Chattanooga Times Free Press

THE TIPPING POINT

- Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Some of us old folks might remember the difficulty George H.W. Bush allegedly had in comprehend­ing a grocery barcode scanner during his doomed 1992 re-election campaign.

His travails came to mind when I encountere­d an array of recent news stories on changing tipping practices, including how checkout screens at the counters of coffee shops or delis now flash up tip options that everyone in line can see in a way many feel amounts to coerced tipping.

Since I’m probably one of the few people who still pay the bills with checks, stamps and envelopes and always carry cash in my wallet, I’m at least as out of touch as our 41st president supposedly was. Because I don’t use plastic when buying doughnuts, coffee or just about anything, I get to avoid the tip screens that pressure people who do into coughing up an extra 20% or so.

From what I’ve been reading, however, we are now apparently being asked to tip for a lot more things than we used to, including lots of things for which tipping wouldn’t have previously entered our minds, and the tips are being more aggressive­ly solicited (as with the computer screens at the registers). The amount in percentage terms also appears to be going up, with the old 15% standard now presented as a bare minimum, even as inflation swells the cost of the goods and services in question (“tip inflation” on top of the regular kind).

This has resulted in increasing complaints from consumers and even a revisiting of the concept of tipping itself; what it is supposed to mean and when you should be expected to do it.

As someone who worked his way through college by holding down bartending jobs for which a majority of pay was in the form of tips, I’ve always made a point of tipping on the generous side if the service was at least passable, then 15%, if it went beyond that, a higher percentage.

But it never felt like an obligation because it was based on the quality of service and therefore contingent. And if the service was truly terrible, I felt justified in not tipping at all, and still do.

The first story I came across about shifting tipping practices was an Associated Press article which quoted a 38-year Philadelph­ia barista to the effect that “Tipping is about making sure the people who are performing that service for you are getting paid what they’re owed,” thereby demonstrat­ing precisely the kind of employee attitude that tipping should never reward.

Bartenders, waiters and baristas are “owed” something, not by the customer but by their employers, and what they are paid is (or should be) a matter purely between them. In a logical sense, a person can’t be “underpaid” if they agreed to provide their work in return for a certain rate of pay.

I have certainly never felt that it was my duty to keep my waiter housed and clothed and fed; that was their responsibi­lity and theirs only. And there were really only a few areas in which I felt that a tip was expected by both parties — the bartender, waiter, bellhop, valet-parking guy and maybe barber were about it.

As a number of commentato­rs have pointed out, the idea of an obligatory tip removes the incentives for quality service and makes the tip essentiall­y indistingu­ishable from an additional tax or surcharge.

Tipping for everything, regardless of quality of service, would therefore only have the effect of making quality service unnecessar­y and therefore uncommon.

Merriam-Webster defines a “gratuity” as “something given voluntaril­y or beyond obligation usually for some service.”

When a tip becomes obligatory it ceases to be a tip.

Bradley R. Gitz lives and teaches in Batesville, Ark.

 ?? ?? Bradley Gitz
Bradley Gitz

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