Has Tipping Culture Gone To Far? Tipping Etiquette: Navigating Social Norms and Expectations | B2B Vault: The Payment Technology Podcast | Episode 141

Yo, what's up everybody? It's Justin live from B2B Vault, the payment technology podcast sponsored by Nationwide Payment Systems, hosted by this guy, the Steve Jobs of merchant services himself, Allen Kopelman. And today is FinTech Friday.

Yeah!

And we'll be providing you guys with some educational information about fintech, small business payment processing, and the technology businesses are using in the world today. And in today's FinTech Friday, uh, we start— we wanted to talk about the tipping culture. Has it gone too far? What's your thoughts on it? Um, there's a lot of stuff in the news recently about like, you know, just tipping in general. So we thought it'd be a good, good time to, uh, touch on it ourselves and give us— give our opinions, uh, about tipping in general. And, uh, so anyway, man, we wanted to just lighten up the podcast a little bit instead of jumping right into the topics, you know. We want to check in, see, you know, kind of like a wellness check. You know what I mean? See how everybody's doing. Um, so Rocky, how are you doing? Rocky is probably fine. He just farted and cleared the whole office out, so you know, his intestines is cleared and you know, he's doing well. He's ready for more treats. He's got room.

How's your week going, Justin?

Uh, my week has been pretty good. I cannot complain. Uh, no one would listen anyway. Uh, But yeah, for the most part, we've been busy in the office. Uh, new equipment, new podcast stuff, uh, set up new— we're gonna have a whole new— it's gonna change, gonna change the look. Yeah, it's gonna be very, very different. Um, other than that, you know, my week's been pretty chill. The house, my house is pretty good. My daughter just came, you know, she's down here. She relocated back to Fort Lauderdale, so that's been cool, uh, trying to get her situated. She's gonna go take her driver's license test tomorrow, so that's a—

that's exciting.

That's a huge thing. 21-year-old finally getting her license. Thank you very much.

Um, that happened with Jacob. He got his license later on.

Yeah, you know, so I didn't get my driver's license until I was 26, so she's ahead of me anyway. So, uh, Yeah, man. Other than that, work's been good. You know, been doing a lot of— you've been busy. So when Allen's busy, that gives me a chance to do stuff that I don't normally get a chance to do, like SEO, you know, the analytic reporting, just checking out how, like, the way that the, you know, the way that the mechanics of the website really gets to function, you know, that gets neglected sometimes, you know. But so I had an opportunity, uh, yesterday actually to take care of some of that in between the meeting. You know, we had a meeting yesterday in the office. That was cool. Shout out to those guys from Shoppies.

Um, yeah, it's an exciting product, and we're gonna interview them on the podcast soon. Yeah, so that's exciting. I had a busy week.

Yeah, how was your week?

It was crazy. I had Rebecca was in town with her boyfriend. They went to a They went to a wedding down in Miami, and then they were at my house for a few days. And, you know, Aaron is, uh, not from Florida. Okay, he lives in— they live in Iowa. Rebecca's boyfriend.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah. So, uh, that was kind of cool. They came over, they saw the podcast studio, giving us, uh, a few pointers on a few things. And so we're going to look into some of that. And then they were down here, so we had to do a little like taste of Florida. Dad's cooking— I cooked up some brisket, cooked up a whole, whole big meal. I was making them breakfast every morning. I'm sure they enjoyed that. Got some fresh bagels, you know. I guess the bagels aren't that great in Iowa. We went to the— went to the bakery.

Don't be hating on all the bagels in Iowa.

Well, whatever. They have like one bagel place where she's at. Yeah, where she's at. Okay, Cedar Rapids, there's one bagel shop.

So it sounds like a good opportunity.

Yeah, it might be. So, you know, they don't have other like the Jewish bakery goods like around there.

You got to ship the water from New York like they do, you know, like the pizza for the New York. They do that at the dough— at this— no, they do that at the bagel shop down there on A1A.

There's a few places do that. They ship the water in, they get water, or they put in a water softener. And we went to the Holiday Park alligator thing out in the Everglades, went on an airboat ride, saw some alligators.

That's cool.

Saw some cool birds. Uh, we saw some lady grabbing flowers out of the water praying that she wasn't going to get bitten by an alligator or a fish because That would have just totally ruined the whole day. We saw the Gator Boys, which is this gator rescue. That was pretty interesting. I would not myself get in that pit where the guy was with like 10 alligators. No, that was pretty crazy. He picked one up, uh, no, stuck his head in the mouth. No, not doing that either. He was cracking jokes. He was like, oh yeah, you know, I'm gonna put my head in the mouth. And he's like, he goes, oh, everybody's getting their camera out. He gets like, you He goes, at least put the camera down right here so you can actually watch me in case I get my head bit off. I was like, whoa, that's nuts, right? Yeah, but the— but it's interesting because I didn't know this fact. So they— the guy was talking about like, let's say an alligator shows up in your pool or an alligator shows up at your front door, which living in Florida we see posts on Facebook like for that stuff. Yeah, every once in a while if you call an alligator trapper, they basically pick up the alligator and then it's— because they don't get paid and they make money from selling the alligator skin and the meat. So, but they rescue the alligators and then they bring them there to that place and they take them to other places where they can be safe because they can't put them back in the wild because apparently— I didn't know this— Alligator is also known as a navigator, and they have like really good navigation. So even though you go drop them off hundreds of miles from where they were, they'll find their way back to where they were. Yeah, right. That's crazy. Like they have their own like, uh, radar. Yeah, that's, that's just nuts. And you know, like last week we were back here in the con— we're in the conference room, we're all having a discussion about what kind of topic to pick for the podcast. Cast, and I said, oh, let's do tipping culture. And I started looking online, I didn't really find too much like articles talking about it, but TikTok and Reels and, you know, Instagram Reels and all that was exploding with people talking about, you know, tipping culture and how do businesses handle tipping.. And I even saw one talk show and they were discussing on the talk show what does TIPS stand for, which I never really looked it up, but it said, uh, to ensure prompt service.

