Some of us old folks might remember the difficulty George H.W. Bush allegedly had in comprehending a grocery barcode scanner during his doomed 1992 re-election campaign (I say allegedly because the initial New York Times story turned out to be a cheap shot, the scanner in question being an unusually advanced one with all kinds of bells and whistles not found on others).
Bush's (false) barcode scanner travails came to mind when I encountered an array of recent news stories on changing tipping practices, including how checkout screens at the counters of coffee shops or delis now flash up tip options that everyone in line can see in a way many feel amounts to coerced tipping.
This reminds me of Bush because I've never had that experience and was unaware that lots of others do on a daily basis. Since I'm probably one of the few people who still pay the bills with checks, stamps and envelopes and always carry cash in my wallet (an admission which assumes few muggers read newspaper op-eds), I'm at least as out of touch as our 41st president supposedly was. Because I don't use plastic when buying doughnuts, coffee, or just about anything, I get to avoid the tip screens that pressure people who do into coughing up an extra 20 percent or so.
From what I've been reading, however, we are now apparently being asked to tip for a lot more things than we used to, including lots of things for which tipping wouldn't have previously entered our minds, and the tips are being more aggressively solicited (as with the computer screens at the registers). The amount in percentage terms also appears to be going up, with the old 15 percent standard now presented as a bare minimum, even as inflation swells the cost of the goods and services in question ("tip inflation" on top of the regular kind).
This has resulted in increasing complaints from consumers and even a revisiting of the concept of tipping itself; what it is supposed to mean and when you should be expected to do it.
As someone who worked his way through college by holding down bartending jobs for which a majority of pay was in the form of tips, from rock clubs and campus beer halls to jazz clubs and discos, I've always made a point of tipping on the generous side (the worst sin in this regard was to be stingy when it came to fellow bartenders)--if the service was at least passable, then 15 percent, if it went beyond that, a higher percentage.
But it never felt like an obligation because it was based on the quality of service and therefore contingent. And if the service was truly terrible, I felt justified in not tipping at all, and still do.
I've always assumed that a certain mutually beneficial incentive system was involved, wherein the value of the gratuity was tied to the quality of the service, thereby enhancing both the pay of the waiter and the dining experience of the customer. Indeed, the worst service I ever experienced was at an all-inclusive resort in the Bahamas where the tip was automatically included in every bar and restaurant charge.
The first story I came across about shifting tipping practices was an Associated Press piece which quoted a 38-year Philadelphia barista to the effect that "Tipping is about making sure the people who are performing that service for you are getting paid what they're owed," thereby demonstrating precisely the kind of employee attitude that tipping should never reward.
Bartenders, waiters, and baristas are "owed" something not by the customer but by their employers, and what they are paid is (or should be) a matter purely between them, with each party having the right to terminate the labor-for-pay relationship whenever desired. In a logical sense, a person can't be "underpaid" if they agreed to provide their work in return for a certain rate of pay.
I have certainly never felt that it was my duty to keep my waiter housed and clothed and fed; that was their responsibility and theirs only. And there were really only a few areas in which I felt that a tip was expected by both parties--the bartender, waiter, bell-hop, valet-parking guy and maybe barber were about it (although I occasionally dump change in a counter tip cup, but probably less to reward the person ringing up my cinnamon roll than to keep the car cup holders from overflowing).
As a number of commentators have pointed out, the idea of an obligatory tip removes the incentives for quality service and makes the tip essentially indistinguishable from an additional tax or surcharge.
Tipping for everything, regardless of quality of service, would therefore only have the effect of making quality service unnecessary and therefore uncommon. Along these lines, I suspect that the increasing pressure to tip more generously and for more things will ultimately backfire; disgruntled customers might react by refusing to tip for anything, to just about everyone's detriment.
Merriam-Webster defines a "gratuity" as "something given voluntarily or beyond obligation usually for some service."
When a tip becomes obligatory it ceases to be a tip.
Freelance columnist Bradley R. Gitz, who lives and teaches in Batesville, received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Illinois.