Reaching the Tipping Point

Decrying the ubiquity of tipping.

Ed. note: Please accept our apologies if you thought this column would be an exhaustively-researched, thoughtful review of the art and science of cow-tipping. This piece is, in fact, intended as a screed regarding the explosive growth of gratuities in society in recent years. If you seek more information on the former topic, we recommend “Home on the Range: An exhaustively-researched, thoughtful review of the art and science of cow-tipping,” by Dewey Suggs, and “Cow-Tipping for Dummies: A how-to guide for beginning cow-tippers,” by Jimmy Hughes and “My Life Tipping Cows: Just add alcohol,” by Jerry Blovox.

I am not a lousy tipper. I calculate a restaurant tip by computing 20% of the total bill, and round up to at least the nearest dollar upwards; I don’t set aside the tax amount, as Emily Post suggests, when computing the tip. And, I don’t align the tip such that the total amount charged to my credit card is an even-dollar amount, as I witnessed a friend of mine do, years ago - a $6.73 tip - really?

Nor am I a reluctant tipper. I recognize that the U.S. federal minimum wage for tipped employees is $2.13 per hour, and that the lion’s share of earnings for these workers is derived from tips. Therefore, even if service is less than stellar, I generally don’t exact revenge by reducing the server’s tip; in many cases, service delays stem from kitchen productivity issues, which are not within the server’s purview.

No, I’m perfectly content with the symbiotic relationship which exists between me and a restaurant server, a valet parking attendant or a barber. What I take issue with is the growing universe of jobs which now appear to demand tips, jobs which heretofore did not enjoy such benefits.

Before we explore these newfound tip havens, let’s examine the origins of tipping itself. A common misconception is that the word, “tip” is an acronym for “To Insure Promptness,” or “To Incent Personal Service,” or “Toad In Pants.” Well, I hate to be the one to burst your bubble, but none of those is true, not even the toad thing. No, the first use of the word, tip, was in 1600’s England, and was a term used by criminals to indicate that something is to be given: e.g. “Tip me that thing.” Also, if the word developed as an acronym, the appropriate term would have been, “tep,” reflecting the desire to ensure prompt service, unless of course the tipping party in question was, in fact, Allstate, or State Farm or Progressive Insurance.

Further along in its evolution, a tip was provided to a servant; it was alternatively used to describe a bribe. Its roots in America took hold after the Civil War, and emerged as a racist way to compensate recently-freed slaves for labor, rather than actually paying them wages.

In any event, tips are here to stay - boy, are they ever!

One of the more nefarious recent developments in the tipping arms race has been the rapidly-increasing use of point-of-sale payment applications, typically housed on an iPad, or an iPad-like device. Customers are asked to merely “tap” their credit card on the surface of the iPad in order to pay their bill; the next screen displays tip options, helpfully suggesting anywhere from a 10% tip to a 30% tip - each option appears as a button, which the customer need only touch with a finger to choose a tip level. In some such applications “No tip” is an option - sometimes it is not an option. Regardless, with the server, or service-provider hovering over you as you navigate this payment process, guilt is the primary strategy being deployed, driving you to “give ‘til it hurts.”

You would think that gratitude would be the most prevalent emotion informing the tipping decision (you know, the word, gratitude is strikingly similar to a synonym for the word, tip: gratuity. But, no, guilt is the overwhelming choice as a tool retailers and service-providers turn to in attracting tips. Fear is another emotion at play here: the fear that your luggage might be routed to Alaska, when you are headed to Aruba, because you neglected to tip the baggage-handler at the airport, is a very real concern.

So, sure, you could connect with Emily Post, or some other advice purveyor, in order to develop an appropriate tipping strategy for all situations. But, we’re delighted that you have chosen Rule of Three for your tipping advice needs.

Highlights from Rule of Three’s Universal Tipping Etiquette Guide include:

• Restaurant Servers - a server at a restaurant where you sit down at a table, and that server takes your order, and serves your food and drinks, absolutely deserves a tip. Fast food restaurants at which you place an order at the counter, and pay at the counter, and retrieve your food and drinks at the counter does not constitute a tipping occasion, in my opinion. Perhaps making a voluntary contribution to the “Counter Refurbishment Fund” is in order here, because, let’s face it, the counter is doing the heavy lifting.

• Valet Parking Attendant - the conundrum here is whether to tip the parking attendant at the point at which the service is complete (i.e. when retrieving your vehicle), or at both the drop-off and pick-up points in this transaction. Common sense dictates that tipping upon completion is the right answer, because, at the beginning of the transaction, no service has yet been provided. But, I refer you to the “fear factor” which oftentimes enters into the tippable activities equation. I have to wonder, as an example, whether the parking attendant in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off would have proceeded on his joyride in the 1961 Ferrari 250GT California had Ferris offered a tip up front.

• Barber - a tip is appropriate in this case, but, let’s be clear, you’re not paying a premium for the fine craftsmanship of the haircut, you’re rewarding the barber for his ability to foster a stimulating conversation with you. This is why tipping a dentist is unnecessary, inasmuch as there is very little opportunity to have a conversation with a dentist, hampered as you are by the dentist’s constant tinkering inside your mouth, limiting your ability to speak. Likewise, tipping the surgeon who has performed gall bladder surgery on you is not required, because presumably, you have been under anesthesia, and unable to keep up your end of the conversation.

• Bartender - to paraphrase a dictum familiar to Chicagoans at election-time: “tip early and tip often,” because the bartender controls access to alcohol.

• Golf Caddie - my golf caddie career consisted of exactly one “loop,” in which I carried zero bags, and simply chased a cart around the golf course for four hours, and responded every time to the question, “Did you see where the ball went?” with, “No - sorry.” So, based upon my experience, and the lack of value I added to the round, I believe that it was completely justified that the Dalai Lama stiffed Bill Murray for his caddying efforts, as related by Murray’s character, Carl, in Caddyshack.

• Garbage Truck Driver - typically, you don’t interact with the guys who collect your garbage each week, but, if you need to offload a refrigerator, or a bunch of empty moving boxes or a collection of body parts, no questions asked, it behooves you to befriend your garbage truck driver, and by, “befriend,” I mean provide a healthy tip.

• Delivery Driver - delivery of goods has exploded in recent years, driven by pandemic “homing” (I just created that colloquialism - do you think it’ll catch on?), and the explosive growth of Amazon’s rapid delivery services, and its fellow retailers following suit and increased laziness on the part of consumers everywhere. Goods delivered include groceries (Instacart, Shipt), restaurant meals (DoorDash, Grubhub, UberEats) and your actual self (Uber, taxi companies, limousine companies). For the most part, these services are tipping opportunities, except for Amazon, UPS and FedEx deliveries - nobody is tipping those guys - the ability to work all day long in shorts is all the compensation they need. The incentive for tipping in these cases is whether or not you plan to use such services again in the future - these businesses can really hold a grudge, and that is a powerful tipping motivation, in addition to guilt, fear and gratitude, emotions highlighted above.

You know, Emily Post might disagree, but, Rule of Three’s Universal Tipping Etiquette Guide does suggest that, if you have enjoyed reading a particular column, a modest tip is not out of the question - I’m just saying. . .

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