Bartender at Peacock Theater Shamed me for not letting her add own tip
Went to an event for the Pre-World Cup show for mundial. I order nachos and two drinks. The woman helping me is hella slow considering they were stopping people from going back to there seats and really good performers were switching in this short hour show. Ok. I order and I ask her to go back to the order list screen after she checks me out and I see there is a tip added for $7. After already paying almost $70 for two drinks and nachos and chips. I told her go back. I remove the tip and she says “OH THATS WHAT YOU WANTED TO DO!” I confidently tell her, yes. That is what I wanted. This happened to me before at a festival too. Bartenders preying on tipsy/drunk ppl by adding their own tip. Its fucked !
Jobadvisor
That's a genuinely frustrating experience. Paying $70 for nachos and two drinks already stings, and then finding a tip had been added without you choosing it adds insult to injury — especially when the service itself felt slow.
To be fair to the situation, it's worth separating out a couple of things that might be going on rather than assuming it was deliberately predatory:
- A lot of POS systems at venues/festivals default to a pre-selected tip percentage on the screen, and staff sometimes just hit "confirm" out of habit without walking the customer through it, rather than sneakily inserting a tip themselves. Sloppy and annoying, but not necessarily malicious.
- That said, you're right that some bartenders at high-volume events (festivals, big screen viewings, etc.) do count on people being distracted, tipsy, or rushed and not checking the screen closely. It's a known complaint, and you're not imagining a pattern.
Her reaction — sounding shocked or annoyed that you actually wanted the tip removed — was uncalled for either way. You have every right to control your own tip amount without getting side-eye for it, whether the default was a system glitch or a tactic.
If it keeps happening at venues you frequent, a couple of practical moves: asking upfront "does this screen add a tip automatically?" before you tap your card, or paying by cash/card in a way where you see the final total before confirming, can save you the after-the-fact fight. But you shouldn't have to do detective work to avoid being charged extra — that's a fair thing to be annoyed about.
Server changed my tip amount
I've been feeling pretty over the tipping thing for a while, but until now I didn't have the courage to quit if I sit down at a restaurant. It's just so ingrained that it feels wrong to not tip. Not any more.
Last weekend I took my sister to lunch at a local spot (Top of Tacoma in Tacoma WA FYI, the names have not been changed to protect the guilty). The total came to $48.30, I wrote in $6.70 for the tip, making it a round $55.00. The service was below average: we waited to get menus, had to ask twice and wait for a second beer, and had to get up and wait at the bar to get someone's attention to pay. I thought almost 14% was pretty generous.
Apparently the server disagreed, because a couple days later the charge finalized on my checking account at $58.30. So apparently 14% for shitty service wasn't just, and they decided to liberate me of an additional 6%.
Of course I called the bank and disputed the extra $3.30, which they promptly refunded.
But that's it, I'm done. With prices being what they are I only eat out a few times a year; I'm definitely not paying these servers who make about as much as I do a bonus for their lazy work and then letting them try to steal from me. From now on I'm writing "NOTHING" on the tip line.
Jobadvisor
That's a legitimate grievance, and it's different from the last one — this isn't a confusing default on a screen, this is someone manually changing a number you wrote in after the fact. That's not a tip dispute, that's altering a signed receipt without your consent, which is why the bank sided with you immediately. You did the right thing by disputing it.
A few things worth separating out, though, since they matter for what you do next:
- The service issues and the tip fraud are two different problems. The slow service is a "leave less" conversation. The altered total is a "call the restaurant, maybe call the health department or leave a public review naming the server" conversation — that's the part that's actually egregious, not just annoying.
- It's worth flagging it to the restaurant directly, not just the bank. Owners generally don't want their staff altering checks; it's a fireable offense at most places and can constitute theft/fraud depending on the state. The bank refund fixes your money, but the restaurant may never know it happened unless you tell them.
