An estimated $42 billion is tipped annually in restaurants and bars alone in the United States. Millions of US service-sector workers are paid below minimum wage and rely on gratuities.
Michael Lynn at Cornell University, who has made a career of trying to understand tipping, thinks he can explain it to some extent. Tipping starts, he argues, with a few people motivated by two altruistic notions and one self-serving: the desires to reward good service, boost income for low-paid workers and show off status through largesse. These people receive a mental reward from helping others and from raising their own status, and service staff devote more attention to them if they make a habit of it. Others, observing this, start to follow suit. As the numbers increase so does the social pressure to join in and a feedback loop results. Eventually the behaviour becomes so common that people look down on those who don’t do it, and shame afflicts those who defy the custom.
Are we doing this to help poorer people or just to avoid disapproval? Lynn suspects the latter, in most cases. Try to leave a restaurant or a taxi in a city like New York, and you can be chased down the street by irate servers or drivers. A wrinkle on this system is that black restaurant staff are tipped less than their white counterparts for the same level of service (maybe they don’t protest at small or no tips so forcibly). Subtle, possibly subconscious, discrimination seems to permeate the gratuity, says Lynn. “It’s a class action lawsuit waiting to happen.”
The obvious thing to do is to follow the lead of countries like France and Britain, where a fixed amount (usually around 12.5%) is added to bills in all restaurants. A fixed service charge is now required in France by law, and since 2008, it must be passed on to staff. This makes a meal so much more pleasant and relaxing. There are too many young waiters trying too hard, inserting themselves into your conversation and pretending to be your best mate. Quietly and efficiently seen and not heard should be the thing.
I remember when I first came to Washington and was told that a 15% tip was virtually obligatory (in New York, and in smart DC restaurants it has now risen to 20%). I personally feel the “obligatory” bit is unacceptable where the service is poor or indifferent. What I do now is say, “I would have given you the full rate of tip, but your service has been very poor. If I come here again I hope it will have greatly improved”. Or something like that. It’s easier to do if you get a taxi driiver driving over the speed limit and far too fast – when this has happened I have always given little or nothing, protested, and nearly always had an apology (Ethiopeans are predominantly the drivers and are courteous people)
By the way, Americans insist that their plates are whipped away as soon as they finish eating. My wife is a slow eater and feels that this constantly pressures her to eat too fast. Nowhere that I know of in Europe would trained waiters do this – it is ill-mannered when they can see others are still eating. Usually I end up signalling “leave us alone”, and usually it works. But it does get a bit exasperating. The waiters still expect 15%.
This is one thing I really don’t understand about America. Why do they always insist on making things more difficult than necessary. First, you have to pay a sales tax that isn’t included on the headline prices. Then you have to tip a silly amount, even if the service was average or worse.
In the restaurants in Britain I’ve been to, a service charge is normally either optional or non existent. Tipping isn’t required at all, especially for poor students. And when I do tip, it is normally the result of rounding up- i.e, not asking for change for £30 if the bill is £27. With the introduction of contactless card payments, the ability to pay the exact amount quickly is increasingly the done thing.
I had no idea about the empty plate thing. I don’t mind the pace of things in restaurants being a bit slow, I normally take a nice chunk of time out to go to them. I agree that waiters should be around as little as possible, even is the service is a bit slower.
As for taxis, I only use them when travelling a short distance with a large group, or else is it too expensive. And I had never heard of tipping a taxi driver before reading this article, it simply wouldn’t occur to me to do so.