Tip me up before you go-go
The delicate art of tipping
New Orleans relief worker providing scab labour in replacement of Ben Poggemiller
There are few social highs as fun as tipping for services rendered. It is an exhilarating experience enhanced by feelings of insecurity and pride. Tipping is always a gamble and it takes in many factors such as the quality of service I received, the amount that the tipee went beyond the call of duty and whether or not I will ever go back again. Sometimes I tip based on what I think the waiter is expecting. I take that amount and then add a little bit. Recently I was at Olive Garden with my girlfriend. I was wearing a sweatshirt and jeans and my hair was shaggy and unkempt. I had just recently broken my glasses, and they were crooked and held together with electrical tape. I felt the waiter performed admirably, remaining cordial despite his assumption that he was about to be hosed. I gave him a good tip and I felt good doing it.
Do waiters and waitresses deserve to be tipped? Many people love to reference Mr. Pink in Reservoir Dogs by saying, “I don’t tip because society says I have to. All right, if someone deserves a tip, if they really put forth an effort, I’ll give them something a little something extra. But this tipping automatically, it’s for the birds. As far as I’m concerned, they’re just doing their job.” That’s fair enough. If they are paid to do a job and they do it adequately, they are earning their wage. If they do anything beyond their job description, then maybe they deserve something extra. Personally, I believe in tipping a good waiter or waitress, but it’s insulting to have it expected of me, regardless of performance. It’s no longer doing something nice for someone else. I must do it or I will be hated.
But Mr. Pink makes an even more important statement. It is one that I personally identify with. He says, “I used to work minimum wage, and when I did, I wasn’t lucky enough to have a job that society deemed tip-worthy.” I used to be a gas jockey at Red River Co-op, slinging petroleum to every Tom, Dick, Harry, and Sally that came through. Should I not have been tipped because the service I rendered was faster than waiting tables? Is it because people get pleasure out of eating and not from filling up their cars with gas? Or is it because I didn’t go beyond the call of duty? I regularly went beyond what was required of me, helping people with their tires and wiping down unreasonable surface areas with a squeegee, and if I got a few sub-three dollar tips in a week, that was normal.
I also had to do it in -50 C-can’t-feel-your-face-and-your-ass-will-freeze-before-you-reach-the-first-pump weather. So why should restaurant servers get tipped and not gas station attendants? Many people would say that restaurant workers take a lot of abuse. Any gas jockey like me that worked on the day that gas prices went over a dollar per litre will have a hard time sympathizing. It’s far easier to be abused when you know that the majority of people you meet are going to tip you, even if they do it badly. Sure, it’s a hard job, but coal miners don’t get tipped.
An article by Sara Dickerman tries to address tipping by analyzing Cornell University hospitality professor Mike Lynn’s “meta-study of tipping studies,” which “shows that the correspondence between tips and consumer satisfaction with service is minimal. . . . What a tip does seem to evaluate, however, is the diner, and how much she or he cares about what the server thinks.” That is exactly why my broken glasses led to a good tip at Olive Garden.
There’s also the issue of the distribution of tips. Cooks and bussers may become bitter if they are not getting a piece of the action. If they are, the waiters and waitresses may feel undervalued. The obvious solution would be not to tip at all. Everyone does their job and everyone gets paid. Unfortunately, the incredible guilt would consume many of us Woody Allen and Larry David wannabes. Some places, such as restaurants in Europe, provide a different solution. They add a service charge to the bill and require the customer to pay it. It seems to be the best solution, but I can’t feel good doing it. The only question I have is: are you really going to take that high away from me?
