‘Tipping’ Over the Cultural Iceberg

Revealing the Truth About Gratuity

Tipping is one of those acts that is often referred to as a ‘custom’. When a foreigner stumbles upon the topic whilst conversing with a native-tipper, they are likely to receive an explanation that is 90% pride and 10% history. But tipping is not one of those customs. It's far more economical than cultural, and despite the evidence and experts and number-crunching not quite adding up to support the current situation, it still exists (not in all places of course).

The United States of America is famous for its tipping culture. Within certain sectors of the service industry, workers are eligible to receive optional tips on top of their salaries. A received tip is mark of exceptional service and a reward and incentive to continue to provide the customer excellent care. What’s more is that these professionals technically don’t have a fixed wage [1], thus can earn more for their hard work. Sounds pretty good, right? After all, these jobs are necessary and gruelling but hardly exciting or intellectually stimulating. It’s a good starting point for young people, and teaches them the value of hard work that goes into achieving the American Dream™.  

What they never tell you is that the American Dream™ is dead, and has been for a long time.

‘Good’ or ‘excellent’ service isn’t determined by objective measures – which don’t exist, if you really think about it – but by the fairness of the waiter’s skin, the size of the waitress’ breasts or the inebriation level of the customer. People that defend tipping as ‘fair’ seem to forget that there is no objective manner in which it can be judged, and the trends that emerge from studies reveals grave gender and racial bias. Michael Lynn, a professor at Cornell's School of Hotel Administration, has spent his career researching tipping behaviours and his search reveals that men get tipped less than women; white people get tipped more than black counterparts and conventionally attractive women receive more tips than unattractive ones. What is absolutely shocking is that the perception of ‘good’ service only accounts for 2% of the decision-making process when someone considers tipping [2].

Tipping is optional, but only in the legal phrasing of it. There is an unquestionable understanding of the struggles of reaching minimum wage without tips, perfectly illustrated within Reservoir Dogs, in the scene where the characters around the table are trying to convince Mr. Pink to tip their waitress [3]. In actuality, a customer contributes far more to a waiter’s wage than the employer, as only about $1 of the $7 minimum wage is earned from the manager. The rest has to be earned in tips, a fact that tippers are well aware of, thus are silently forced to contribute to this practice. This sets a dangerous precedent. It is clearly endorsing a business model where the actual employer is not responsible for his/her employees, to the point that he is not responsible for the wages that they take home after a shift. In most other professions, an employer who didn’t pay his workers the wage they were entitled to would be liable to prosecution, but the same judiciary somehow decided that the workers in certain professions should be left more vulnerable and compensated through tips. It has resulted in a social structure that allows certain workers to be underpaid, presents tipping as (nearly) mandatory, but refuses to replace the tipping culture with a fixed service charge; a system that will eradicate the frustration of a customer, the nonchalance of a employer and ultimately empower the worker.

So why continue with this illogical system? Alas, tipping is all about power play. Some experts speculate that tipping is a form of social equalisation, allowing people to feel good about themselves when they willingly contribute to someone’s welfare and can decide the extent to which they can contribute [4]. The biggest issue that customers have with the fixed service charge is that the power to affect someone’s life is taken away from them; whether that effect be positive by tipping over the required amount, or negative by under-tipping to show passive aggressive dissatisfaction. Another factor is the NRA (no, the other one: National Restaurant Association), which lobbies far and wide to ensure the stifling of the tipped workers’ wages, despite the polls showing that majority of people are ready to rid and replace the system [5]. Apart from the joy of satisfying their conservative views, the NRA also enjoy higher profits through this system; reports from almost all parts of the food industry shows how restaurant and fast-food businesses have had huge turnover despite the recent economic crash. The focus of tipping is primarily on restaurant servers, mostly because they make up 75% of tipped workers [6].

Tipping also has an interesting history. It was brought over by rich Americans who travelled through Europe, and they wanted to show off their cultural awareness. The initial action was met with resistance, as Americans considered it anti-democratic and promoting class divide, however, it made it into the law due to the influence of the affluent ruling class. Several sectors of the workforce unionised to make their displeasure heard, with the exemption of waiters and waitresses. Thus, tipping had been firmly established. It gained further popularity through the American industrialisation and abolishing of slavery, through the new working class leaving money on the counter of fast food restaurants, where newly freed slaves were employed [7]. Of course, tipping in different regions of the world will have their own hopefully-not-so-dark origins but the overarching theme reveals that the tradition is very much about a sense of entitlement, expecting of servitude and establishing control through seniority. Whilst developed nations such as the USA clamour on and on about the equality of all kinds when in a political arena, they often forget to introspect and change their own culture to set a true example.

Alas, tipping not only has an unfavourable past, but also an equally unfavourable present. It is the fastest growing industry, with the highest amount of replaceable labour. It is the highest employer of women, specifically women of colour, often underpaid depending on their fluency in communication or education status. This means that servers depend even more on tips in order to survive. And what do you get when you mix desperate women and rich aristocrats? Highest rates of sexual harassment in any profession, because the “customer pays your bills, not your employer” [7]. When a server receives a pay check that says ‘This is not a pay check’ because their wages are so low that all of it is taxed, they are forced to tolerate unwanted advances and pressured into objectifying themselves. When there is a discussion about tipping, it is mainly dominated by the economics of it, completely ignoring the social and philosophical implications of a system that is completely oppressive and backward.

The title suggested some kind of a revelation, but I have not mentioned anything in this post that hasn’t been mentioned before. There is no new perspective to be offered; tipping is oppressive when it is the only means of earning a living. I truly believe that an individual customer should not have the power to reward/punish in monetary terms, which only encourages the divide between the served and the server. Whenever I think about tipping, I am always reminded of a concept within Athenian democracy, the aim of which was to eliminate any differences between the governing and the governed in order to establish true equality within a state. The best way to ensure objectivity is to divest the system of any mechanism which will promote corruption, and this would prevent lobbying bodies to use tipping as a means of ensuring profits whilst controlling the livelihoods of people.

The whole idea of capitalism was that the market must decide the worth of labour and products, however the unholy mixture of politics and business is revealing a very ugly side of human nature, and I just hope that we can overcome it. 

References

[1] - Division of Communications, Wage and Hour Division, U.S. Department of Labor (2017). Wage and Hour Division (WHD): Minimum Wages for Tipped Employees. NW, Washington: US Department of Labor.

[2] – Lynn, M., & Sturman, M. C. (2010). Tipping and service quality: A within-subjects analysis [Electronic version]. Retrieved [31/01/2017], from Cornell University, School of Hospitality Administration site: http://scholarship.sha.cornell.edu/articles/23

[3] – thebrain100491. “Reservoir Dogs – Tipping” Online video clip. YouTube. YouTube, 22 Aug 2008. Web. 31/01/17.

[4] - Ferro, Shaunacy. “Why People Love Tipping Waiters” Popular Science. Bonnier Corporation Company, 1 August 2013 Published. Web. 2 February 2017 Accessed.

[5] - Rosenfeld, Steven. “The other NRA: How the National Restaurant Association ensures poverty wages” Salon. Salon Media Group, Inc. 28 August 2013 Published. Web. 2 February 2017 Accessed.

[6] – Jayaraman, Saru. Personal Interview. “I dare you to read this and still feel good about tipping” Wonkblog. The Washington Post, 18 Feb. 2016. Article.

[7] - Wann, Elizbeth. “American tipping is rooted in slavery—and it still hurts workers today” Blog. Ford Equals Change Blog. Ford Foundation, 18 Feb 2016 Published. Web. 5 February 2017 Accessed.