Tips on tipping.
Aug. 4th, 2011 03:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexandraerin10 Handy Rules For Tipping.
(Spoiler Warning: With remarkably few exceptions, almost all of the 10 rules are tip 20%.)
Obviously this article is aimed at the United States and our particular "tip culture". When I was younger and somehow even more foolish than I am today, I thought this whole thing was backwards and stupid and that when I had a chance I would refuse to participate in it. Not by avoiding patronizing any establishment that didn't build a living wage for its employees into its prices, but by striking a bold blow for truth and justice and the rights of workers by pointedly not tipping, while suggesting to the servers that if they all sought jobs with a better base pay restaurants would be forced to end the charade once for and all.
Fortunately, I outgrew this notion before I had a chance to act on such high-minded, revolutionary, and thoroughly original ideals. It's a sobering thing to look back on one's life and realize how one managed to avoid becoming part of the problem only through sheer lack of opportunity.
It's a sobering thing, too, to realize that there are a lot of people out there who made it to the age of personal dining responsibility and who do still think that way.
Tipping is optional, right? No one charges you with theft or fraud if you don't do it, right? That means it's optional and that means it's your choice.
Yes, technically tipping is optional. A lot of things that are expected of you when you interact with other human beings in public are technically optional. You have the option of treating the cashier at the grocery store as a human being or not. You have the option of treating the assistant to the person you're doing business with as more than a piece of office furniture or not. You have the option of giving courtesy to your fellow human beings and treating them with dignity and respect... or not, as you see fit.
And when it comes to interacting with people in tipping situations, if you choose not to exercise normal levels of courtesy and respect you can even take things further, as you have the further option of rewarding their bringing of food to your table by taking food off of theirs.
I've seen it put this way: if you can't afford the tip, you can't afford the meal... that sort of lesson ought to be taught in school, right along with a greater focus on logic, civics, and public responsibility.
If you still have doubts about the inflexibility of a "baseline" tip, I recommend some further reading courtesy of The Onion: 10% Tip Teaches Waitress Valuable Lesson.
(I tip a fifth of my hat to slacktivist on this one... yeah, I still am conflicted about his choice to join the Patheos community, but on the balance I've decided to stick with him.)
(Spoiler Warning: With remarkably few exceptions, almost all of the 10 rules are tip 20%.)
Obviously this article is aimed at the United States and our particular "tip culture". When I was younger and somehow even more foolish than I am today, I thought this whole thing was backwards and stupid and that when I had a chance I would refuse to participate in it. Not by avoiding patronizing any establishment that didn't build a living wage for its employees into its prices, but by striking a bold blow for truth and justice and the rights of workers by pointedly not tipping, while suggesting to the servers that if they all sought jobs with a better base pay restaurants would be forced to end the charade once for and all.
Fortunately, I outgrew this notion before I had a chance to act on such high-minded, revolutionary, and thoroughly original ideals. It's a sobering thing to look back on one's life and realize how one managed to avoid becoming part of the problem only through sheer lack of opportunity.
It's a sobering thing, too, to realize that there are a lot of people out there who made it to the age of personal dining responsibility and who do still think that way.
Tipping is optional, right? No one charges you with theft or fraud if you don't do it, right? That means it's optional and that means it's your choice.
Yes, technically tipping is optional. A lot of things that are expected of you when you interact with other human beings in public are technically optional. You have the option of treating the cashier at the grocery store as a human being or not. You have the option of treating the assistant to the person you're doing business with as more than a piece of office furniture or not. You have the option of giving courtesy to your fellow human beings and treating them with dignity and respect... or not, as you see fit.
And when it comes to interacting with people in tipping situations, if you choose not to exercise normal levels of courtesy and respect you can even take things further, as you have the further option of rewarding their bringing of food to your table by taking food off of theirs.
I've seen it put this way: if you can't afford the tip, you can't afford the meal... that sort of lesson ought to be taught in school, right along with a greater focus on logic, civics, and public responsibility.
If you still have doubts about the inflexibility of a "baseline" tip, I recommend some further reading courtesy of The Onion: 10% Tip Teaches Waitress Valuable Lesson.
(I tip a fifth of my hat to slacktivist on this one... yeah, I still am conflicted about his choice to join the Patheos community, but on the balance I've decided to stick with him.)