The Tipping Point

Assertion: tip jars anywhere one must stand in line to give one's order (such as the "taqueria" where K and I went today) are an abomination, a form of remote buggery. Any questions?

Wow. That's pretty harsh. What's wrong with tipping?

Well, the whole custom is pretty weird.* I think in general it denigrates the service profession. It also is symptomatic of a very ambivalent relationship between tipper and tippee--the implication that the server is at the mercy of the served. This establishes a definite power imbalance and a resulting cognitive dissonance with our belief in a classless society. In Europe, waiting is a fairly esteemed profession, while here it is considered something one does while waiting to sell a screenplay. To a large extent, this is due to the way in which each are paid, and by extension, how each are valued.

When I lived in Detroit, there was a very good restaurant that initially attempted a no-tipping policy: the waitstaff was paid a good hourly wage and an 18% service charge was added to all checks. The experiment flopped. Customers were loathe to relinquish that power. So they went back to the old way.

So, what is the difference between tips for waiters and tips for baristas or tacoistas?

Well, there's not so fine a line between someone who comes to you and who is charged with overseeing your experience, and someone who is essentially a cashier. Do you tip the checkout girl at Kroger?

What about tipping bartenders, then? They stand there, you come to them, and they don't do any more than a skilled coffeeshop jockey.

You don't drink much, do you? Let me put it this way: I can consistently not tip the guy at Starbucks** and yet get roughly the same service. He may not like me, but when it's my turn at the counter, he's gotta serve me. Try stiffing a bartender and tell me how strong your next vodka and tonic is. Bartenders actually enjoy a more or less equal relationship with patrons, because they control the booze--and whether you'll get any. And good bartenders are skilled at an array of nuanced social transactions that are irrelevant to cappucinists. Finally, don't even try to tell me that making a good cafe au lait demands the deft touch required for, say, a perfect Sazerac.

You sound like a total snob. I'm surprised, given all your previous egalitarian invective.

Look, I'm in strong solidarity with anyone who's underpaid. But why should I be goaded into supplementing the wages of someone who is doing what previously required no such expectation of subsidy? In the "true" service professions, for better or for worse, the practice of tipping is entrenched. For a whole host of superficially similar occupations, however, such a custom is an affront and a guilt-trip. The fact that one must set out a container with instructions is an indication that there is something untoward about it. It smells like a racket. And we here at the JoDI don't play tennis.


*In the interest of full disclosure, I spent a good portion of my adult life as a waiter/bartender, and made good money. As a vocation, waiting tables is to be commended for flexibility and the excellent money/time spent at work ratio.

**I don't go to Starbucks and I often leave a nominal tip at [preferred coffee place]. For rhetorical purposes only.