And that's what you learn, something new every day.

Yeah, I didn't really know that.

That's what your prompt service, right?

I didn't really know that it actually was an acronym for something, so that was pretty interesting.

Yeah, I didn't know that.

And, um, you know, and I think people are, you know, everybody's very sensitive now. You know, we're in this recession, the economy is, you know, a little crazy, money is crazy. You know, people aren't, you know, people, everybody's economic situation is different for sure, right? And everybody looks at tipping in a different way. I mean Tipping, like, in a normal thing is, you know, like, we, we, you know, we were, you know, like, you go to a restaurant, okay, you know, you're expected to leave a tip. So one of the videos I watched, the person was complaining about, you know, tipping at a restaurant. She said to her friend, which was herself in the video, said, oh, you know, maybe they should just— restaurants should raise the prices and then you wouldn't have to leave a tip. She looks at the menu and goes, oh, the burger used to be $15 and now the burger is like $24. Then the manager says, oh well, we had to raise the prices because people didn't like tipping, so we raised the prices and we're paying their help more money. And like, so the, the, the tips that they would normally— that you would normally leave is now included in the you know, included in the meal, no tipping.

It's all over though. I mean, already it's still just—

there's very few places in the U.S. that do that. Yeah, like in Europe, um, whenever you go to eat, and then a lot of other foreign countries, there's literally— there's really no tipping. But in the United States, tipping is—

they'll get offended if you tip them.

Yeah, they'll get— yeah, they don't really— it's not a big thing.

Not everyone, but I've heard that in some parts of Europe or something like that. And, you know, I've never been to Europe, but a friend of mine said he went to go tip after dinner and the waitress was like— the waiter was like, what is that for? Like, you know, I don't need that. Like, he was— he, he was offended.

Yeah, it's like included in the price of the meal, so that it's— they don't really have tipping over there.

Well, yeah, and he was like giving them $5, so like he might have literally offended them, right? I don't know.

Yeah, you don't know. And people come here from foreign countries, right, and they, they don't know that they're supposed to tip, right? And then, you know, waiters and waitresses complain, oh, somebody came here from Canada or from Italy, and then they didn't— I don't want to pick on any countries— whatever country they're from, they didn't leave a tip, right? And now there's no tip. And they're— but they don't understand that there's, you know, no tip. But you can't, as a restaurateur, say, oh, that person's foreign.

So, so what's the big— what's the controversy about tipping? I don't, I don't— I mean, for me, tipping is you tip, yo. Like, you get something done, somebody does something for you, you tip them. I don't care what it is— shoe shines, car washes, tattoos. Uh, you know, the list keeps going and going and going. Like, you give me a service, you provide something to me that I am, one, unwilling to do, don't want to do, or just plain out am too lazy to do.

Even my lawn guy, like, yes, the plumber, you give them.

So what's the— I don't get it, what's the deal?

So the rub is, is that people are saying like, oh, I go to Starbucks, was in several videos, and you go through the drive-through, you order your coffee, and then when you get to the front and it's time to pay, they stick the credit card machine out the window.

Okay.

And then you put in your card and it's asking for a tip.

What's the big deal?

Well, there was no tip before. Now all of a sudden—

well, I mean, you go to a little, a cafe that's not owned by, you know, a conglomerate or something like that you're gonna see a tip jar at that cafe, right?

But I'm saying it's gotten a little forward now where like, you know, the screen is popping up and asking you for 15%, 18%, 20%, or even 20. I was in some place, it was like 20%, 25%, 28%. Like, that's a— I think that's a little forward of the business. I mean, someone said—

I don't—

they go to a— it's a, you know, I think it's a I think it's, uh, people feel pressured to leave a tip when they don't want to.

Well, I mean, so the same people that are complaining, right, are the people who don't tip anyway.

Maybe they say they tip, but they're not.

Like, one of the videos was a tip to them, $2 on a $200 order.

Yeah, but there's people like that. But you go to work— but I'm just saying, like, you go to a kiosk, right?

That's not a tip-worthy Okay, but this is where things are—

this is where the tip— this is the things that people are complaining about. Like, normally you wouldn't be going— like, a girl, one of them was, oh, I went to a restaurant that had a kiosk. I put in my food order, and then at the end of the food order, it's asking for a tip. No.

And then I'm not giving you—

so the guy's like, what am I tipping for? They get— or I'd place the order for the food. And that's sort of what the complaint is that. Or even my son said to me, he went to the food court at the mall and they flipped the thing over. And then my son said to the guy— because my son works in the mall in a retail store— said to the guy at the mall, he goes, oh, do you get that tip money? And the guy's like, I don't know what they do with it.

But that's just wrong.

So, you know, that's the whole thing.

