What is the reason (historical or other)for why we tip based on cost rather than effort?

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I was originally thinking about delivery (isn’t it basically the same effort to deliver 1 or 2 pizzas?). Shouldn’t delivery tipping be based on distance/effort rather than cost of food?

The same goes for restaurants, of course. If I go with a friend and we have the same meal but I have three glasses of wine, and she has three cokes, I am expected to tip more, but the server’s effort is the same for each of us.

Was it always like this or did it change with time?

Note: I’m only trying to understand this aspect of Us tipping culture. I know that tipping isn’t the norm everywhere.

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Anonymous 0 Comments

As someone who has served before, three glasses of wine and three glasses of coke are not the same effort as one each. On top of having to fetch food orders, putting new orders into the computer, taking a high chair to one table, two sides of ranch to another table, cleaning up a spill at another table, your refills absolutely do create more effort. Not a perfect system by all means, but this kind of thinking is what makes serving such a shitty job. Servers are running their asses off trying to accommodate every single person they are serving, and customers often omit a tip because one thing was forgotten. It’s a shitty job, but it pays well if you are good at it.

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