Speaking of the dreaded pressure from these tablets, there's a story making the rounds on TikTok about a woman who, when prompted to leave a tip for a $10 smoothie, was actually offended by the machine's reaction when she declined the tip button.
From The Mirror UK:
One woman has slammed America's tipping culture after a credit card machine branded her a 'bad tipper' when paying for her $10.51 (£8.33) smoothie. Taking to TikTok, Charlotte Muller, known as breathe_strength online, said: "Tipping is getting out of hand. I went to a really popular smoothie establishment two days ago to get my fiancé an acai berry boost.
"She [the server] rings me up. She says your total is $10.51 - and I'm like 'Oh, that's an expensive smoothie'. But it's literally Long Island, it's fine. Then she goes 'Do you want to round up?' and I'm like 'No, how about you round down' but I didn't say that.
"I pay with my card and I'm prompted to leave a tip and it's automatically highlighted at 20 per cent. In my head I'm like 'I'm not tipping'.
"I'm literally just grabbing my smoothie and leaving. I do tip if I'm sitting at the establishment or I'm using their things - but I'm paying a top dollar for this smoothie so I click no tip.
"Then an alert comes up on the credit card machine all in caps - it says 'bad tip'. When I tell you, I stood there and waited for my smoothie embarrassed. I literally got shamed from a credit card machine."
Following the experience, Charlotte has been left wondering whether her server added more to her bill in the first place to get more money out of her.
Commenting on her video, one user said: "I don't understand tipping. I'm supposed to tip my wedding photographer but not tip my plumber? It doesn't make sense."
Honestly, making sense of the tipping culture here in America is quite challenging. It's entirely perplexing.
As a society, we should start questioning why we're willingly giving away more money for services that are already exorbitantly priced, especially given the current state of inflation.
