Tipping Over

Photo by InvadingInvader, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Let’s take a moment and step away from the upcoming elections to discuss a matter that affects us all. It is a practice worth “dozens of billions of dollars” that has gotten out of hand and is becoming more and more expensive. I suspect that this may be one of the most controversial topics that I have addressed. I’m talking about tipping.

In the forgotten 1990 film classic, “My Blue Heaven,” Rick Moranis chided Steve Martin, whose character played a mobster in the Witness Protection Program, for tipping the flight attendant.

Martin’s character replies, “It’s not tipping that I believe in. It’s overtipping.”

Increasingly, I feel like that’s where society has taken us, and as consumers, we are along for the ride, not altogether willingly. I remember when 10 percent was the standard for a decent if not generous tip. We’ve blown past 15 percent and are now at an expected level of 20 percent.

And it’s not just the larger percentage tips. The ubiquitous credit card scanners (by way of full disclosure, a company I fly for makes those machines) at store counters have brought tipping into heretofore untapped industries. Fast food restaurants where you order at the register and pick up your own food now often include the option to tip. Mobile apps where you order food and then drive to pick up the takeout ask for a tip.

Now, I’m not a curmudgeon, and I don’t mind some tipping. I’ve gotten some nice tips in my role as the pilot of private aircraft. (One of the strangest tips I ever got was when a woman placed a piece of exotic jerky into my pocket, but that’s another story.) My employers always discouraged passengers from tipping the pilots, but I have seen some passengers throw money at the rampers like Steve Martin’s Vincent Antonelli.

I’m a fairly generous tipper, usually around the 20 percent level, even though it is painful to do so for some family meals at nice restaurants. That can quickly add up to significant money.

I do, however, feel that that tipping is out of control. I don’t fully understand why I should be expected to tip for services that have never received tips before. The whole process now seems somewhat extortionary, similar to this video in which a man is subjected to high-pressure tactics by a credit card kiosk.

Tipping culture is pretty confusing to begin with. Going back to “My Blue Heaven,” why don’t we tip flight attendants? Why do some professions expect tips while others don’t? If the standard is good service and an enjoyable experience, maybe we should be tipping good doctors and happy DMV employees as positive reinforcement.

Who do you tip? Movers? Furniture delivery guys? Plumbers? Car salesmen? Realtors? How do you decide?

And by the way, Snopes reports that the old saw that the word “tip” originates from an acronym for “to insure prompt service” (or something similar) is false. This never made much sense to me since the tip usually comes after the service is complete. The fact-check site reports that the use of “tip” as a verb dates back to the early 1700s.

I’ve tipped at the credit card kiosk at fast food restaurants, but I’ve always been a bit uneasy about the practice. For one thing, how do I know the money is being distributed to the employees?

A few months ago, we were dining out at our favorite Indian restaurant, which was under new management. When the bill came, the waitress told me in a low voice, “Don’t bother tipping. They don’t give them to us.” I suspect this may be more common than we realize.

I’m primarily a credit card user and don’t normally carry much cash (and I didn’t that night), but I think the best way to tip may be to pay cash. That way the server keeps the entire tip. The downside is that the back of the house, the cooks and busboys and the like, miss out. If you’re tipping because the meal was delicious, you want some of the money to go to the chef.

And then there are the wage and tax considerations. I’ve always heard that employers could pay lower than minimum wage at jobs where tipping was the norm. That’s true. Federal law allows a $5.12 tip credit against minimum wage so employers can legally pay as low as $2.13 per hour. This seems wrong, but a lot of people like to work for tips because they end up earning a lot more than minimum wage.

Tipping has even entered the presidential race. (Here’s your political fix.) Donald Trump has proposed a plan to make tips tax-free. And they say that Democrats buy votes!

Trump’s plan, as Forbes explains, would allow for a 100 percent deduction for tipped wages. This is a stark contrast to a Trump Labor Department policy from 2017 which would have allowed employers to take tips from tipped employees and share them with nontipped workers. The Economic Policy Institute called the proposed rule “the Tip Stealing Rule.” At any rate, I’m pretty sure that cash tips are already nearly 100 tax-avoided without waiting for a refund.

It seems to me that most of us would be a lot better off if we insisted on pricing fair wages into our meal costs. It would definitely be simpler for me. And isn’t making my life easier what it’s all about?

In fact, some places already do this. Notably hotel room service. If you ever order room service, be sure to look at the bill closely because they have the normal blank for a gratuity, but they often have already included the tip as a mandatory charge. They obviously hope that you’ll be pleased enough (or naive enough) to add in your own voluntary tip.

That seems like a decent model to me. Make tipping voluntary rather than expected. Make it truly about rewarding great service.

A meme that I’ve seen floating around quite a bit in recent weeks dictates a “New Rule: If I order my food standing up, I’m not tipping.”

That seems somewhat fair, although I’d go a bit further. If I order standing up, pick up my food, and take it to the table myself, then I’ll consider tipping as voluntary for exceptional service. Chick-fil-A workers would probably clean up, both literally and figuratively.

This could become a movement. It transcends red and blue. And I’m far from the only one who seems to feel this way. Pew found that 29 percent of Americans say tipping is more of an obligation than a choice, but another 49 percent said it depends on the situation. Only a third said that it was very easy to know when to tip.

Let’s simplify our lives. Let’s pay service workers what they are worth. And if you feel they are worth more, then feel free to add on a tip. But they shouldn’t expect it and you shouldn’t feel obligated.

And once we resolve that issue, we can attack the problem of all those credit card kiosk donation requests for corporate charities, which, as someone recently pointed out, give the company the chance to look good while also allowing them to get a corporate tax deduction at your expense.

Just give the money to a reputable local charity.