Beyond the TIP of the Iceberg
A Nickel for your thoughts, how much should we tip our service workers?
I have been challenged by this question many times during my travels (pre covid). On my many vacations I would encounter a plethora of service works such as the servers at the restaurants I dined at, the excursion guide, the hotel staff, the taxi driver, etc. Outside of the customary 20% I know we may tip our servers at restaurants I was often befuddled when determining the tip for other service industries. This would cause me great anxiety as I believe their is a psychological component associated with tipping. If I unknowingly tip too little I could be perceived as cheap or ungrateful. On the contrary, if I tip at the customary threshold, I could be perceived as generous or grateful. It is no coincidence tipping is correlated to gratitude, hence the use of the word gratuity in lieu of tip at some places of business. Therefore, the very content of my character is being analyzed every time I purchase a skinny girl margarita at the bar.
As I grappled with the problematic social and psychological paradigms of tipping, I would complain about this subject with my fellow travelers and friends. We would discuss the obvious issue with the tipping custom in America such as being forced as a patron to subsidize the livable wages of workers in addition to paying for a service at full price. In essence we are being double “taxed”! Furthermore, we would discuss how we noticed during our travels to other countries in Europe, tipping was discouraged. In fact, the service provider would be offended by our gesture of gratitude. This made me think, why is tipping so customary in America, the land of abundance? Still I never had a desire to research the origins of tipping after our thoughtful dialogues until just last night. This time when the topic came up, I decided I no longer wanted to be vexed by this issue given the fact research is at our fingertips.
Upon research I stumbled across an article written by TIME and this article changed my attitude towards tipping in America.
Like everything else in America it would seem tipping is rooted in white supremacy, manipulation, and greed. According to the article, tipping was historically used as a economic tool to support the fundamentals of slavery and free labor. Post civil war and during the reconstruction former slaves and other black people were mostly able to secure service jobs. At that time employers would opt out of paying their black workers livable wages and instead force them to rely on the tips from patrons based on the demonstration of exemplary service. I can only imagine this meant many black servers in these positions were simply unpaid. I surmise any minor infraction of poor customer service would cause a server their entire salary. Additionally, according to the article, some states outlawed the receipt of tips. Therefore, criminalizing a person for receiving their only source of income.
Tipping is similar to redlining, gerrymandering, jim crow laws, voter suppression, policing, and the war on drugs in that the legalization of these practices widened and further perpetuated the wealth disparity between people of color and white people. If we continue to support the ideology of tipping then we inadvertently encourage employers to continue in this historically unethical practice of forcing employees to provide free labor. Rather I think we should advocate for an increase in minimum wage and the stabilization of the cost of living. I know my solution is theoretical and possibly impractical. It is amusing how the right thing to do is always the impossible thing to achieve. Good intentions in this country seem to have unattended social, economic, and psychological consequences based on the complexity of the power structure. Essentially, the country was designed by and for the people who are ahead to stay ahead and for people of color to never catch up. Yes, there are exceptions, you may even be one but certainly not the rule. Anyway, before I get too deep I encourage us all to continue to question the status quo to uncover hidden truths and hopefully reverse some of the damage that has already been done.
Click on the link below to check out the TIME article. It is a good read!