Maybe, maybe not.

Lone data point, but this summer we were in Seattle and ate at the Cheesecake Factory. I ordered the herb crusted salmon. The service was neither particularly fast or slow. Waiter seemed stressed out and I was sympathetic. We ended up getting a new waiter (maybe due to shift change). Anyway, the salmon was not particularly great and I would even speculate it was previously frozen. I felt a bit ripped off by the time I paid the bill including the tip.

Over here in Kuwait, I also order the herb crusted salmon at the Cheesecake Factory, but it is consistently excellent despite the fact that the closest salmon are a seven hour flight away. In Seattle, salmon are practically swimming down the street when it rains. Anyway, the total price in Kuwait was very reasonable and the service was top-notch despite no tip per se (I rounded off the bill).

But, I think the reason the restaurant tipping culture persists in America is that Americans want super-fast service. They want to get in, eat, and bail out. In a lot of other countries, eating at a restaurant is a much more leisurely affair. In fact, it's sometimes considered rude for the waiter to come by your table and interrupt your meal with "How you doing there? Still working on it?"

I often wonder how a businessman pilot who's looking to hire people and lands at an FBO would react in these two situations: 1. Lineman who stares at the businessman expecting a tip or 2. Lineman who refuses a tip and says "No need, sir, just doing my job."

Who would you rather hire? #1 might get a $20 bill but #2 will get my business card.

I sometimes think we're doing people a disservice by conditioning them to expect a tip for just doing their job.

For sure.., but there is an ethical corollary to this... the cognoscenti, have sold middle-class and lower middle-class Americans down the river... Instead of keeping jobs here and working on productivity... they off-shore. Easiest thing in the world for a CEO to do. He keeps his job. He gets lower cost... he kicks his neighbors to the curb.

That frightening percentage of voters, might, might vote differently if they thought that the cognoscenti had their backs.

Ross Perot was right about "that sucking sound".

Maybe, maybe not.

Lone data point, but this summer we were in Seattle and ate at the Cheesecake Factory. I ordered the herb crusted salmon. The service was neither particularly fast or slow. Waiter seemed stressed out and I was sympathetic. We ended up getting a new waiter (maybe due to shift change). Anyway, the salmon was not particularly great and I would even speculate it was previously frozen. I felt a bit ripped off by the time I paid the bill including the tip.

Over here in Kuwait, I also order the herb crusted salmon at the Cheesecake Factory, but it is consistently excellent despite the fact that the closest salmon are a seven hour flight away. In Seattle, salmon are practically swimming down the street when it rains. Anyway, the total price in Kuwait was very reasonable and the service was top-notch despite no tip per se (I rounded off the bill).

But, I think the reason the restaurant tipping culture persists in America is that Americans want super-fast service. They want to get in, eat, and bail out. In a lot of other countries, eating at a restaurant is a much more leisurely affair. In fact, it's sometimes considered rude for the waiter to come by your table and interrupt your meal with "How you doing there? Still working on it?"

I often wonder how a businessman pilot who's looking to hire people and lands at an FBO would react in these two situations: 1. Lineman who stares at the businessman expecting a tip or 2. Lineman who refuses a tip and says "No need, sir, just doing my job."

Who would you rather hire? #1 might get a $20 bill but #2 will get my business card.

I sometimes think we're doing people a disservice by conditioning them to expect a tip for just doing their job.

What this does is build an expectation for many services that tips will be provided even for average service, like we have at restaurants. The tipping at restaurants is even built into the tax laws it is so expected, thus it has lost its actual meaning.

I don't want to live in a world where I am expected to hand out money for service I already paid for at every moment. You are building that world when you tip everywhere.

Gratuitous tipping is how some feel wealthy and superior. It definitely has class overtones, I'm wealthy, you are servant class.

Mike C.

I do have an idea on what could be an interesting and new approach for regular “sit down and dine" restaurants

Step 1: increase food prices by 15-20% and ban tipping

Step 2: place a two question survey on every receipt; Quality of food 1-5, Quality of service 1-5.

Step 3: pay out waitstaff and kitchen staff based on their average scores. An average above 4.5 is worth maximum bonus. An average below 1.5 is no bonus.

Step 4: These scores would also appear on pay stubs as “last pay period" and “average". (Average should also indicate denominator of the average calculation)

This system would provide valuable feedback to the owner/manager of the esaltablishment.

The idea is the full additional food charge is paid out when someone consistently scores above 4.5. However, it will also call out bad servers in a manner currently not available. It would also de-couple bad food from stellar service (and vice versa)

The score on the pay stub would allow good cooks and servers to “move up" or “move on" to better or new establishments.

I am sure there are more flaws to this system than I am aware, but these issues come to mind.

Flaw 1: not paying taxes on cash tips is a “benefit” to servers that would be lost.

Flaw 2: any system can be gamed/cheated. Not sure how to police waitstaff who score themselves, nor how to catch owners/managers who manipulate the actual scores. I imagine some app or sms based system would help, but, again, anything can be gamed/cheated.

Flaw 3: human nature (as evidenced by ratings on Uber and Lyft) is to score 1 or 5. One would want to be clear that a “3” is an average/acceptable score.

Flaw 4: Lost business due to perceived higher prices.

