Whenever the subject of tipping comes up on social media, folks tend to have a lot of varying opinions about the practice. Some argue that it should never be on the customer to fund the paychecks of service workers and that this responsibility should lie on the shoulders of their employers.
Others argue that this isn’t the reality of the current payment structure for many servers in the United States, so diners should tip accordingly to ensure that they can make a living wage.
But how should one react if a server is taking issue with the fact that a customer is preventing them from earning even more money?
That’s the debate that arose in the comments section of a viral TikTok posted by a TikToker named Lindsay Marie (@thelindsaymarie). She calls out a customer in a viral TikTok for stopping her from receiving additional tips on top of the gratuity included in her bill.
Typically, restaurants will automatically include a gratuity charge for large parties. According to Toast Tab, the standard party number is eight people or more, and the gratuity charge is 18%.
Lindsey Marie says in her video that while serving a party that accrued a bill that amounted to around $1,000, including her tip, she was thwarted from being gifted more money by guests.
The TikToker starts the clip by criticizing a woman in the party who asked whether gratuity was included in the bill.
“Y’all wanna know what’s worse than a heartbreak? When you have a party of 20 and the tab is like $1,000 and the first girl asks if gratuity is included and you say mmm-hmm,” Lindsey Marie says no one else was paying attention to her response, but that didn’t stop the woman from screaming out to everyone that “gratuity’s included so you don’t have to tip her!”
What appeared to frustrate the TikToker even further was that the same customer went out of their way to stop the other diners from giving Lindsey Marie a tip just because she wasn’t giving one.
“Because she doesn’t have the money to tip so she hits zero and she signs for it and the next person is trying to tip me and you tap them on the shoulder and say you know gratuity’s included so you don’t have to tip her,” Lindsey Marie says.
The TikToker explains that as a result of this game of no-extra-tipping telephone, she lost out on gratuities from several other customers, including one who wanted to give her $100 for her service. Lindsey Marie says the same initial customer stopped them from doing so.
“…So then he takes away the $100 tip because you don’t want anybody else to tip me because you don’t have that money to tip me?” the creator quips.
The TikToker criticizes the woman for gratuity-blocking her, saying, “I don’t understand. It’s not your money, why are you telling everybody else not to tip me? Then the ones that tell everyone else not to tip me be the ones that run you the motherf*cking most.”
Her rant created a divide in the comments section of the video. Some folks seemed to think that she didn’t have a cause to be angry. One person pointed out that Lindsey Marie was already receiving a gratuity. “But gratuities included. If it’s included I’m not tipping on top if not I always tip more than 18% depending on service,” they wrote.
Another echoed this sentiment stating that they aren’t adding a tip for the tip. “I’m a good tipper but if the tip is included, I’m not giving a cent more,” they said. “So now we are expected to give more on top of the tip?”
Someone else pointed out that increasing gratuity rates in the United States is more than enough reason to tip on top of one that’s included in their order. “Gratuity be 18-24% of the bill at most places, so yea.. no… I’m not tipping on top of that,” the user said.
The amount that folks are tipping these days is much higher than it used to be: CNBC reported that in the 1950s, service workers were typically tipped 10% for their efforts whereas now, 20% is considered the standard. However, some diners question the logic of percentage-based tipping altogether, like this TikToker who posed an interesting argument using cuts of steak as an example.
However, it seemed some users saw where the server was coming from.
“I don’t think she was mad about people not wanting to tip on top of gratuity but why stop someone else from blessing her??” a user said.
The Daily Dot has reached out to Marie via email for further comment.