And to be honest, that employee, yeah, probably should figure out what they do with the tips.

Probably he should ask.

I mean, come on. Yeah, and that's also the reason why he's working in the mall. But any— but so, uh, I digress. Um, yeah, I think that there's a tipping, you know, like I get it, like, right? Like there's some situations where you asking me for a tip is kind of like outrageous.

Like one of the things was a video of a girl. She said, oh, I went to— she goes to a coffee shop in her area, right? So she says, I ordered a bagel I ordered a cup of coffee and then they flipped over the screen and they're asking for a tip. She's like, why am I tipping? She goes, I had to go over to the—

that was just my example.

No, but she says she had to go over to the counter, she had to slice the bagel herself, put it in the toaster herself, toast the bagel, put the cream cheese on it, put in all the milk.

Sounds like that's at her house. I don't understand, right?

But she says that's how the restaurant is and then they're asking for tips.

Yeah, I don't know about that.

You think that's a little over the top?

I mean, me cutting my own bagel, I'm not getting— you just— that's like me going to a corner store, right?

Well, that's what I'm saying. Well, how would you feel if you went to the convenience store and then the guy flips the thing around and you went and got everything out?

Like I said, there's, there's— I mean, for that situation, no, it's not right. Like, of course, if If that's like going to the gas station and you paying for gas and then them saying, do you want to leave a tip? Right. That's absolutely not.

Yeah, but that's what I'm saying. Tipping is starting to pop up in places where you normally would not be leaving a tip, like a retail store. I was in—

where certain people wouldn't be normally leaving a tip.

Well, I wouldn't go to a re— let's say I went to a retail store, I picked up a bunch of stuff off the shelf. Took it up to the counter myself, they ring it up, and then they're asking for a tip. That happened to me the other day. So, and I looked at—

I have a, I have a, you know, this is my argument to that. Same. Okay, so I go into the, to the, you know, let's say I go into Brooks Brothers.

Okay, that's different.

How was that different?

Yeah, because I'm explaining to you, like, nobody waited on me. Okay. Nobody's waiting.

It's not like you go to like Zoomies and then you go pick out a couple of tees and a hoodie and some pants and you go pay for it and then they flip the screen and ask for a tip.

No, right? That's what I'm talking about, popping up in right places where there's no service specifically performed. I mean, the plumber comes to my house, you know, listen, I have some plumbers and I tell them, I go, oh, in the software, if you want to put the tipping feature on there turn it on. Yeah, because your plumbers are going out to those houses, they're going to do a job. Normally the person's probably going to take out a $10 or a $20, hit the guy, right? Or even like the guys who do a— like, I have some— another company, they do— they install like appliances, and they, you know, they usually collect the delivery fee, okay? And then people leave a tip. So I told them, turn on the tip. Because people don't have cash. I mean, I think the amount— you know, I very rarely carry cash. I mean, even you go to a hotel now, right? Most hotels today, they don't even have bellmen. They probably can't even hire a bellman because nobody wants the job because nobody has cash to give them a tip. And what are they going to do, carry around like a, uh, put a QR code on their wrist and go, hey, Venmo me? Some tip money.

It's funny that you brought that up because I've been feeling bad for like the homeless people in the world because no one carries cash. And so all the people that, you know, kind of depended on those corners, you know, for whatever amount of change that they would get— yes, there's hustlers and scammers out there for sure, but I do definitely feel bad for the, you know, the people who are down and out and could use the dollar to get on the bus to go see their kid or whatever, because I genuinely don't ever have cash on me. So that sucks. I only carry cash when I know I'm going to a restaurant or to an establishment that I know I should have some cash.

Yeah, exactly. That's what I mean. It's like, it's like, so, but, but tipping, people are, I think, getting sensitive to it, that it's popping up in places where—

I think that's probably a part of the reason that it's popping up in reason— in places that it shouldn't be as well.

Like, because it's too easy to do it.

It's too easy to do it. And then people have like legitimately not— have pretty much abandoned cash, right? There's a lot of people that don't carry cash. I'm— for the sake of the podcast, I carry cash, right? But I'm not always walking around with a wad of money on me, right? You know, I got $28 in my wallet right now. I just counted, right?

Right?

That's like, that's the— I'm not going in that to give that away, you know what I mean? Like, usually in the car you would have like a— I mean, I used to have a change. Oh yeah, there's some dollar bills in there, you know, maybe a 5 or a 10 or stashed, you know, like, oh crap, I forgot my wallet, let me run in the gas station or whatever, you know. But yeah, no, that's a— ended that for sure. Yeah.

I mean, I remember those days when my kids were little. I mean, they're older now, and they would take all my change and they would put it in a jar, you know, and they would save it up for, you know, a toy or whatever they were doing. They would get everybody's change— grandma's change, grandpa's change, for sure, everybody's change— and save it all up. I remember once I took them to Disney World. We're planning a trip, so I said, oh, save up all the coins, everything that They had a big 5-gallon jug and they put dollar bills, whatever the money they got, they filled it up. And I'll tell you what, I was shocked when I took that thing to the bank. They used to have that machine.

Yeah, they stopped doing that too.

They had like $300.

Nice.

Oh, they had a party at Disney World.

Yeah, $300 back then was probably great.

Oh yeah, they got everything— hats, toys, food. I didn't, you know, that was like their spending money.