(Full disclosure: I waited tables briefly in my early 20s. I was horrible. This is nothing but an interesting thought experiment)

Define "tipping job".

Why is that job expecting tips and not being paid a proper wage in the first place?

How did that come to be? Because people showing off their wealth starting tipping, then it became expected of everyone, and then your wages go down.

Basically, the more people tip, the lower your pay goes. This is already codified in the laws regarding taxes and minimum wage.

Federal standards:

Minimum wage: $7.25

Minimum wage tipping job: $5.12

Worst case difference is New York:

Minimum wage: $12.50

Minimum wage tipping job: $2.10

That's $10.40 per hour less wage per the minimums.

All economic systems balance so if tipping is expected, then your base wage gets reduced eventually. Basically, employers pay what they must to get the workers, so tipping has already been factored into the equation. If we expand more tipping situations, those jobs will see lower wages.

BTW, the federal law says "tipped employees are those who customarily and regularly receive more than $30 per month in tips." Feels like a great many jobs may now qualify for lower minimum wage.

Expected tipping is guilt trip. Pay the tip or be a cheapskate.

A lot of people no longer carry cash. That's limiting tipping as well.

Mike C.

You beat me to it, Jim. I was thinking about the same concept. Kind of like "liquidated damages" for sub-par service.

Taxes are supposed to be paid on tips. The IRS even has a form for it:

https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-access/f4070_accessible.pdf

Do all tips get reported? Of course not, but they are supposed to.

The most annoying thing are not fast food and carry out services displaying a "please add tip" option at checkout, and they often include 20%, 25% type numbers, and often don't go below 15%. For carryout? No way I tip 15% for that.

Mike C.

I don't know how far down the semantic rabbit hole we need to go but in my case the tipping job was server at a restaurant and delivery driver for a pizza place. I did this while I was in school, which was almost a decade.

The ONLY reason I took those jobs was because of tipping. I'm not going to wait tables for $15/hr. Not worth it. And no restaurant is going to pay me $100/hr, which is what I could make on a decent rush in town. I sure as heck wasn't going to take a delivery driver job for that amount.

I preferred to be viewed as a contract/1099 employee providing a service between the kitchen and the customer. You're paying me and paying the restaurant through me. If you just want the food then order carry out and be gone. Whether I pay taxes on it or not is my business not the customers'.

I can't make you feel like a cheapskate. Only you can do that. The staff will always make more through tips than they will through hourly wages. If you really want to worry about the "little guy" and not your own feelings or insecurities then tip. If you don't want to tip then don't tip. Don't you prefer to be the one to make the call how your money is spent?

I think they're developing an app to get around that problem.

Mike, like you I'm somewhat of a rationalist-idealist. Tipping seems like an economic "distortion" and a form of corruption. The rich restaurant patron heavily tips the waiter and the waiter, who cannot be everywhere at once, pays more attention to the rich patron and less to the poorer patrons.

It rubs me the wrong way and when I'm in America I avoid eating at restaurants as much as possible.

To be sure, I'm sympathetic towards those who are working their butts off for low wages+tips, but as you have mentioned the solution is to pay higher wages. Tips do not have to enter into the equation.

What this does is build an expectation for many services that tips will be provided even for average service, like we have at restaurants. The tipping at restaurants is even built into the tax laws it is so expected, thus it has lost its actual meaning.

I don't want to live in a world where I am expected to hand out money for service I already paid for at every moment. You are building that world when you tip everywhere.

Gratuitous tipping is how some feel wealthy and superior. It definitely has class overtones, I'm wealthy, you are servant class.

Mike C.

That's the main issue. It is expected and considered rude if you don't tip in some situations.

Situations never migrate from "tipping" to "non tipping", they go the other way.

Uber started out with no tipping. Now it is expected. If you don't, your rating goes down and you don't get picked up anymore.

I don't want line service to become an expected tipping situation. If more and more people do that, it will become expected, so they are incrementally causing this problem.

Search youtube for "what happens if you don't tip". There can be nasty retaliation and negative things done against you.

It is like Halloween, trick or treat, there is an implied threat if you don't tip.

There are even cases of customers being arrested for not leaving a tip.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR8a_6Z1zK8

Also, "mandatory 18% minimum tip on parties of 6 or more". That's not a tip, that's a surcharge!

Mike C.

My sister and her husband have gone on several cruises. At least up until a couple years ago. She told me that on some of them, occupants of each cabin were given an envelope into which they were supposed to put a tip for the 7-day or whatever duration of the cruise, and they would need to turn those envelopes in at the end of orientation, that first day. Then, at cruise end, the staff involved in serving each cabin's occupants would receive the envelope, contents to be divided among them. On one cruise, the tip was put into the envelope the next-to-last day, and the personnel were given the envelope at that same day. You can imagine the level of service on the final day for some passengers.

I found this tough to believe, the staff being tipped prior to any services at all. My sister said she really thought that the staff was given a heads-up regarding the size of the tip because some folks received rather poor service. I don't now whether this is true, but someone else told me they had the same experience on a cruise. The amount to tip was suggested at that orientation, or some sort of guideline was provided. The suggestion for her and her husband on one cruise was $700 for five days. I have no idea what a server earns on a cruise ship as far as "salary" is concerned.

Go figure. I'll never find out for myself, as I cannot imagine going on a cruise.