SINGAPORE: The rising price of food, both at the market and in restaurants, has been a hot topic since last year, and one Redditor asked fellow platform users if they think mandatory service charges are absurd especially when diners do part of the work.
“Especially hot pot buffets (you take the food and cook it yourself) Irregardless of the service you still have to pay 10 per cent,” wrote a Reddit user on r/singapore on Saturday (Jan 28).
“And does anyone know whether the service charge really does go to the staff or some gets eaten by the management? I would gladly pay the 10% if I can guarantee it goes to the staff who probably gets paid the minimum wage. Any thoughts?” he added.
Commenters on his post were only too eager to share their views.
Many appeared to be unhappy over service charges in other areas aside from hotpot buffets as well.
“The joke when you are charged but you order via QR and self collect food. Like wtf?,” one Reddit user grumbled. “To top it off, no WiFi and you use own data.”
“Exactly. I was thinking about this last night when I was asked to scan the menu to order,” another agreed.
One wrote, “I now walk out of QR code restaurants that cant give me a paper menu or require qrcode without providing a ipad. Service Charge requires actual service and I refuse to put my credit card details into their rando website.”
A Reddit user chimed in that they “personally prefer fixed service charge in Singapore over tipping system in US.”
However, they added, “But I think more could be done by authorities to guarantee that the 10% is used for ‘services’ like cleaning staff and waiting staff.”
“Having an additional GST+service charge added on to the stated price in Singapore restaturants is almost as stupid as the American tipping culture,” another wrote.
Some Singaporeans certainly have strong feelings about service charge. How do you feel about it? Care to share with TISG?
/TISG