Why I Don't Tip
Joseph Roberts
I know that I will probably lose some friends over my newfound practice of not tipping waiters and bartenders, but who needs friends with all the money I'm going to save from not tipping?
My contention with tips is that instead of being an occasional reward for going above and beyond the call of duty, they have become something expected. Now tipping is an excuse for businesses not to pay their employees fair wages-a way to get you to pay for that, too.
It's almost as if the managers of these businesses at some point observed that their employees are making money through other sources, and then reason that since they have enough money, they can afford to cut their workers' pay with a clean conscience. This is reflective of the greedy and competitive-rather than cooperative-nature of capitalism. Businesses look for ways to cut costs in order to be more efficient and competitive and have no problem eating their own.
This mentality is enforced as a maxim of the trade and not questioned because it's become such a convention. People are happy to use the actions of other people to justify their own-it's tradition, everyone's doing it, etc. I know that many might respond by accusing me of being cheap or uncouth, but what those people obviously don't realize is that I don't care, and that the size of my wallet isn't an excuse for someone else not to pay the people who work for them something more than slave wages.
There are very rare occasions when I find it appropriate to tip. If I order a drink that requires the skills of a seasoned mixologist and it's made to perfection and delivered promptly on a busy night, then I don't have a problem tipping for that drink. Once at Kyoto I ordered a Bailey's on the rocks, but Bailey's was out of stock. The guy serving me left work and went to the store to buy a bottle of Bailey's. He earned his tip.
If you work at a place like Coda, which charges gratuity, don't bother asking me how much change I want back. The answer is always going to be "all of it," even if the food is great, which it usually is at Coda, but how much of that goes to the person who made my delicious crawfish etouffee? The people who wait on you generally make much, MUCH more money than the people who actually make the food you eat, which takes greater skill than to refill my glass of water, once. This is especially true of sushi rollers and anyone who ever prepares a steak. If the cooks were the ones receiving tips that compared to that of the servers, then it wouldn't be such a fearful thing to send something back if it is not "made right."
I had a part time job at Big Star Grocery in Farmerville growing up-bagging, sweeping, stocking, etc. We're "on our feet" all day, just like bartenders and servers, and we have our busy days, too. Just imagine swaths of gleeful minorities all coming to shop on the same day, and you get to carry out truckloads of free groceries for them, and then find a way to stuff everything into their cars which are already full from every other store they looted at the beginning of the month. Rain, sleet and snow, never squashing the bread or cracking the eggs, and was tipped once or twice in the 8 months I worked there.
As much as we all complained about our pay, we never complained about not being tipped because the thought barely crossed our minds. I was doing my damn job, as much as I hated it, and was at least paid minimum wage for the work. If I had been tipped more, I wonder if my boss would have looked for a way to pay me a couple bucks an hour. He was a greedy old bastard, so probably.
At one point in the twentieth century there were vibrant and powerful trade and labor unions that actually got things done. But during that time, quite unlike our own, people had more backbone and were willing to stand up for themselves en masse when they felt they were being exploited or treated unfairly, even if it meant losing their jobs. Unfortunately, that changed with the advent of social movements pushing for equality for women, ethnic minorities, and currently-and in the same way-gays. Those efforts were noble and necessary-still are-but they shifted the center of gravity of social concern away from laborer rights and redirected it in favor of greater civil liberties in a way that never fully counterbalanced.
The people who serve you in bars and restaurants make bank anyway; that's why those positions are so coveted. I work in The Write Place as an English tutor, and I can't tell you how many people have gotten A's on their papers because of the correctional job I pulled out of my ass in my sleep. Have I been tipped? No, and that's why I'm not tipping the next person who refills my glass of water once in an evening, because it's your job and it isn't my problem if you're not paid enough to do it. It's your problem, and you need to make it your boss's problem. Take a damn risk every now and then.