Tipping point...
The story which we carried last week of a group of 13 year olds who went to a diner for the first time without any adults, only to realise later that they had inadequately tipped the waiter for his excellent service is another example of that element of awkwardness to this entire tipping charade.
How did tipping really start and morph from a classist predisposition, where those who occupied high social status left a small gratuity for those in the lower or poor class that worked in the service industry… to restaurant operators taking advantage by paying low wages to staff and expecting customers to compensate for this abnormality with tips?
Some assume ‘Tip’, despite there been no evidence to support the theory, to be an acronym for “To Insure Promptitude”. (Promptitude means “the quality of acting quickly and without delay”). From it perhaps originated the word Tips – “To insure prompt service”.
In the 18th century a tip was a gratuity given to servants, a master-serf practice in Europe where servants would be rewarded with an extra gratuity for excellent work. Wealthy Americans during their travels in Europe discovered this and took it back to the US as a way to feel aristocratic.
Paradoxically, while the tipping culture in American restaurants runs deep; tipping in Europe, where it began, has more or less been abandoned!
As it is, eating out today is expensive, so why do diners have to fork out a tip on top of the bill? What began as an element of etiquette in hospitality is now a question of affordability for today’s diner - particularly at a time where expectations surrounding tipping are not only confusing but also changing.
Thankfully, tipping in restaurants in Sri Lanka is not mandatory. A built-in gratuity referred to as a ‘service charge’ (usually 10%), is slapped on to each check. Letting customers know of this in advance takes the guesswork out of the process for diners as well as enables staff to know what to expect. Some critics may argue that a service charge approach is not as simple as locking in a fair tip. But that’s another story for another day.
One does not have to tip when at the receiving end of substandard levels of service. However, there is expectancy in many hospitality employees that even when their performances of duties are unremarkable, a tip is warranted as a gesture of gratitude for the service provided.
Only in hospitality, unlike in many other industries, is there, this expectation of tipping. What started off as ‘classist’ condescension in the 18th century has transformed into a social ‘equalization’ syndrome; where the onus of making right, restaurant businesses’ refusal to pay a fair wage to employees, falls on the customer. How absurd can it get?
Ironically, it seems that tipping, like other costs, is exhibiting symptoms of inflation – especially in the US, where the expectation of yesteryear’s 10% tip is now as high as 20% – in some cases even 30%. With the rising amount of money spent on tipping, does it tip the scales towards encouraging better customer service? Not really.
Do customers tip the server based on the quality of the food, how quickly it was cooked, the presentation, hot food served hot – factors the server has had no hand in? Some may say they do …I don’t.
One needs to understand that it goes beyond the quality of service to servers having a genuine aptitude to engage with their customers. There’s a bit of psychology involved in the tipping game. Get it right and be rewarded: get it wrong and be punished.
Many defend tipping, citing the case that service staff in hospitality rely on tips to complement their low wages thus adding up to earning a livable monthly income. But should restaurant operators be allowed to manipulate not paying a decent wage to workers by transferring this cost to the customer?
What do you say?
Shafeek Wahab – Editor, Hospitality Sri Lanka, Consultant, Trainer, Ex-Hotelier.
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