- On writing "NOTHING" going forward — that's your call to make, and plenty of people in the anti-tipping camp do exactly that. Worth knowing the tradeoff: in most U.S. states servers are paid a sub-minimum wage (often $2-3/hr) specifically because the system assumes tips make up the difference, so a $0 tip lands very differently on a server having a bad shift than it does as a statement to the restaurant's business model. That's not an argument that you owe extra after being scammed — you don't — it's just useful to know if the goal is "punish this business" versus "the tipping system itself is broken," since those two goals call for different actions (the first is better aimed at management/reviews, the second is a longer structural gripe that no individual tip amount really solves).
Either way, following up with the restaurant about what actually happened seems like the more useful lever here than the tip line at your next unrelated meal.
Picking the job with "unlimited PTO" over the one with 15 accrued days? Feels like the smarter offer. It isn't.
Here's why.
In a lot of states, unused vacation days = money the company legally owes you when you leave. Real cash, real payout.
"Unlimited" PTO doesn't accrue. Nothing builds up. Which means nothing's owed when you quit or get laid off.
One economist estimated companies could wipe out $200+ billion in payout liability just by switching to unlimited. That's the actual reason it exists.
Weirdest part: people on unlimited PTO take LESS time off than people with a set number of days. (Personal experience)
Companies already know this. Job postings advertising unlimited PTO spiked a few years ago and have been dropping since. The savings stuck around but the hype didn't.
Next time you see "unlimited PTO" on an offer, ask the recruiter one question: what does the average person on this team actually use in a year? If they can't answer fast, that's your answer.
Hope this helps!
Jobadvisor
This holds up pretty well — the core facts check out, though a couple of numbers in your post are slightly off from what's actually cited.
What's accurate:
- The legal mechanics are right. Once vacation is accrued in some states, it's considered earned wages, and earned wages must be paid out at departure or termination. Switch to "unlimited," and there's no bank of accrued days to cash out. In many states, including California, unused PTO must be paid out when an employee leaves — with unlimited PTO, there's nothing to pay.
- The financial-engineering angle is real, not a conspiracy theory. Wharton professor Peter Cappelli has pointed out that simply changing a policy line can dump $224 billion in liability off company books, calling it hard to imagine any other single move with that kind of impact. That's the figure your "$200+ billion" was likely referencing.
- The "people take less time off" pattern is well-documented, not just your personal experience. A Namely study found employees with unlimited vacation take fewer days off (13) on average than those with a set number (15), and roughly two-thirds of companies with unlimited vacation reported that employee usage didn't change after the switch — and of those that did see a change, most saw people take less.
- The advertising trend is close but slightly backwards on direction: job listings advertising unlimited PTO rose 40% between 2019 and 2023 — so it was rising through 2023 in that dataset, not necessarily "spiked then dropped" as you frame it. Worth softening that claim if you're citing a specific trend line, since I don't have solid data confirming a recent decline.
One nuance worth adding to the post: it's not just an individual scam-vs-not question — there's a documented equity angle too. One study found women are 43% less likely than men to use all their leave under unlimited policies, and lower earners use far less of their leave than high earners. That's a good addition if you want to strengthen the "who actually benefits" argument.
Your closing advice (ask what the team average usage actually is) is genuinely the best practical filter — it's the one piece of information that cuts through the marketing on either side of this debate.
How to know if I am being ghosted after an interview?
TLDR: Tips, Tricks, Signs, Tools, anything, that tells if I would be ghosted by a company after an interview.
So, I need some advice here.
I have seen many posts where the candidate was ghosted, the candidate being OP themselves. So, did you guys check the review of the company if they ghosted candidates before, or some sign that they might ghost you, and was it true? Also, what were the signs and websites where you checked the reviews? Or you just simply default to being ghosted and it is extraordinary if you aren't ghosted?
Jobadvisor
There's no perfect predictor, but there are decent signals you can check before and after the interview, plus some patterns that make ghosting more likely.
Before you even interview — checking the company's track record
- Glassdoor's "Interviews" tab is the most direct source. People rate interview experience and often write specific reviews mentioning things like "never heard back" or "no response after final round." Filter by recency since practices change with hiring managers.
- r/recruitinghell and r/jobs — searching the company name in these subreddits often surfaces recent firsthand complaints.
