A Major Seachange In Culture And I Don’t Know When It Happened

Pierre Corneille in reply to Glyph says:

Only a fool automatically tips someone, and only a fool always does 15% or 20% or whatever number is chosen.

I’m one of those fools on both counts. I see the tip as automatic, and try to always tip around 25% or so. I’m not going to claim I’m not foolish, but I will try to explain myself.*

I look at it as paying the worker for doing his or her job. If the worker takes my order or brings me the food, the standard tip automatically applies. I admit that if a worker went out o their way to ruin my experience, say, by stabbing me with a steak knife and lighting my wallet on fire, I probably won’t leave a tip. But as a general rule, I see it as the standard package of compensation. If the service is below par, I will probably leave the tip and just not go back.

On some level I dislike what I see as the implications of the “if you do this I will reward you with money” feature of tipping, even though I acknowledge that any paying job has this feature and my decision to patronize any establishment also has this feature. I see it as a sort of master and servant thing, where I’m the boss, and I don’t like being the boss. Automatically tipping (mostly the same) amount is my way of getting around this. (Not tipping is a non-starter, in large part because the base wages are low.)

I’ve had several service jobs–and I may have one again after I graduate or drop out of grad school (whichever comes first)–and I really dislike being on the receiving end of that power relationship so much that I also don’t like being on the giving end, either. It’s a hard thing to explain. I know that at times in those jobs, I was one of the surly people James mentions who aggressed passively when my conversation or convenience was disrupted, but most of the time I really did try to do a good job and was often (not always, and not even a majority of the time, but often) treated as if I was being surly when I was something else, such as shy or trying to be friendly. I probably come across as oversensitive, and maybe I am, and I do recognize that my perception of things is probably different from what the case actually was. Still, I want to keep my distance from that type of relationship as much as possible, that is, as much as possible while still immersing myself in that relationship by going to restaurants; the issue is fraught with complications and contradictions.

By this time anyone who reads this comment, if they have gotten this far, is probably saying, “man, that guy should lighten up, it’s just a fishing dinner.” But I’ll add one more thing. I do fear that my attitude is kind of cloying or condescending toward the worker, and while I try to be nice and undemanding, I perhaps also go overboard and maybe sometimes come across as off-putting.

*Disclosure: with one trivial exception (a bagel shop that had a tip jar), I’ve never worked for tips, so I don’t know what it’s like to work for tips.Report

Pierre Corneille in reply to Glyph says:

James,

I agree. The idea of working for tips is anathema to me. I do think that when my job demands it, I can do a very good job, even when it requires dealing with customers. However, even the idea of depending on tips just makes me nervous, and it’s not even the possibility that I won’t get tips. It’s probably a temperament thing.

One thing I should’ve said in my comment is that your approach, looking at tipping as paying for service, is potentially more respectful of the server as a person because it treats them as an autonomous person with control over their lives and their trade, whereas my guilt-ridden, leveling approach is probably, as I said, condescending.

Stillwater,

The other reason is that I know if I throw an extra few buck down, the waiter/tress will be totally psyched. And it only cost me a few bucks!

Sometimes I feel this way, but I wonder whether it’s also potentially condescending.

I once had a (very upper class, very paternalistic) professor (from France) once who related a story of visiting a hotel and shaking hands with the hotel housecleaning person and in so doing slipped her whatever her tip was. He (the professor) was very satisfied in her reaction, which he described as joyous, while I wondered if it would have been kinder to give the tip to her more discreetly and not thereby require a “joyous” performance.

I realize that’s emphatically not the situation you’re describing when you (and I) want the server to be happy with a large(ish) tip. But I just remember how much the story bothered me when that professor told it.Report