The Gratuity Conundrum

We've all been there. We go to a nice restaurant and we order a tasty meal. We enjoy it, we enjoy the company we've dined with, and we have a generally good time. Eventually the waiter or waitress brings the bill and the age-old ritual begins, thrusting us into a game of manners versus justifications and rationality. In many countries around the world, the gratuity added to the cost of your food is simply included with the bill as delivered. In the US, this practice has never been embraced. Instead, the obligation to pay the salary of the hardworking men and women of the foodservice industry falls to the customer. This task not only sets up an unfair expectation on the consumer, but also on the server in question.

First and foremost, is it not the responsibility of an employer to pay their workers adequately for the services they provide? It seems slightly irresponsible to shirk this expectation to the paying populace. Still, is a tip not simply a means to show that not only was the food satisfactory, but that the various other facets of servitude were exceptional to the point of deserved reward? In this regard it would make perfect sense that the diner patron humbly pay their server for a job well done. This of course leads to the second point of contention -- what if the service provided is simply adequate? Primarily, a waiter or waitress does their job simply because it just so happens to be their job. By virtue of this, one is hired to perform a task for payment from their employer. It would be strange then to consider that you would not think to tip your bus driver for doing his job and driving you to your location. Doing this is the agreement the driver made when he was hired to his position in the first place, and therefore further rewarding him would seem extraneous. So why is it that when a server performs their job and brings food that you ordered to your table that we feel we must champion these actions as both above and beyond the call of duty? Perhaps the problem stems from the employer's lack of willingness to pay their workers a favorable sum for their services. Must we then shoulder the burden of this slight and correct an otherwise unfair occurrence? The answer to this I imagine is objective, but does it not seem slightly socialistic that the everyday consumer paying for goods is all but required to pay more than is expected to ensure monetary equality for the slightly less fortunate? Obviously all cases differ, but theoretically does it not hold that were a disenfranchised service professional so inclined they could simply find a job that provided a more workable wage less dependent on the formal kindnesses of strangers?

Of course the argument can be made that the tradition of tipping your server is a long-standing and time-tested practice at restaurants, and simply by choosing to patronize such an establishment you willingly agree to partake. The logically minded consumer can make the argument that were one not willing to pay an extra gratuity on top of the fee for the meal, they could simply choose to skip going out altogether. This hardly feels like a compromise because it causes the very same iniquity that faces service professionals when considering a new employment. Even further, the whole gratuity conundrum smacks of anemic apathy. Everyone pays the gratuity because that's how it is and nothing is going to change that. We give in to a system we can't hope to change because we enjoy the convenience of being served easy to access food.

So assume that one accepts tipping as a practice and finds oneself eyeing the bill at the end of dinner. Growing directly out of the fact that one is all but required to pay the disparities in a waiter's wages comes a gross and confusing social stigma. The amount that is chosen above the legally required fee for goods consumed can label one as either generous and morally just or cheap and uncaring. This unfortunate delineation would be much easier to avoid were it not for the extremely nebulous rules of etiquette associated in the entire tipping process from the get-go. For a time, offering a 15% gratuity on top of the total owed was considered in good taste. With a steadily worsening economy and the value of a dollar not going as far as it used to, I have come into contact with those who believe in order to not be seen as petty or cheap that 20% is mandatory. Now, should one simply sit by and accept the social expectations of the otherwise but not-so-blatantly optional ritual of tipping, or is it not pertinent to evaluate the level of service provided? If a server simply takes an order, delivers the food and stops by once or twice to query the level of satisfaction; does that exceed the purview of their employer's mandate? What if the service provided is downright poor? Most have encountered a waiter or waitress who struggles to bring the right order to you and often times fails to do so in a timely manner. Does such a person not deserve a tip, or to go even deeper, not deserve to make even minimum wage (of which they will not without your 'donation')?

It is clear that the situation in and of itself is more complex than it seems initially. So what would be the most amiable solution? Like many things in this world and in the United States government, people are much less likely to complain when they are being charged more in secret. What am I trying to suggest? Simply that perhaps by raising the prices of foods in menus that we can forgo the remotest possibility that a server would be tipped less than they felt they deserved or in extreme cases nothing at all. By including the gratuity in the total that one already pays, the problems both social and moral evaporate and even though everyone is subjected to increased prices at the very least it is universally fair. It may not hurt to consider as well the fact that perhaps companies should take to paying service professionals a salary tantamount to that which they make when receiving tips. As for me, I'll continue to take tipping on a case by case basis. Unless I am faced with overwhelmingly bad service, I have much more pressing things to attend to than worrying about an expected donation for a person simply doing their job. Still, from time to time it is hard to justify that which you have little to no control.

An Additional Insight by Jill Scerpella
via Facebook

"To go further, it's not just the food service industries any longer that maintain this practice. Do we not feel the need to tip our cab drivers upon the satisfactory delivery to our destinations? (I suppose nothing short of an accident would negate the need for this monetary 'thank you.') But what about the bus driver? Is his/her job not almost entirely the same as the cabbie? Yet taking a tip would be frowned upon and possibly even a terminable offense on the part of the driver who does accept such remuneration. And what about the hair stylist, manicurist, pedicurist -- and isn't it the secret concern among patrons that, if a tip is not "adequate" or even forthcoming, the service in the future may not be up to snuff. Or even that some misguided service provider may, in the absence of his due tip, even seek revenge upon the patron during subsequent encounters? (we all know the urban legend of the spit in the soup, the unwashed hands making the food, etc).

Yes, we all question the validity of the practice, yet aren't we all judged at work by the quality of our work. As a longstanding customer service professional, I have been happy to take my "reward" from my employer for a job well done in the form of a yearly bonus, or other sort of reward. Often simply a word of praise from a client/customer is reward enough. So, if I choose to be a service worker, I choose not to be one in a chosen industry that supports the "tip". Perhaps the commission should be something incorporated into the industries that rely on tipping. This would be based quantifiably on "production" as opposed to culpably, which is left up to the perception of the consumer. Some people might gauge the same interaction as poor, while others as exceptional. Maybe if I have a server coax me into an appetizer and then desert because of the server's powers of persuasion or the uncanny descriptive abilities to make me imagine the chocolate death dessert, by virtue of his/her quantifiable success at doing what his employer wants - selling more food - both I and the server as well as the employer are gratified. (AND the employer is able to delineate good servers from average by their production.)

It's not an easy call . . . . there are those who tip no matter what. I also, take it at a case by case basis - tipping when service is above the average, and NOT tipping when it falls short. I would expect nothing less if I were the server doing an honest job for a sometimes less than honest wage. And if someone doesn't have the means to give their last $5 as a tip, that shouldn't mean that they cannot partake in the occasional dinner out without rebuke for leaving nothing but a hardy THANK YOU -- you were very pleasant and helpful, let me let your boss know. But that's just one opinion!"