My, uh, cousin She just— well, she didn't just, but she's living down here now and she was planning on taking her youngest daughter, well, her daughters too. And I said, yeah, have you looked at the prices lately?

Oh yeah, Disney's out of control.

And she sent me a text back, she's like, you know, we were just there like 2 years ago, we only spent like $800. I said, yeah, you should go and look now. And she did, and prices are like tripled.

Yeah, it's nuts. Everything's like so, so expensive. I mean, inflation is through the roof. I mean, the Fed raised the rates.

That's probably another reason why people are complaining about tipping, because there's no money, right? People don't have any money to tip, and so now they're like, it's in their faces, they're blatantly, you know. I like that though. Like, so for instance, you're talking about like going to you know, to go get food and then tipping, right?

Right. No, that's normal, right?

Right, right, right. No, I'm saying, but they're not waiting on you or anything, right? That's not normal. Typically, most people don't tip, right? Right. So I was explaining to Allen off camera yesterday or the day before when we were arguing about tipping, uh, I was like, well, there's this small Jamaican restaurant. I'm not gonna say the name because I don't want it to get any more crowded than it already is. And I like my veggie chunks, so yeah, you guys are SOL. Um, but anyway, this place, it's a small, you know, like family-owned shop, you know, and I know for a fact they don't get tips because their tip jar is constantly empty, you know what I mean?

Right.

That's also an old trick, you know, to keep the tip jar empty to make people feel bad for you to put a dollar in there. It's psychological type of thing, right? But that thing, it never moves. Like, there's a quarter, you know what I'm saying? Like, it's just empty all the time. And so I tip that person. Like, I def— like, she, she's either her or like her daughter or her grandson, they run that place, right? You know? And so it's like me, it's like my duty. Like, the food is delicious. If you've ever been to any Jamaican spot, you're gonna wait. And if they don't have what is on the menu, they don't have it. That's it.

Oh yeah, like small places that happen, right?

You know what I'm saying? But, and that's not— but that's like, so people get upset about that type of stuff, but I'm, you know, that food is great, so I'm tipping in that situation, you know. I don't know, you said you probably wouldn't.

No, no, I said, I said if you go to a place like, and it's like a counter service, it is counter, that's what I'm saying. But also they probably have people that come out and bring you your drink. No, you have to get your drink out of the cooler. Yeah, a lot of places like that ask for a tip, but if the person's like preparing your food for you and all that, like, yeah, like we went to a place the other day, a pita shop. I've taken you. Yeah, that's a good shop where you get like the shawarma and everything, right? So the guy's behind the counter, you know, you're getting all your stuff, he's making your sandwich and all that, and at the end they ask if you want to leave a tip. Yeah, I'm gonna leave a tip. I'm not gonna leave 20 or 25%, but I'm gonna leave some kind of tip. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.

But yeah, I mean, I— right, like, you know, there's— I think, like we said, man, at the end of the day, most of the people that are complaining about this are probably the ones that—

yeah, well, there's some waitresses complaining like, oh, you come in to eat a meal and then the person's not leaving a tip. They don't know the person might have came in, the food was price 20 or 30% or it was terrible. No, no, but maybe that— well, that's— I don't fault like the server. Like, if I go—

I'm not tipping if the food is terrible.

You're not tipping? No. Okay. I—

you know what, I take that back. I have definitely tipped the waitress because my wife will be like, it's not her fault, right?

Exactly. But I'm just saying, like, you— you—

but I'm just saying, the tipping thing also, like, we were we're talking like, then it's the shady part of it.

Like, because is the money going to the employees?

Yeah. Are they really getting the tips? Right.

Are they in the unusual situation?

Are they equally sharing the tips? Is there some BS involved to where like, oh, this guy gets a more percentage because— or whatever? Like, excuse me, I was talking to Allen Kopelman when I was in college. I worked at Jimmy John's and, um, at the end of the day. Well, of course, I was a delivery driver. I kept all my tips, right? I never— you didn't have to share unless you were nice and you helped somebody on a really big corporate order, right? Then you could share a tip. You would— I would— you'd be obligated. Like, otherwise you'd be a POS.

Uh, they wouldn't give you those orders again.

No. Yeah, no, you'd be fighting for them. But yeah, so like And then at the end of the night, if you worked in the shop, there was a tip jar. And then, you know, you would split it equally. The manager wouldn't get any, the assistant manager wouldn't get it, you know, like whoever, right? The people who were there working, the regular people, you know, making the sandwiches, working, they got the tips. But I've heard, because I know, you know, a lot of younger people are forced to work in this type of job, like, you know, some businesses, they don't get the tips, or they don't even see the tip they don't know how much.

Yeah, because there's no tip jar with the money in it. There's just in tip on the—

circumstances.

Yeah, on the cash register, on the credit card machine, people are hitting the tip and the employees don't know where is that money going. Is it going to the employees? I mean, I think businesses should put up a sign if they're going to have that kind of tipping, right? And it's not clear that the money is going to the employees, I think they should put up a sign and say all tips go to the employees. One, so the employees know, right? And two, so the public knows.

I agree.

That's because, like, that guy— that kid my son asked, he's like, oh, do you get the money? The kid goes, I don't think so.

Oh, he said he didn't know.

Yeah, he didn't know, but he didn't think so. I'm just saying, like, the other day I went into a deli to get some to get some bagels.

I don't believe that guy, I'm sorry.

