A Tipping Tip
I’m off to the USA soon: land of compulsory tipping. Every time I go to a country that tips, I’m reminded of the interminable arguments I used to see on Usenet on the subject. You see, tipping is an artifact of a culture which does not pay waitstaff a living wage, and by tipping you’re propping up a broken system, and if everyone just stopped tipping then employers would be forced to pay, blah blah blah.
Here’s the etiquette of tipping: If you’re visiting a culture that tips, tip the recommended amount. (If you actually live in a culture that tips, you can move on to advanced topics like tipping above or below the recommended amount based on service.)
Tipping might be illogical, but the time to debate or protest against it is not when you’re settling up your bill at a restaurant. Save that for Usenet. Or, to be more 21st century about it, your blog. Arguing over tipping in an attempt to avoid paying a tip just makes you look like an asshole. And here at GeekEtiquette, one of our mottos is “It’s better to be POLITE than RIGHT.” OK, I only just made that up, but it’s one of our mottoes now.
Not sure of tipping etiquette in other countries? I usually find that the Lonely Planet series of guidebooks (my personal favourite; I’m not paid by them in any way) give fairly straightforward tipping advice. Or, of course, there are approximately a squillion websites dealing with the subject.
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Tipping might be illogical, but the time to debate or protest against it is not when you’re settling up your bill at a restaurant.
Amen to that. By not tipping where it is culturally accepted as a way of Sticking It To The Man (or whatever your particular spin on this is), all you succeed at doing is taking money out of the pocket of the poor undercompensated staffer who provided service.
Yes, the practice is somewhat antediluvian but many of us who grew up in cultures which still have that practice worked some sort of job where tipping was acceptable at some point in our education until we got to our Highly Esteemed Positions of Geekery, and the kid who brings your food today may be where you are next year, so help him get out of having to do such menial jobs to keep the bills paid.
Even more insidious, many employers at establishments where tipping is expected will automatically tax at the expected tip rate, so by not giving it, you’re actually chancing hurting the employee in a fiduciary manner twice.
In my experience at least, people (even geeks) from non-tipping cultures are likely to tip happily enough and save grumbling for Usenet. It’s just a practical problem: who do I tip, when, how much, how do I hand it over, do we make eye contact, can I hand over a large note and ask for some change…?
Also, just remembering to tip sometimes gets people. That’s more a company trip problem: they pay for your flight, hotel, transport, most meals… many people travelling for work won’t actually have looked up much about the destination. You go out for dinner, and you don’t actually know that you’re in a tipping destination (among some other crucial things, like “wow, they’re not bilingual in English here”). Oops.
The converse question I’ve seen people stumble on more. “If I am from a tipping culture and I go to a non-tipping culture, should I tip?” People from a tipping culture who come to a no tipping, or even worse an occasionally tipping culture seem very reluctant to not tip, even if tips are regarded as insulting at the destination. (And in addition I have met people who have economic/moral pro-tipping arguments; mostly about a direct economic reward from customer to front-line service without a boss, or government, in the way determining the value of the interaction. Those people are particularly unlikely to stop tipping just because they’re in a culture where it isn’t done.)
No point in even going on about the American tipping ethos, and how it poisons the well in so many countries abroad. Suffice to say that we are an insular, arrogant society, and universal tipping is merely a reflection of that.