up to $15 for a tip instead of $12.
Millennials aren’t teenagers anymore. Youngest millennial should be like 23 at this point, born in 1995
And the oldest are somewhere in their mid-30s. We aren’t kids anymore.
God I fucking hate articles about tipping
That’s really cool bro. Too bad nobody cares about your opinion.
Go pull an Elvis
Another cheap ass thing I’ve noticed that baby boomers do is use coupons/gift cards on their meals and then only tip on the remaining total and not the original total of the meal. Total dick move.
So I agree with this article’s takes and I give a full thumbs up to Taylor. However the survey itself was kinda skewed.
The data analyzed showed millenials “tip less” on average for wait staff. While that statement is kind of true, what it doesn’t take into consideration is the average millenial doesn’t have the same charges as older generations. The survey included tipping on postmates, ubereats, etc., as well as food trucks, and retail square machines where there is much less incentive to tip, or rather tip “appropriately”. Since millenals use these often we have more lower tipping charges. Older generations that only go out to restaurants don’t have their number brought down by food delivery services or non-traditional eateries. If you looked at just tipping in sit down restaurants or traditional tipping situations, millenials actually tip more than the older generations.
The average gratuity is also brought down because it included all tipping situations. Again, millenials use uber and lyft far more than people older than 37. When you include a bunch of $1 or $0 tips our average is brought down compared to older generations who wouldn’t use the app to begin with
Zero tip is harsh, but I see nothing wrong with tipping in direct response to quality of service. I’m sorry you “work for tips” but if my margarita glass runs dry several times throughout dinner, I’m not giving you 15-20%
If you’re not tipping a full amount for something as petty as “your drink running dry,” you’re a cheapskate. Just take note of how much drink you have left, know how fast you drink, and order another one preemptively if you’re that worried about going a few minutes without a margarita.
It was more of an example rather than saying shit service. In most cases, your drink running dry is just many problems with the service throughout the meal. GET OFF YOUR HIGH HORSE NICHOLAS
Agreed. I’ll tip anywhere between 10-20% depending on the service. I have to earn my money, so why shouldn’t they? Its especially annoying when your drink has run dry and you see your waiter/ess standing around the host stand or something just chatting.