You decide to treat yourself. You stop at the local ice-cream shop and order two scoops of the absurdly expensive salted caramel on a waffle cone. It’s freezing outside, so no one else is in the shop. The aloof twentysomething behind the counter spends — if we’re being generous — a total of four minutes pulling together the order. Before you even get your hands on the stuff, she points to the credit-card reader. You attempt to pay but, before you can, the machine prompts you for a tip. And, for your convenience, it has pre-tabulated the suggested amounts — at 20 percent, 25 percent, 30 percent.
The most convenient amount for me is 0 percent. And I feel no guilt.
It’s basically impossible to walk into a store today without someone behind a counter trying to shake you down for a few extra bucks simply because your paths happen to have crossed for a few fleeting moments.
These days, the Overton window has a tip jar in front of it.
For a couple of years there, I had been lulled into mechanically hitting the highest-percentage tipping option whenever a machine asked. Why not help hardworking folks in the service industry? It got so bad, I am ashamed to admit, that I think I was unconsciously seeking out people to tip. “Hey, Siri, how much do you tip the dental hygienist?” When maintenance men appeared at my home, I’d scramble to locate loose bills to hand them, even though I hadn’t carried cash around since the last time I bought a movie on VHS. I’d end up apologetically shrugging.
No worries, one HVAC technician assured me; but did I have CashApp?
No. Not anymore, I don’t.
Lest anyone think I’m predisposed to being cheap: I’ve always been a generous tipper. It’s a habit I picked up in my 20s, after a stint as a waiter. Caring for the needs of fussy strangers is the most thankless job I’ve ever held. It’s not easy. I get it. Unless a waiter is rude or ignores my requests, which is almost never the case, I’ll tip well.
What about the guy who scribbles my name on a recyclable cup, walks that cup five feet from the coffee machine to a countertop, and then yells for me to come and pick it up? Well, he’s abused the privilege.
A gratuity — as the root of the word suggests — is a payment that goes beyond the agreed-upon price and expresses gratitude for the effort put forth by the server. Tipping is, or should be, a meritocratic act. A reward. Instead, we’ve created a moral hazard. The entire incentive structure is shot.
With it the word “service,” too, which has been stretched beyond recognition. Today, eateries have no problem asking for a tip before you pick up your food. Which is to say, before you even know what level of satisfaction, if any, you might feel about the interaction.
That tip jar sitting on the ledge of the drive-through window? No, thank you. You’ll get a tip when you drive the burger to me.
Do I really need to tip the dry cleaner? How about the owner of the rustic booth with overpriced vegetables at the farmers’ market? According to news accounts, there are unmanned point-of-sale kiosks in fast-food joints around the country that prompt consumers with tip requests. It’s a racket.
It wasn’t always this way. Apparently, tipping, imported to the United States from Europe in the mid 1800s, was deemed corrosive to work ethic, an assault on republican virtue, and beneath the dignity of the American worker. In the book Tipping: An American Social History of Gratuities, early chapters are titled with quotes from Americans relaying their anger about the trend: “Illegal and Un-American,” “Democracy’s Deadly Foe,” “Our Daily Bribe,” “Public Nuisance Number One.” It wasn’t until the 1950s, it seems, that tipping our servers at restaurants became a norm.
“I don’t tip because society says I have to,” Mr. Pink famously explained in his meditation on gratuity in Reservoir Dogs. Now, perhaps I have a touch of oppositional defiant disorder myself, because it isn’t really the imposition, or the cost of the extra 20 percent, that grinds my gears as much as it’s the expectation of gratitude for doing the minimum.
And please spare me your class-warfare guilt trips. If you want a few extra dollars, go the extra mile. Because in the real world, we don’t get tipped for doing our job.