Well, no, I don't know if he's—

if he looks on his check, you guarantee there's going to be a little section in there that says tips.

Well, I'm just saying, I would—

section, it says tips.

Yeah, I would feel more comfortable as a consumer, right, if I saw the sign and it said all tips go to the employees. Yeah, next to the cash register or on the window or something, then I would say okay. Boom.

But like, that would make me more comfortable to tip, but that's not going to prevent me from tipping, right? Hello everyone, we'd like to take this time to thank our sponsors Nationwide Payment Systems and NPS Printer. We'd also like to shout out the listeners and everyone that subscribed to our YouTube channel. Thank you for tuning in. If you'd like to reach Allen or myself, head over to b2bvault.info where you'll find two forms, one to contact us and another if you're interested in becoming a sponsor. If you'd like to sign up for a merchant account, click the Apply Now button located at the top of the page of B2BVault.info, where you'll answer a few questions, and you'll be on your way to processing payments in no time. The podcast is available on Spotify, iTunes, Pandora, and other popular streaming networks. Thanks again for listening.

If they knew where the money was going, true, you know. So I think it's be more upfront. Like, I'll give you an example. I, I used to go to a clothing store in my neighborhood to get like business shirts and all that. Business shirt kind of like went out the window with the coronavirus whole thing, you know. Everything got a little more casual. Little company shirt with a logo, you know.

I've been rocking graphic tees for 20 years.

No, no, but I'm just saying, you know, things got a little more comfortable. Even when we were like— we went to a networking event last week.

Yeah, even the guy that came to work with us was—

yeah, he was way overdressed. He was wearing a sport jacket with a dress shirt and then a pair of jeans. And I was like, yeah, the women—

the women were all super like—

some of them were dressed supermodels. No, some women were like super dressed up. Yeah. And some people were super cash.

Oh yeah, yeah, the older women were like super dressed up for sure.

Yeah, some of the professional like salespeople, yeah, and some of the realtors were dressed up, but some of the people that worked like at the booths, they were wearing— they were rocking their polos, you know. Nobody was— those kind of got people were not really dressed up. Even, even the guy who put the event on had a polo, right? Had a polo. Most people were wearing like a logo.

I think like polos was about as is corporate-y is where we're going now. Suits are for an occasion, right? Like an event, or if you're going to go strike a $10 million deal with, I don't know, some, you know, listen, the biggest client, one of the biggest clients exactly I had, I'll never forget.

I was like, oh, I gotta go meet this guy, right? This was years ago, right? Back like 2002, 2003. I had to go meet this guy. He owned a bunch of restaurants, right? And I'm like, oh, I gotta get dressed up. So I put on a dress shirt and a tie. It was summer, it was brutally hot, 100 degrees outside, right? It was 100 degrees.

That's—

it was so hot, I was sweating bullets walking at a park far away. I walked over there, right? And here's this guy, he owns— he's probably a multi-millionaire right? Multi-millionaire. The guy's wearing, uh, shorts and chancletas. He's wearing shorts, he's got on a cash shirt, he's got on a baseball hat, and he's wearing flip-flops. I'm like, wow. Yeah. Then the guy says to me, goes, oh, you need to loosen up a little bit. He goes, lose the tie. He goes, I'm getting uncomfortable. So I remember I took the tie off and then we talked.

How long ago was that?

Like, that was 2003, something.

Exactly. So he told me to lose the tie, and the suit's been out of style for 18— for 20-plus years.

He told me lose the tie. After that, I pretty much did not wear a tie to another net at all going out for business, because that kind of taught me, like, it did— nobody wants to see that, right? They don't really— people were not like super impressed because you had on a tie.

And so I never wasn't like, you come to my— a business meeting because I don't care you have on your power suit and your red tie, bro.

No, no, I'm just—

get out of here.

So then I remember wearing that when I was in the hotel business. My boss is like, oh yeah, you gotta have on a red tie, blah blah blah, you know, to go to meetings. And when we go to meetings with banks, that was, you know, you got to be dressed up. But I remember like banking, I guess I could see you wearing a suit. But now like I was just at a banking convention Everybody was wearing polos. Everybody, the whole bank. There was nobody— some of the women were dressed up, but majority of the guys are all rocking polos.

What are they wearing on Wall Street?

No, like very cash, you know, casual pants, casual shirt, maybe a sport jacket.

Oh really?

Yeah, maybe. That's what I'm saying. Well, it's a little cooler in New York. Than it is in Florida.

Yeah, you definitely will get— man, I remember when I first got down here, I went to an event and I put on my sport jacket. I said, I don't know how people are doing it. There's no way. No, I took it off.

I knew a guy when me— when, uh, when I first got into this business, there was this guy named John. I'm still friends with him, and he used to sport a three-piece suit and it would be 90 degrees outside and I would see that guy somewhere and he would be sweating bullets. But you know that— well, let's just get back to the, you know, the tipping thing. One thing is for sure, like, if businesses are collecting tips and they're not giving it to the employees, there's a 3-letter— illegal. Well, there's a 3-letter company, there's a 3-letter government organization called IRS, and they're gonna, you know, they could possibly come look into that because all it takes is one I mean, I can't tell you how many lawsuits there have been over tips, tip sharing, what happens to the tips. I read another article about— can businesses—

you told me Prime 112 had a big lawsuit.

