Would You Opt Out Of Tipping While An Employee Watches You?

Reader Bill was getting some sandwiches and paying with a credit card when he noticed something new and unusual on the payment machine. It prompted him to leave a tip between ten and twenty percent, to choose his own tip amount, or to decline tipping entirely. This makes sense in a country where most of us don’t carry much cash anymore, but there’s something about it that Bill doesn’t like.

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We won’t say just yet which company this was, because we’re waiting for confirmation that it’s rolling out chain-wide. Also, the identity of the company and your opinion of the food isn’t really important: What we can tell you is that the establishment is a sandwich shop, not a place with table service. Is this the touchscreen equivalent of a tip jar, or would you feel uncomfortable tapping the “No Thanks” button?

“As a customer, I don’t like being put in a position where I pro-actively have to decline a tip, especially with an employee watching,” writes tipster Bill. He wonders how other people feel about this, so let’s take a poll.

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