The Tipping Point
July 22nd, 2008 by Tim Uden
For travellers not used to the custom, tipping is one of those strange American customs that can make you feel totally uncomfortable.
For starters you are bribing someone for simply doing their job and the question of how to tip is just as difficult as how much. Many people find the concept of paying a bribe somewhat sleazy and the action of leaving extra money feels a bit dishonest.
In most parts of the world you won’t cause too much offence if you simply pay the amount advertised on the menu, but if you’re travelling in the United States or Canada then tipping is almost unavoidable especially if you plan on eating out.
For years the standard tip has been an additional 15% in restaurants and $1 per drink in bars – that’s right, in North America you are expected to tip in bars as well – however North American attitudes to tipping are based largely on guilt and most people now regard 15% as the bare minimum with 20% becoming the new standard.
In bars in the United States it is common to tip an extra dollar per drink. An extra dollar is excessive, but when everyone else does it you have to do it too, unless not tipping is an advertised policy.
During happy hour, an extra dollar can be 50%. Even 15% is often way more than the profit margin of the guy who owns the bar, yet the bar staff have invested nothing in the business other than their own time.
Some – mostly American – travel guides have huge sections devoted to tipping. Apparently if you stay in fancy hotels you are expected to tip virtually everyone from the guy who opens the door for you to the person who cleans your room. Based on this, I certainly wouldn’t want to stay in a nice hotel in the States.
Fortunately hostels are tip-free zones. The average backpacker comes from a country where tipping isn’t an entrenched custom and the low budget emphasis means that it would certainly be unusual if a guest started throwing their money away. This means that a bar in a hostel should also be tip-free. If it isn’t, then the hostel deserves every bad review they get.
A standard argument is that tipping is necessary because the staff get paid so poorly. I have been told that some get paid as little as $2.15 hour.
$2.15 is not much, but you can afford to pay a little more if you charge more for the drinks. The customer pays the same but they don’t feel like they need to bribe the staff just so they do their job. The whole process of tipping is really intimidating for many travellers and for this reason a hostel bar is often popular with travellers as a hostel is one place where travellers feel they don’t need to tip. Many travellers would prefer to drink in a hostel bar over a regular bar for this reason alone.
Wages are just another cost of doing business and paying staff is the business owner’s responsibility, not the customers’.
I have had low paying jobs like stacking shelves in supermarkets, packing CDs in a warehouse near Heathrow, clearing tables in a bar in Auckland and carrying customers’ groceries to their cars in Melbourne and I have never been tipped nor expected a tip. In fact I probably would have felt uncomfortable if someone tried to tip me.
The American attitude toward tipping seems to be motivated by guilt and the desire to appear generous in front of your friends. In America it is considered bad form to give a bad tip even though the service may be appalling.
It is one thing to tip in Canada and the US, where it is an accepted custom; however it is quite another thing when North Americans insist on tipping when they travel abroad. I, and I am sure that I am not alone here, do not appreciate it when this custom is introduced to other countries.
Most people I know don’t regularly tip, but in Australia it is starting to catch on especially in trendy inner-city neighbourhoods. My local fish and chip shop in San Remo (1½ hours south-east of Melbourne) lost my business the moment they put a tip jar on the counter. Now I drive an extra few minutes to White Salt in Cape Woolamai on Phillip Island, where I have discovered the fish is so much better. My local fish and chip shop lost a regular customer through the selfish act of soliciting a bribe and I’ll never return now that I have found somewhere better.
I don’t know about you, but I think that a fish and chip shop is not the sort of place where you should tip anyway. Even in America I doubt most people would tip in a greasy take-away with no table service.
When I travel in the US I find I can avoid tipping by staying in hostels, frequenting fast food places or food courts in shopping centres and buying most other food and drinks from supermarkets. However sometimes it is nice to go to a bar or linger in a cafe, especially if there is a free Wi-Fi connection and in these cases you are entering tipping territory. It puts the customer in an uneasy situation and making the customer feel uncomfortable is certainly not good customer service.
Fortunately a handful of restaurants in the US are bucking the trend. The Linkery in San Diego is one that I will make the effort of visiting next time I’m in California.
I sometimes like to eat out and I like to be in a comfortable environment where I feel welcome and relaxed and am treated well regardless of how much money I have. If I am paying full price for my meal – and eating out is an occasional treat – then why should I feel that I need to pay a bribe just so the restaurant staff do their job. Really is my meal worth more simply because a waitress draws a smiley face on the bill?
Tipping doesn’t play a big part in increasing customer service particularly when tips are given regardless of service (see “Tip Levels and Service: An Update, Extension and Reconciliation” by Michael Lynn of Cornell University, 2003, and “Incentives and Service Quality in the Restaurant Industry: The Tipping – Service Puzzle”, by Ofer H. Azar of Ben-Gurion University, 2007). If anything tipping only decreases the customer’s guilt.
I wouldn’t pay an extra 15-20% to a used car dealer so why do the same in a restaurant or bar? Restaurants should just raise the prices by 20% (so they can pay higher wages) and then add the tax to the price (advertising prices exclusive of tax is another annoying thing about America that would be outlawed by deceptive advertising laws elsewhere in the world) and then let customers pay the advertised price.