Well, let's not mention— yeah, there was several restaurants, several hotels that I know. There was, there was a huge lawsuit in Miami where this guy basically started in New York City and he started— he sued like 100 or 200 restaurants. Then he came down to Miami and he started suing hundreds of restaurants on Miami Beach.

Really?

Oh yeah, it was a class action lawsuit. Wasn't— they didn't just target one place, they went after all the restaurants on Miami Beach because they were doing shady stuff. Well, they were accusing them that they were pooling the tips and all this stuff. So you got to be— businesses have to be very careful with that because all it takes is one employee to be smart, they go complain, they go get a lawyer, and then there's tipping lawyers. And even I was reading a thing today, I got an email from a payroll company and it says, oh, can you deduct— and I'm sure they put this in the payroll newsletter, right? Because probably some restaurants were asking them how to handle this. So the, so the article talked about, can you deduct the cost of credit card processing out of the tips? So the answer was yes and no. So the part that was yes was, yes, the waiter has $100 worth of tips, you pay 3% for credit card processing, right? Let's just say that's what it is to make it you could deduct the $3.

That's terrible.

Not every restaurant does that, but that is messed up. Well, I'm just saying, legally you're allowed to do that.

That is messed up, dude. And any— if I find out that the restaurant is doing that, I'm gonna put you on blast.

I would say probably the restaurants that are higher end are probably deducting a little bit of money out for credit card processing.

That's totally unfair. Like, hot places, these employees don't own that company.

I know, I'm just explaining to you what I'm upset—

I'm upset because it's like, yo, like, dude, that'd be— that's like you charging us for your lights.

Listen, I talked to somebody who told me that they worked at a dentist office and the dentist was charging them for the protection equipment during COVID and I was like, how can they do that? You where it's not like you're an independent contractor at the dentist. But I'm just going to tell you that higher-end restaurants where the waiters might be making—

they're always doing shady stuff—

$500, $1,000 a night in tips, they are— I would say some of them probably do that. Now here's where the part went no, and you could tell the way the guy wrote the article, right? The way the guy wrote this article, that's more than one person asked if they could do this. So they wanted to deduct the total cost of the sales out of the waiter's salary. So let's say the sales— the waiter got $100 in tips, but let's just say the sales on the $100 in tips was $1,000. So then that would be $30 in credit card sale, and, and let's say at 3%. Well, you can't deduct that. It's terrible out of the waiter, but I'm sure they wrote it the way they wrote it because somebody asked could they do that.

It's terrible, man.

No, it's—

so go to your restaurant, tip, leave cash. Don't— I would say never tip on a credit card. We've talked about the tipping threshold before, so you can't leave big tips even unless they do tip at the time of the sale.

One of the other videos that I saw on TikTok was a waiter going, uh, you know, somebody— and not somebody was filming the receipt, right? And the person was complaining that the person didn't leave a big enough tip. So the person, instead of $5.48, they made it $15.48.

Well, let's turn— that's why I'm— that's another reason.

Then they're gonna go do a tip adjustment on the God's Bill. The customer card holder is going to do a chargeback for $10, the restaurant's gonna get— lose the $10, maybe lose the whole thing, plus get hit with a $20 or $30 chargeback fee, right? And the waiter already got their money because that chargeback, you know, people have up to 6 months, but that chargeback might not come in for a week or two. Because if you saw that somebody added money to the bill different than what your bill said, right, if you're managing your money like that, right? But I'm just saying, today people are really watching. And, you know, that's why restaurants should be using like the pay at the table so the customer can just put the tip in and you don't have that. Plus you don't have to deal with that 20% variance, which we talked about in the podcast, where people, you know, that's the other thing. When you're doing tip at the time of the sale, you don't have to worry like, oh, it's my favorite waiter, Justin's my favorite waiter, right? And I wouldn't be, but let's, for the sake, let's just say for the sake of the— what we're talking about. And I come in there all the time, and then, you know, and I know Justin, and it's Christmas time, and I go, you know what, Justin waits on me every single week. Boom, here's a $100 tip. I want to make sure Justin's getting the whole $100. I want to make sure he doesn't have to tip share, you know, and all that. Because— and that's the thing that's important. Like, I think consumers should know that the waiters are getting the tips.

Every time that a waitress tells me that there's sharing the tips, I always slide it to her and be like, you don't tell anybody you got this.

Yeah.

And then she says, well, I have to because I'll get in trouble. No, you won't, because loose lips sink ships.

And even sometimes I try to, you know, sometimes I try to tip cash because I want to make sure the person's getting the money, you know.

That's why, that's why I said, don't— I don't ever— I don't put tips on my credit card, on my debit card at all.

It's hard because, you know, sometimes you go into place and You know, maybe you're not expecting— you're— you didn't plan that particular stop. Stop.

I don't live that lifestyle, so I'm very calculated, and I don't go out to eat. So when I do, I know that I'm gonna be tipping.

But I'm just saying, I get it though. Yeah, can happen. The same thing, like somebody— your lawn— like my lawn guy comes to the house, I know how much it is for the lawn, right? So like, I always give them extra. Yeah, it's like, oh, you don't have to give me extra. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, because he does a good job. He you know, he comes and he does it, you know. That was the same way, does it more, you know. He's keeping everything clean outside. I don't have to complain or tell him like, hey, you didn't do this or do that, you know. You have to do it. So let's hear some comments from people. We're even going to post a few things in social of the different things. Like one of the things I saw was a sign next to a register, and it had—

he thinks this is so controversial, like edgy.

