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Most Americans are aware that, if you go to a sit-down restaurant, a tip of at least 15% is expected. However, what if you aren’t at a sit-down restaurant? What’s the correct tipping etiquette for hair stylists, coffee shop baristas, or the many other places that now prompt you with tip options during checkout?
It seems that, even though we’ve had years of increasing tip requests, people still don’t know exactly where to tip—or how much.
Not helping this quandary is the fact that it seems like more and more places are asking for tips. Sometimes, these requests can get a bit ridiculous, as recently noted by Reddit user Equivalent_Role_6617.
Did This Water Fountain Really Ask For A Tip?
In a post on Reddit’s r/EndTipping, user Equivalent_Role_6617 shares a picture they claim to have taken at the airport in Albany, New York.
The picture shows a standard Elkay ezH2O® bottle-filling water fountain. There’s a sticker with a QR code on it prompting the user for a tip on it.
“Support Essential Workers who keep this station clean,” the sticker reads. It suggests a tip of 50 cents.
“Drink from the water fountain? Did you tip?” the Redditor asks in the title of their post.
In the body, they add, “Honestly, the people who keep the water fountain clean deserve a good wage too, but this is just bonkers.”
What Are These Water Fountain Tipping Stickers?
Following the QR code, one is led to the website FindTap.com by Tap Projects. There, users can leave reviews for specific water fountains, see the status of the fountain’s filtration system, and, yes, leave a tip.
However, it doesn’t seem like this tipping option is particularly popular. At the time of writing, across Tap’s entire network, the site claims that there have only ever been 257 “transactions,” totaling $411.35. Only $128 of that has been generated from refill stations.
To those not familiar with how this tipping system works, the website is relatively ambiguous. Prior to the publication of this article, on the Tap website, one could purchase the same “Support Essential Workers who keep this station clean” sticker for $6.50. The sticker has since been removed from the company’s website.
The Company Responds
In an email to BroBible, Tap founder and CEO Samuel Ian Rosen explains that he was behind the sticker visible in the Reddit post.
“The sticker at Albany was not officially approved,” Rosen states. “I placed it myself during a trip in 2021 for my brother’s wedding, so yes, I went a little rogue.”
The idea behind such a program, he says, was born during the COVID pandemic. His goal was to have all payments go to essential workers. However, Rosen admits that the program was a failure and that no payments have been made.
“The payout model was simple: once a station reaches $50, we pay out 80% to the verified owner,” he explains.
He adds that he hoped a system could be developed to see where each dollar went. “But no station has hit the threshold,” he says.
He adds that, though he understands how such a system could be abused by people who simply bought a sticker and placed it themselves, “only verified venue operators (using gov or official emails) can claim a payout.” Rosen says that “no one has ever purchased” the aforementioned “Support Essential Workers” sticker.
Still, the company is holding onto the $128 that has been generated in tips across all of its devices. Though, they say they’re happy to begin paying it out.
“If Albany Airport were to contact us now, we’d verify their ownership and pay them out with interest,” Rosen shares. He later notes, “Sometimes in startup life, especially when resources are tight, you run tests first and clean up later. But only when you believe your heart and your incentives are aligned with public good. That was the case here.”
Officially, Rosen says that the company is moving away from the system of tipping altogether, removing it from their official app. That said, QR codes for specific drinking fountains still lead to a page in which one can leave tips.
“The majority of user interaction on our platform is around reviewing stations for things like water temperature, cleanliness, and filter changes…not payments,” Rosen shares. He reiterates that his true purpose with Tap was to reduce the use of single-use plastic bottles.
“I believe we need to rebuild trust in public tap water infrastructure,” Rosen details. “A $0.25 – $0.50 refill of clean, tested water should be the default, not a $5+ bottle of plastic at the airport. And as a fellow water bottle carrier and environmentalist, that’s the future I’m working toward.”
Commenters Aren’t Happy
In the comments section, many users lamented the fact that they were being asked to tip on what they said should be services covered by one’s wages.
“Who doesn’t ‘deserve’ a good wage? This whole argument is ridiculous, it’s between them and their employer,” wrote one commenter. “Stop the public beg.”
“Aren’t those essential workers…paid…a salary?” questioned another.
“Rip that sticker off!” exclaimed a third.
BroBible reached out to the Albany Airport via email.