9 Responses to “The Tipping Point”
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July 23rd, 2008 at 3:12 am
You are sort of a cheap bastard, huh?
The tip reflects the quality of service. It isn’t mandatory. If the service was good, 15% for the server (who often splits it with the cook) keeps the staff showing up and working hard, every day providing better and better service.
When you are a single mother making minimum wage, waitressing may be the only way of paying all of the bills. Putting up with being hit on, touched, insulted and dealing with drunks all day isn’t easy.
So while you are keeping that extra euro in your pocket, we eat with the knowledge that the server can survive on their wages and that we received superior food and service with a smile.
Your suggestion that all food outlets raise their prices by 20% is insulting and equally rewards the lazy and the hard working.
Mind you, look at what you eat.
July 23rd, 2008 at 3:57 am
I grew up in California and I’ve never heard of tipping in hotels and I certainly wouldn’t. Are you supposed to leave money in the room when you leave? Ha. I rarely encounter the maid and thus don’t care.
July 23rd, 2008 at 4:00 am
Agreed with silencer. Sorry, that’s just the way it is here and has been for a long, long time.
You can leave without tipping - it happens all the time. But you will be remembered and dealt with the next time they see you in all sorts of ways that you never know. Thankfully there are more people who understand the system who make up the difference from your whining penny-pinching and allow these people to make a living wage through very hard work.
July 23rd, 2008 at 4:18 am
@ silencer: woah woah woah, slow down. Just because he thinks tipping is a stupid US custom doesn’t make him cheap. I also serve at two jobs in the US and I agree with tipping being stupid. I can’t go out to eat a lot of times because I have to take into account a tip and my also-server girlfriend doesn’t let me leave less than $5. What could be a ten dollar meal becomes $15, I have two and its $30 and not twenty. If the person does an exceptional job then tip but its their job to serve. The restaurant should pay the employees wages and as it stands we are basically slaves/prisoners. Illegal immigrants make more money than servers (per hour).
July 23rd, 2008 at 12:04 pm
Tipping is really annoying for someone not brought up in the culture of it. I am Australian and lived in the US for 10 years, and I always hated tipping as a practise.
I remember the first time I encountered it in a bar in Tokyo, where an American bartender was trying to teach everyone to tip. He would hold yoru change over a bucked with the words TIPS written on it, while looking at you in a vaguely pleading and vaguely angry way. That was an ugly introduction to the practise, especially given the sticker shock of Tokyo beers back in the 90s.
Still, in the US it is the way of things. Waiters and bartenders pretty much dont get paid a salary, and all they live on is tips.
It really has little to do with the quality of service. So dependent on tips are the bar staff, that even if they do a bad job, there will be ill feelings if they aren’t tipped. There have been studies on this, and because tipping has become the custom (with complex formulae to work out the amount), it bears little to no relation to the quality of service given. Its best to think of it as an known-in-advance arrangement where you pay the bar for your drinks, and you pay the waiter separately for the service. Not tipping will be seen as a form of theft (hence the vague threats that @mental and @silencer talk about).
It gets even more annoying when the waitstaff have divided up the bar into their own domains. Not getting table service? Head over to the bar and order a drink. Bartender: Are you sitting down? (i.e. do you belong to the table service waiter?). Me: I just want a drink, and I dont want it to be complicated.
Back here in Australia, where the waiters are paid a decent salary, tipping isn’t expected at all (a few coins is fine), and all prices quoted are inclusive of tax and other charges, its really an enormous relief when eating out. I dont feel like someone is begging or threatening me for money. In fact, in my opinion, the service here is quite a bit better than in the US. People seem just as friendly, if not more.
Wouldn’t it be so much nicer to to business where the price is the price, and thats it.
July 28th, 2008 at 9:01 am
NICE GUY EDDIE
Okay, everybody cough up green for
the little lady.
Everybody whips out a buck, and throws it on the table.
Everybody, that is, except Mr. White.
NICE GUY EDDIE
C’mon, throw in a buck.
MR. WHITE
Uh-uh. I don’t tip.
NICE GUY EDDIE
Whaddaya mean you don’t tip?
MR. WHITE
I don’t believe in it.
NICE GUY EDDIE
You don’t believe in tipping?
MR. PINK
(laughing)
I love this kid, he’s a madman,
this guy.
MR. BLONDE
Do you have any idea what these
ladies make? They make shit.
MR. WHITE
Don’t give me that. She don’t
make enough money, she can quit.
Everybody laughs.
NICE GUY EDDIE
I don’t even know a Jew who’d have
the balls to say that. So let’s
get this straight. You never ever
tip?
MR. WHITE
I don’t tip because society says I
gotta. I tip when somebody
deserves a tip. When somebody
really puts forth an effort, they
deserve a little something extra.
But this tipping automatically,
that shit’s for the birds. As far
as I’m concerned, they’re just
doin their job.
MR. BLUE
Our girl was nice.
MR. WHITE
Our girl was okay. She didn’t do
anything special.
