Travelling to the US can be a little jarring, and I don’t mean that in a bad way (at least not always). Everything is bigger and brighter, including the people, friendlier and more cheerful. I have to remember to say hi when I board the bus, strike some small talk at the checkout counter but perhaps the most awkward of them all is the mental maths needed to calculate how much I’ll be tipping at the restaurant. I never know how much is good enough and, until recently, didn’t know that tipping is customary besides just restaurants.
If you’ve gone through the same pains as I’m describing, you’ll enjoy today’s issue of The Global Tiller in which we dig into the tipping culture. Where did this practice originate and in which parts of the world does it thrive? How has technology transformed tipping norms?
Tipping, or giving people money above the bill to reward them for a job well done, has a dark history, and not just in the US. It started in the early modern period in England as a way for guests of noblemen visiting large estates to pay something extra for the house staff for making them comfortable during the stay. It then evolved into the hospitality industry as restaurants and hotels developed. The purpose here was the same as you would find in cultures where tipping exists today — since servers are not paid enough wages, customers are expected to pick up the slack.
Believe it or not, until the 20th century, tipping was frowned upon and considered rude in the US while, across the Atlantic ocean in Europe, tipping was commonplace. Travellers between the two places discovered the practice, or its lack thereof, and decided to adapt. In its earliest days, tipping in the US was closely tied to the racial oppression of the post-Civil War Reconstruction period.
After the Constitution was amended in the wake of the Civil War, slavery was ended as an institution but those who were freed from bondage were still limited in their choices. Many who did not end up sharecropping worked in menial positions, such as servants, waiters, barbers and railroad porters. These were pretty much the only occupations available to them. For restaurant workers and railroad porters, there was a catch: many employers would not actually pay these workers, under the condition that guests would offer a small tip instead.
Eventually, it was Prohibition that made this practice widespread. As businesses lost big money, they trimmed down on salaries hoping the customers will pay enough tips to make up the difference.
Interestingly enough, Europeans began to move away from the tipping model for this reason, with businesses realising it was more equitable to add a built-in gratuity fee to guests’ meals to adequately pay employees. In France, for example, a law was passed in 1955, requiring restaurants to add a service charge to bills — a practice that then became common around Europe and other parts of the world — as a way to improve wages for waiters and make them less reliant on tips.
In other parts of the world, tipping customs vary as much as the cultures. In China, Japan, Singapore and Russia, for example, tipping is not particularly encouraged. Of course, the practice differs in places that are accustomed to hosting foreigners but, if you tip in Argentina, you may be breaking the law. On the other hand, tipping or 'baksheesh' is a common practice in Egypt and in Pakistan, where the rot in the hospitality runs quite deep with some restaurants barring domestic help from entering and dining.
But there is a reason why you may be hearing people complain a lot about tipping lately. First is the realisation that it is an inherently exploitative practice, that corporations should be the ones paying a living wage to their servers regardless of the tips they collect on the side. And second is how technology has made tipping easier and is now expected even on occasions where no one personally served you. Even if you order a cup of coffee to go at the counter or get food from a food truck, the payment terminal still asks you to include a tip amount.
Perhaps adding a few cents, or a couple of dollars to your total bill wouldn’t seem much at a different time, but we are living through dire economic constraints with bleak financial prospects. Is it really fair to expect customers to make sure their servers are paid enough, when their corporate heads still pocket millions of dollars in their own salaries?
Digital payments may have made tipping go 'out of control’ but, it seems, technology won’t spare the servers either. Robot servers are becoming increasingly common in restaurants and they are doing everything from bringing food to the tables and clearing them up afterwards. For an industry that has so far relied on the generosity of consumers to tip, is it fair to expect them to compete with robots now too?
For now, the hospitality industry is relying on collective bargaining to make sure corporations pay their due share but, as robots become cheaper and more readily available, servers will lose their bargaining power quite fast. It is high time that we begin to think of alternative options to compensate those who bring our food, make our hotel beds and paint our toenails. If there was ever a need for universal basic income, the hospitality industry would be the place to start.
We’d love to hear from you about your own experience with tipping, and if you’ve ever been served by a robot server.
Until next time, take care and stay safe!
Hira - Editor - The Global Tiller
Dig Deeper
If paying subpar wages wasn’t already the worst, restaurants force workers to pay for a mandatory training that funds lobbying into unfair labour practices. The National Restaurant Association in the US uses mandatory $15 food-safety classes to turn waiters and cooks into unwitting funders of its battle against minimum wage increases.
…and now what?
I grew up in a society where tipping is not common. As Hira said, in France, tipping officially stopped a long time ago. Yet I still remember, as a kid, my parents and their friends tipping a waiter who had been very efficient, the mailman who was always polite, and others. It was seen as a way to reward people’s efficiency and kindness.
But this too has eventually stopped and tipping is not a thing anymore. So, to me, tipping comes always as a surprise and even as an uncomfortable situation: you don’t want to be mean and give the lowest proposed amount but you’re also not willing to give the maximum, which sometimes adds a lot to the initial bill (an addition you forgot to keep in mind when you planned your budget for the dinner).
Many advocates of tipping will tell you it makes staff more efficient. But does it? Do I really need to be asked three times during dinner if I’m doing ok? I’m enjoying my food and very often good company, so why wouldn’t I be fine?
This culture of seeking tips is a practice of the past. Besides the dark historical ties of this habit, it goes against research that shows that performance is not directly tied to the financial reward you get out of it. Why else do we find efficient and courteous staff in countries where tipping is not common?
Let’s be honest, there’s indeed a huge disparity in this vision of work. If we really thought financial gain should come out of good performance, then why do CEOs who fail to perform get ousted with a suitcase full of cash and stock options? Would you tip a waiter who broke the glass or spilled your food?
This argument on efficiency is a facade, a feel-good idea to maintain a deeply unequal system that makes many people struggle on a daily basis to make ends meet, only because a fair wage is not seen as the normal thing to do. Which to me, is actually what makes people less efficient.
The service industry is already a difficult job (dealing with high pressure services, difficult customers, etc), and now add to that, a persistent layer of stress for those who must think about how they’ll pay their bills. Clearly a source of distraction. Studies have shown that companies that take care of their employees, and their personal and financial well-being, are 5.1 times more susceptible to get stronger results and performance from their employees.
Clearly, there are better ways to motivate your workers to do better. And, eventually the end customer, because the generous donor, acting almost out of charity to support those who are doing a job that many people wouldn’t be willing to do.
But charity based on an individual’s commitment comes with risks. Because when customers start to struggle themselves, our collective solidarity starts to wane. This is something that Thomas Hobbes spoke about a long time ago in The Leviathan:
“And whereas many men, by accident inevitable, become unable to maintain themselves by their labour, they ought not to be left to the charity of private persons, but to be provided for, as far forth as the necessities of nature require, by the laws of the Commonwealth. For as it is uncharitableness in any man to neglect the impotent; so it is in the sovereign of a Commonwealth, to expose them to the hazard of such uncertain charity.”
Same goes for companies and organisations, who too are some form of the commonwealth (given that the wealth of the organisation is the outcome produced not only by the shareholders or the CEO but by every worker along the chain). If they leave the benefit of their employees’ labour to the charity of individual patrons, employees will quickly become unable to maintain themselves. It is thus quite uncharitable of our organisations to not provide of their own natural duties.
So next time you’re at the restaurant and the waiter spills your food, ask them to talk to the manager. And once you see the manager, ask them why they’re still not providing a good salary to their employees so they can finally do their job properly!
Philippe - Founder & CEO - Pacific Ventury