That's not edgy, it's just like, what do people think about it? I saw a sign next to a register, right, had the people's names on it that worked there and what they were going to do with the tips— car insurance, health insurance. I don't know, I thought it was a little bit— I don't know, does that give you—

what did you think about it? Well, you genuinely didn't like it.

What I, what I thought about it was that it was, one, a little bit over the top I'm gonna tell you because a couple things on the list like disturbed me about like the person needed to buy a car, another person needed to buy car insurance, somebody needed tires. Listen, if my employee needs some tires and they say to me, hey Allen, I need tires for my car, I'm not going to tell you to go wait for the tip jar to come in and go, here, let me loan you a couple bucks. Well, you get tires for your car. That's just saying like you're good, being a good person indeed. And then one of the things was like night and day, bro. No, no, but I'm just saying, like, then it said, you know, someone— a girl wanted to get her nails done, someone wanted to get their hair done.

I'm just saying, like, in my opinion, Allen, I think— I get where you're coming from, but I think that you're looking way too— I think it was more so as a joke.

I thought it was funny, but there—

I get it, man.

I thought it was funny, but then I asked the girls and they go, no, that's serious. And I was like, I felt bad for the employees.

That's what I'm saying, like Well, dude, you go to anywhere, no one's making any money, Allen, bro. Like, come on, man. Like, people are broke. People are broke. So that's because if you ask any of my 26 to 25 and 21 and 19-year-old kids who are out there working, yeah, they're gonna put the same things on that list.

No, I understand that. I'm just saying, like, I think it was funny.

I didn't—

I didn't— I kind of— at first I thought it was a joke. And then the girl said, no, no, that's serious.

And I was like, okay, but you know, I'm just saying, like, I think what Allen's trying to say is that restaurant owner needs to pay his employees more.

Yes, that's one thing.

Well, of course, that living wage, we don't— that's a whole podcast that you and I will end up fighting over.

Like, I'd have a big fight.

But, but yeah, the living wage thing, that needs to be fixed. Like, people are broke. Broke. And there's an obvious reason. Stuff costs way more than it did 50 years ago. It's not the same. People need to—

I don't think people— anyway, I don't think people understand about like inflation and how it works. So, you know, we looked at things like what's in the news. So I wanted to give a couple of news stories at the end of the podcast. Dick Durbin's trying to get his Credit Card Competition Act out there again. I don't think it has a chance to be passed because, yeah, he's trying to put it in a different— they try to slide it in a bill. It's not gonna— it needs to— if it's so good, he needs to put it on its own. Here's one thing that's helped for consumers, that story Justin found where they want to cap late fees that the banks can charge when people don't pay their credit card— when they don't pay their credit card bill on time.

Yeah, not their— not your overdraft fees. This isn't for bank cards, it's for credit cards.

Credit card, when you don't pay your bill on time, they want to cap it at $8, which that's a good thing because I don't—

I mean, I don't know, fortunately I haven't been late on a credit card, but I, I mean, I do know you don't want to do that.

Yeah, you don't want to do that because it's gonna—

the fee is at least $40 from what I remember.

Yes, the fee is like $40. And also the other thing is the credit card company can raise your interest rates. Oh yeah, through the roof.

And then they close your card, right?

And they close your card and then they put you into collections. The other thing is the Fed raised the rate again, and this has got to stop because inflation— people don't understand inflation. I'm going to explain something about inflation real quick. And so just to give a little bit of how I look at it and what— how I understand inflation. When we talk about money, money is just almost— my stepdad used to tell me, Jerry, bless his soul, he's gone from the, you know, here, so God bless him. But I still love to talk to him about money all the time. And he used to tell me money is just numbers on a piece of paper. And I started to think about that one day, and I was talking to him and I go, what do you talking about. And he goes, listen, he goes, when I— when he was younger, and you go back to like the 1950s and the 1960s, like I was trying to explain to one of my friends, and I was like, you just don't understand. If you were back in the 1950s, '60s, early '70s, before we had all this crazy inflation, it's all— that was all related to the US coming off the gold standard. Okay, you're good.

You're getting into a very heavy conversation, right?

But I'm just gonna explained. A lot of people during that time period in the United States were able to create, you know, generational wealth because they were making— the average salary back then was like maybe $10,000, $12,000, $15,000 a year, right?

Yeah, but a cost of a house was what, right?

A cost of a house was $20,000, right? So this guy with my—

you could buy 100 acres for $20,000, right?

My stepdad was explaining to me, he's like, oh, during the that time period, because people who were making like $100,000 a year, because they were able to go out and buy all kinds of land and buildings and do all sorts of things. And he goes, now— and my stepdad's passed away for almost 15 years now—

and he said, I read an interesting— I'm sorry, but I read a really interesting article about the attorneys in New York the Christian attorneys wouldn't perform divorces, but all the Jewish lawyers would. And so the Jewish lawyers made a killing, right, in like the early '20s, '30s, and '40s.

Well, probably for a long time.

And '50s.

Yeah. So the, so the thing is, is so what he was explaining to me, and he's like You know, back then somebody had $100,000, $200,000, right? He goes, that's like today, in today's money, that's like billions of time millions. Yeah, yeah, yeah. $20 million, $30 million. He goes, because the, the money, money is not the same. Like, we talked one time, me and Justin, about we paid somebody to do something online. They were in another country, right? And the guy charged us I would— because we saw this service for, remember, for like all kinds of stupid prices, from $25 up to a couple hundred.

