I’d Like to Pay with Cash, Because Your iPad POS System Is Going to Guilt Me into Tipping You $1 for Pouring Me a Coffee

Do you take cash? Great, I’d like to pay for my coffee with that, because although your iPad POS system is very trendy and does that cool 180• flip to let me sign, it also guilts me into a ridiculous amount of over-tipping.

When I’m paying for coffee with cash, I’m happy to leave the good change in the tip jar (unless I’m hoarding quarters for laundry). I’ll even throw a whole dollar bill in once a week, or if our back-and-forth is particularly witty and/or flattering.

It was so cool when you guys started taking cards, with no minimum! In an understated but trendy non-chain coffeeshop Brooklyn! The kind of place where people are so boho chic you can’t tell if they’re celebrities or squatters! It was almost too good to be true, which of course, I now realize, it was.

When you first flipped the iPad around for me to sign, I was impressed. It was like you were a convivial Italian immigrant who’d thrown pizza dough in the air and then caught it while it was still spinning, although, in hindsight, what you did took a lot less hand-eye coordination.

But then I saw something truly horrifying: five different options for gratuity on a $2 coffee. It even tried to explain how tipping worked, helpfully advising me that an 15% gratuity signaled that the service had been “good,” while a 30% tip told the barista, and the world, that I’d received the “best service ever!” How much service is involved in pouring a coffee? I wanted to ask. Also, what kind of monster tips 15%?

I of course tipped 30%, because it’s only 60 cents, and also I’m pretty sure you can see how much I tip, and I want to be able to come back here?

But now every time I pay for a coffee with my card, I feel like I need to do the same.

Not tipping on things like a coffee order is easy, but hitting a “no tip” button is not. It’s hard for me to imagine a situiton in which I’d feel comfortable pressing “no tip,” even if you messed up my order, insulted my family, and made me sit through a subway performance. In America, the standard way to say “FUCK YOU” to servers is by tipping 15%.

So I’ll pay for this coffee with cash, and when you give me change, could you make it as many quarters as possible? I’ve been meaning to do sheets.