MR. BLONDE
What’s something special, take ya
in the kitchen and suck your dick?
They all laugh.
NICE GUY EDDIE
I’d go over twelve percent for
that.
MR. WRITE
Look, I ordered coffee. Now we’ve
been here a long fuckin time, and
she’s only filled my cup three
times. When I order coffee, I
want it filled six times.
MR. BLONDE
What if she’s too busy?
MR. WHITE
The words “too busy” shouldn’t be
in a waitress’s vocabulary.
NICE GUY EDDIE
Excuse me, Mr. White, but the last
thing you need is another cup of
coffee.
They all laugh.
MR. WHITE
These ladies aren’t starvin to
death. They make minimum wage.
When I worked for minimum wage, I
wasn’t lucky enough to have a job
that society deemed tipworthy.
NICE GUY EDDIE
Ahh, now we’re getting down to it.
It’s not just that he’s a cheap
bastard–
MR. ORANGE
–It is that too–
NICE GUY EDDIE
–It is that too. But it’s also
he couldn’t get a waiter job. You
talk like a pissed off dishwasher:
“Fuck those cunts and their
fucking tips.”
MR. BLONDE
So you don’t care that they’re
counting on your tip to live?
Mr. White rubs two of his fingers together.
MR. WHITE
Do you know what this is? It’s
the world’s smallest violin,
playing just for the waitresses.
MR. BLONDE
You don’t have any idea what
you’re talking about. These
people bust their ass. This
is a hard job.
MR. WHITE
So’s working at McDonald’s, but
you don’t feel the need to tip
them. They’re servin ya food, you
should tip em. But no, society
says tip these guys over here, but
not those guys over there. That’s
bullshit.
MR. ORANGE
They work harder than the kids at
McDonald’s.
MR. WHITE
Oh yeah, I don’t see them cleaning
fryers.
MR. BROWN
These people are taxed on the tips
they make. When you stiff ‘em,
you cost them money.
MR. BLONDE
Waitressing is the number one
occupation for female non-college
graduates in this country. It’s
the one jab basically any woman
can get, and make a living on.
The reason is because of tips.
MR. WHITE
Fuck all that.
They all laugh.
MR. WHITE
Hey, I’m very sorry that the
government taxes their tips.
That’s fucked up. But that ain’t
my fault. it would appear that
waitresses are just one of the
many groups the government fucks
in the ass on a regular basis.
You show me a paper says the
government shouldn’t do that, I’ll
sign it. Put it to a vote, I’ll
vote for it. But what I won’t do
is play ball. And this non-
college bullshit you’re telling
me, I got two words for that:
“Learn to fuckin type.” Cause if
you’re expecting me to help out
with the rent, you’re in for a big
fuckin surprise.
MR. ORANGE
He’s convinced me. Give me my
dollar back.
Everybody laughs. Joe’s comes back to the table.
JOE
Okay ramblers, let’s get to
rambling. Wait a minute, who
didn’t throw in?
MR. ORANGE
Mr. White.
JOE
(to Mr. Orange)
Mr. White?
(to Mr. White)
Why?
MR. ORANGE
He don’t tip.
JOE
(to Mr. Orange)
He don’t tip?
(to Mr. White)
You don’t tip? Why?
MR. ORANGE
He don’t believe in it.
JOE
(to Mr. Orange)
He don’t believe in it?
(to Mr. White)
You don’t believe in it?
MR. ORANGE
Nope.
JOE
(to Mr. Orange)
Shut up!
(to Mr. White)
Cough up the buck, ya cheap
bastard, I paid for your goddamn
breakfast.
MR. WHITE
Because you paid for the
breakfast, I’m gonna tip.
Normally I wouldn’t.
JOE
Whatever. Just throw in your
dollar, and let’s move.
(to Mr. Blonde)
See what I’m dealing with here.
Infants. I’m fuckin dealin with
infants.
The eight men get up to leave. Mr. White’s waist is in the F.G. As he buttons his coat, for a second we see he’s carrying a gun. They exit Uncle Bob’s Pancake House, talking amongst themselves.
August 17th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
[...] - bookmarked by 2 members originally found by meggabyte on 2008-07-23 The Tipping Point http://www.bug.co.uk/blog/2008/07/22/the-tipping-point/ - bookmarked by 2 members originally found [...]
August 24th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
stay in your own country if you don’t like the way we do thing here !!!
September 28th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
I have to really disagree with this opinon on tipping. It is not just an American/Canadian custom. There are many other cultures were it done and even more expected and part of life. Also, I have never felt I have to tip in Canada or the Us, I only tip if the service is actually good and if I don’t tip I am making a statement to the establishment that it is poor. In Canada and the Us the serving staff make less Salaries with the knowledge that some of their income will be tips. In other countries such as Switzerland the tip is included in the bill, so the servers have a wage that already includes what Canadians/Americans make in tip. The only difference being if the staff did a bad job in Switzerland there still going to make the same money. But in Us/Canada bad service equals less money. I do agree that you shouldn’t go about tipping in Countries and places where its not expected. But to call tipping a Canadian/American custom alone is a very false statement.