What are we talking about? What service?

We had somebody make us like a little video one time.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so we end up doing— we end up going with— we wanted to find someone that could do a quality job on it, and we found a guy, and it was a few hundred dollars, right? And I was explaining to Justin later, I was like, their money. Like, that, that $200 is going to pay their rent for a year. Yeah, that guy was like probably on cloud nine that he got a $200 job, but the guy was doing a hot— his quality was way higher than everybody else.

Oh man, yeah, like someone in the US would probably charge 5 grand for that, right?

And, and, you know, but the— but that's the thing is that the money in that country just hasn't changed. Like, their money has not changed. So that's the whole thing. The same thing, like, I know people from here, they go retire in Mexico or they retire in Panama, right? Because the money down there, the— there's the inflation is not like the inflation in the U.S., right? Inflation in the U.S., and especially right now, I mean, we're in double digit. I don't care what they say on the news, I could tell by the price. Every depression, we're, we're in a double digit inflation that needs to get reversed quickly.

And it's a lot of slack going on.

There's a lot going on with that. And that's part of why sometimes people are upset with the tipping thing, or they go into the restaurant and the prices are way, way higher than what they were, right?

I mean, everybody's tight right now, man. Like, everybody's tight, dude. Gas is up again. You go to the grocery store I don't care what you tell me, every item is $5. If you go what I buy, I don't— you know, it could be a jar of peanut butter that is over $5.

Everything is priced super high. Then my daughter was talking to me, she's like, oh, I went to the grocery store, eggs was this much money. And I was telling her, I said, you guys gotta— I told you guys before, you guys got to get a Costco card or a BJ's card or a Sam's Club card, and then you have to go there and the items that you can purchase in bulk, I mean, that are much cheaper there.

This might be time to put up a little chicken coop.

Where, in Iowa? Oh, well, my daughter grows vegetables.

There you go.

She grows vegetables. A lot of people—

I'm not gonna lie, dude, I talked to my dad about it and he's gonna— I'm gonna talk to the owner of a house and I'm pretty sure we're gonna buy some chickens.

Yeah, because you can have it.

Why not?

We can.

Our neighborhood, everybody has chickens in their neighborhood. Everybody, dude. There's— if, if the windows weren't like hurricane-proof, I would definitely be getting woken up by the rooster at 5:00 AM.

Wow, that's crazy.

It's amazing. It's cool.

I like it.

Like, it makes— that's why I tell everybody, I like, dude, I don't live in the United States of America. I live in a place called Florida. It's its only country. South Florida specifically is like just just different. That's all I can say.

It's very—

it's pretty different coming from the Midwest to down here. Is very, very different. I can't explain it. I don't want to, but stay away.

In Iowa, in Iowa, pretty much like all my daughter's neighbors and everybody at work that lives in a house, pretty much they grow vegetables. They do a garden and they grow a ton of vegetables, and they bought— my daughter learned how to pickle stuff.

That's the Midwest, man, right?

I'm just saying, that's how it is up there. Style, you know, it's a style.

We're always trying to find ways to like save some money, right? Because especially during the wintertime, you know, it's, it's a tough— it's hard on people, you know. So you can't do the same stuff.

So we want to hear your thoughts on tipping.

Yes, please. And I'm interested.

Yeah, we're interested. We want to know what everybody thinks. Like, is it over the top? Is it not over the top?

I always think of seen on Reservoir Dogs. Yeah, when they're sitting, when Mr. Pink is sitting at the table, when they're all sitting at the table, and Mr. Pink says, cough up a buck, you cheap— you know the rest. Yeah, it's so— that's my thoughts on tipping. Leave a tip, don't be a cheap dirtbag.

Listen, leave a tip. When Terry Cash—

for that situation, if you know you're going to a restaurant, put a $20 in your pocket that whoever the waiter or waitress is going to be—

bartender. Yes. Yeah, these restaurants are way understaffed, and sometimes that frustrates people too. Yeah, they're not getting the level of service that they want. Well, you know, and things like that.

Also, if you're a waiter or waitress, and if I don't get my water filled up at least twice, right, you're gonna get a terrible tip. So you should be checking on your people.

Just remember, what does tip stand for? For? To ensure prompt service.

And there you have it.

If you're doing— if you're in a job and you're giving service, then you should expect to get tipped, right?

Do it well, you get a generous tip.

Get a generous tip. Exactly. So that's our podcast for FinTech Friday.

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube. Subscribe to the YouTube channel at B2B Vault Podcast. You know, check us out on all the—

check our reels out.

The new, uh, social media coordinator Camille is doing a great job with the reels on live Instagram and Facebook stories, all that stuff. I, I don't—

yeah, it's everywhere.

It's all there.

Yeah, check it all out. It's on Spotify, uh, Spotify, Amazon, Stitcher, Google, Apple Podcasts. Yeah, a lot of stuff going on. And keep an eye out, check out the YouTube channel, senior C. And also we're uploading video to Anchor and Spotify.

Oh yeah, if you like the Anchor new way of consuming podcasts, we have been uploading the video as well. Right.

And then watch for our new set, which will be put together in the next couple of weeks. Big surprise.

Peace. Peace.

We're gonna have to get a timer