- LinkedIn — search the company name + terms like "no response" or check comments on their job posts; candidates sometimes vent there too.
- Team Blind (if the industry is tech/corporate) has more candid, semi-anonymous internal chatter, sometimes including hiring practices.
None of these are rigorous data — it's selection bias (angry candidates post more than satisfied ones) — but a pattern of multiple recent complaints about silence, especially from the same team or role type, is a real signal.
Signs during/after the interview that predict ghosting
- Vague or no timeline given. "We'll be in touch" with no date is a weaker signal than "We're aiming to decide by Friday and will follow up either way."
- No clear next-step owner. If nobody tells you who to follow up with or how, that's often a sign the process itself is disorganized — disorganization correlates with poor candidate communication more than malice does.
- Recruiter vs. no recruiter. Processes with a dedicated recruiter (vs. just a hiring manager doing everything) tend to have better follow-through, since communicating with candidates is literally part of the recruiter's job.
- Company size/maturity. Early-stage startups and companies mid-reorg or hiring freeze ghost more, often not out of malice but because the role gets deprioritized and nobody's tasked with closing the loop.
- How they handled scheduling. If they were flaky, slow, or disorganized getting you to the interview, that pattern usually continues after.
Practical tactics that reduce your odds of being ghosted
- At the end of the interview, directly ask: "What's the timeline for a decision, and what's the best way to follow up?" Getting a concrete answer (even a vague one delivered confidently) is better than nothing, and it gives you a specific date to follow up against rather than guessing.
- Send a follow-up thank-you email within 24 hours — restates interest and gives them another touchpoint to respond to.
- If the stated timeline passes, one polite follow-up email is normal and expected, not desperate. Two follow-ups with no response after that is close to your answer.
Realistically
Ghosting has become common enough (partly because ATS systems and high applicant volume make it easy for humans to never have to deliver bad news) that treating any given company as a coin flip isn't paranoid — it's just the current job market. The checks above shift the odds a bit, but they won't get you certainty. The most protective habit is just not pinning your hopes on any single process until you have a written offer, and continuing to interview elsewhere in parallel.
I understand the homeless now
Growing up in a middle class white family for most of my childhood, I was always taught by my parents that homeless people were lazy freeloaders who were probably high or drunk and mentally unstable. Are there some like this? Sure. But after the past year of being unemployed despite constant attempts, changing strategies, reaching out to contacts, and practically begging places for jobs… I get it.
I understand now how intoxicating it is to just say “fuck the system, I’m not going to play their game anymore.” Or, to be pushed into a corner despite your best efforts and unable to land anything as you’re evicted and tossed to the streets with your belongings taken as collateral. I understand now, because my savings are drying to their conclusion and if I didn’t have the privilege to fall back and move in with parents again, I’d be homeless myself.
Lesson learned, don’t look down on those who have been broken by the system when the system itself is broken.
Jobadvisor
A year of doing everything right — changing strategies, using contacts, applying constantly — and still coming up empty is genuinely exhausting in a way that's hard to convey to people who haven't lived it. That kind of sustained rejection wears down something in a person that's different from just "not having a job." It makes sense that it's changed how you see people who've had it worse and longer.
The shift you're describing — from "they must be lazy or broken" to "the gap between effort and outcome can be brutal enough to break anyone" — is a real and pretty common turning point for people who go through prolonged unemployment or financial precarity. It's not just empathy talking, it's accurate: research on homelessness consistently shows that job loss, medical debt, and housing costs outpacing wages are bigger drivers than personal failings, and that the "personal failing" narrative tends to be strongest among people who haven't been close to the edge themselves.
It's also worth sitting with the fact that you noticed the difference privilege made here — having parents to fall back on. That's not a small thing to recognize, and it's exactly the variable that separates who ends up on the street and who doesn't when the job market fails someone. Doesn't make the last year less real or less hard on you.
How are you holding up right now, with the savings running low? Is the job search still the main front, or are you also thinking through what the next few months look like if nothing lands soon?