Restaurants adding fees

[ruffdog]

Prices are going up everywhere. The pub I go to raised the prices even before the menus could be printed so they hand wrote the prices in. The new menus are out and they say costs are still going up so don't get use to them. It is the new normal.

 

[jyoutz]

Since I don't get an employee discount for checking myself out... I refuse to use self checkout. My local wally world is nothing but self checkout... I don't go there anymore.

I will use self checkout, but I won’t stop and show the guy my receipt at the exit door. I tell them if they don’t trust me to use self checkout, then bring back cashiers.

 

[ericm979]

In college I worked in a restaurant for a while (in the back not the front). My wife worked in food service as a teen. We both know that servers get paid from tips. It's a hard job and they're not making a lot. So unless they really suck, we tip pretty well.

It'd be great if servers got paid a living wage like in most other 1st world countries. Then we wouldn't have to tip. But that's not how it works now.

A lot of payment terminal software now has tips baked into the screens. The other day I got one of my cars tuned. The payment device had tips! They're already making a decent profit, so no tip.

 

[Fixastuff]

Tractors are too expensive too but keeping keep buying them like fast food. Yall fast food is going under guys are crazy.

 

[jyoutz]

What really bothers me is that counter serve checkouts now ask for a tip. I always decline. I only tip when I sit down at a table and the server brings a menu and the food.

 

[Jstpssng]

It'd be great if servers got paid a living wage like in most other 1st world countries. Then we wouldn't have to tip. But that's not how it works now.

When they revamped minimum wage here in Maine a while back there was talk of doing this, but the wait staff were up in arms. They make considerably more money on tips.

 

[ponytug]

I've also worked food service, and yes, I usually tip 20%, but not for counter sales, and definitely not at service stations. Asking me for a tip at a non-service (I.e. other than restaurants, or hotels), I take as a demand that I change to another business, and I usually don't come back.

My only beef with self checkouts are places that have cut to measure items, or heavy items that don't fit on the auto weigh sale counter. The whole sale grinds to a halt until an associate comes over to sort it out.

I tried preordering online and then picking up at a few places, but I find it hit or miss. Once, my order got split up into three batches spread over seven weeks, resulting in my having to go three separate times (an extra hour and an half each time). Another time, I ordered a dozen T-posts as part of an order, only to have the associate try to tell me that the price covered twelve bundles of ten. Twenty minute delay while the associate took the whole order back to check with a manager, before coming back with a dozen T-posts. What happened to the snazzy radios that they use? The last time I paid $0.60 for a 7' T-post was never. You have to laugh sometimes.

All the best,

Peter

 

[IXLR8]

Do you pump your own gas? If so, what's the difference? You're not an employee of the gas station either.

Yes I pump my own gas, it is about the only option here where I live. There are a few stations that will pump for you... but they charge more. So I save money pumping myself.

 

[caver]

Some walmarts are getting rid of self checkout due to theft and other issues.

 

[Jstpssng]

Some walmarts are getting rid of self checkout due to theft and other issues.

Imagine that! Not just theft either. Have you ever had something not scan without realizing it? It could lead to a new episode of "My Cousin Vinnie."

 

[2manyrocks]

Some walmarts are getting rid of self checkout due to theft and other issues.

The customers doing self checkout at our Walmart today seemed incredibly slow like they didnt have anything else better to do.

 

[dstig1]

I don't get the hate on self checkout. To me it's way more convenient than standing in line (and without fail, get in the line with the slowest cashier). I'm smart enough to figure out the scanner. Scan, pay, get on my way.

Do you pump your own gas? If so, what's the difference? You're not an employee of the gas station either.

I also pull my own purchases from the shelves in the grocery store, Target, etc. That is akin to pumping your own gas: gathering up the products you want to buy. Paying at the pump is a BONUS service as it means I don't have to waste time going into the store and standing behind the moron checking all his scratch off tickets and plugging up the line.

But self checkout and then a guy checking the receipts? Sod off, mate. You could just be checking people out instead. I use self checkouts in 2 situations: 1. I have 2 or 3 items that are non-controversial (not requiring intervention) and 2. the regular lines are insanely long. #2 is an almost never event around here.

 

[Thomas]

Wife and I had dinner month ago at nice restaurant in NH,50 cents for ice in soda,$1.00 to mix a drink what's next surcharge that can't explain.

 

[2manyrocks]

Seat rental, utensil useage fees…

Restaurants seem to be copying medical billing practices?

 

[duffer]

Why should the tip (now tax free BTW) be based on the amount of the bill. I've had better service at the local diner for a $10 meal, than at a fancy restaurant where you're lucky to get out under $25 each. Tips should be based on service, not the amount of the bill.

 

[Oaktree]

I also pull my own purchases from the shelves in the grocery store, Target, etc. That is akin to pumping your own gas: gathering up the products you want to buy. Paying at the pump is a BONUS service as it means I don't have to waste time going into the store and standing behind the moron checking all his scratch off tickets and plugging up the line.

But self checkout and then a guy checking the receipts? Sod off, mate.

I wasn't around at the time, but I'd imagine there were plenty of crabby old farts who complained when self-service supermarkets came along in the 1930s. Imagine the indignity of having to take a can of beans off the shelf yourself, I expect to be waited on!

I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I've been asked to show a receipt on the way out of a store. I know Sam's club used to do that, but it's been 20+ years since I've been in one of them.

also not spending 45 minutes, i spend about 30 seconds to do gas.

What do you drive that you can refuel in 30 seconds? I can't even refill my lawnmower that fast. No idea what the 45 minutes you're referring to is. If it's using a self-checkout, you're obviously not clear on the concept. It isn't that difficult.

Wife and I had dinner month ago at nice restaurant in NH,50 cents for ice in soda,$1.00 to mix a drink what's next surcharge that can't explain.

Never heard of that. Then again, I'm always emphasizing "NO ICE!" in my drink. It's cold already. I'm not paying soda prices for a glassful of ice cubes.

 

[gsganzer]

We're becoming a fee-based society. People have become such poor consumers, the easiest way to trick them is to hide it in fees. Automatic billing is the other tool, getting the consumer to take their eye off the ball.

 

[Mtsoxfan]

Wife and I had dinner month ago at nice restaurant in NH,50 cents for ice in soda,$1.00 to mix a drink what's next surcharge that can't explain.

That is nuts. I'd rather just see prices go up. Then I wouldn't feel scammed...

 

[dstig1]

LOL. We went to one restaurant that was great overall, but they added 50 cents for cream with coffee. It was so weird and out of place that we still mock it a year or more later. I think they had the CC fee, but that is pretty much everyone nowadays. Otherwise not a bunch of BS fees there.

 

[TractorGunn]

Wife and daughter wanted pizza today, so we ordered it, went and got it, and they wanted a tip.

Just think about that, whether you get it yourself, or they bring it, they want a tip either way.