|
|
 Re: tipping: it's such a stupid custom!
I like some of your points, but more importantly, I like that you are actually thinking about the issue instead of dismissing it as unarguable as so many others are.
I personally tip, and tip customary amounts, but I am not completely satisfied with the system. It is not so much of a problem for me that I care to actually do anything about it (as others have said, it's just a couple dollars so it's really not a big deal). But at the same time I still enjoy the philosophical discussion.
Below are my itemized responses to your post.
1. If you don't tip, you'll get bad service.
1a. I can't refute this argument. It's what makes me tip in certain situations. What a shame. We live in a society where bribery is unacceptable. Isn't this just a subtle form of bribery?
If you want to call this a subtle form of bribery than it is incorrect to say that we live in a society where bribery is unacceptable. In fact, given that premise, bribery is customary. And it's for this reason that I believe calling it bribery would be a mistake. I would instead call it market forces in play.
1b. Tips are not always visible. Will waiters actually know how much I tipped all the time? And besides, if it's customary to tip *after* receiving the service, I can't get bad service any more, can I?
Well the idea is if you tip better this time you'll get better service next time. Or even something as simple as if the waiter catches you not tipping after the meal you might get a nasty look.
1c. Tipping degenerates into a "game". The point is to tip as conspicuously as I can (but then if I do it too conspicuously, it backfires). Is it better to tip a little but in small increments? A lot in large increments? Right at the start before getting service? Buy in lots of 50c/$1 chips on a 5/10 table to make dealers think I'm a tipper? Tip just enough that I can fly under the radar and not get singled out for particularly hostile treatment?
Sure, if you care enough about two bucks to go out of your way to turn it into a game of "how much can I get away with avoiding tipping" than sure, have a field day. Personally for me it's easier to just pay the customary amount at the customary time and not have to deal with any of this.
1. The people providing service are inadequately compensated for their work, so you really really ought to tip. (For extra effect: the IRS assumes they get paid tips. So if they don't get them, they're in real shit)
1a. It's not my fault if their pay is shit. My heart bleeds, but it's up to the employer to pay them properly. Shame on the employer!
It's not up to the employer. As another person stated, if the employer paid them properly and raised prices on the food to compensate, and told people not to tip, it would adversely affect their business, simply because the custom of tipping is there. People don't think it logically all the way through...they'll see 11.50 for a steak here and 10.00 there, and go for the 10.00, forgetting that they don't have to tip at the first place. Also, the custom is strong enough people will feel like tipping at the 11.50 place anyway, even though they're told not to (they will feel cheap if they don't).
1b. Market forces should determine the price of labour - tipping screws up the system. Assume no tips. Then people would demand higher wages. If employers didn't want to pay those wages, they'd cut staff numbers. But before they did that, they would foresee that with less staff, customers will leave and they make less money. So the market conditions and supply and demand for personel in differing industries will determine wage levels. If there's too much supply in waitresses, they will get paid little. So they should - there's too many! The low wages will cause them to do other things... maybe sell things or become prostitutes, or miners, or go to another country with better wages (they're better because they need waitresses more). By tipping, we create a market imperfection and cause distortions in the wage levels, thereby we screw up the invisible hand of the market that allocates resources efficiently. (I'm a microeconomics tutor/lecturer. I've tried my best to explain my point. If you don't understand but want to know, tell me and I'll try to explain some more)
This argument seems flawed to me. Tipping doesn't mess with market forces, it just realizes them in a different form. Assuming no tips, employers wouldn't fire waiters and waitresses thus causing the supply to go up; employers would simply charge more for the food to compensate the employees. In the end, the market forces remain the same with or without tipping. I am making the exact argument that you bring up next:
2. If employers had to pay a living wage to their employees, you'd just end up paying more for your purchase/service
2a. Great! That's the way it should be! Instead of charging me $10 for a steak and "expecting" me to pay $1.50 tip, just pay the waiters properly and charge me $11.50 if that's what it takes to deliver your product with a reasonable profit! Charge me 6% instead of 5% rake or 12% instead of 10%. When I teach piano, I don't charge $30 and hope they'll gimme tips. I charge $45 and don't accept tips.
I agree here. That would be great. I would prefer that the tips be included in the meal and tipping eliminated.
2b. I go frequently to a restaurant. www.lentilasanything.com - it's a pay as you feel restaurant. Would I pay them nothing? Of course not! I consider myself fairly generous though I would have no way of verifying because i don't know what others pay. But there's a difference. Because the whole meal is pay as you feel. Why should the cost of food, profit for the business, insurance, rent, etc. - why should everything else be non-discretionary but one element of the product I'm receiving (and the service is a non-divisible component of any product) is up to me? Either the whole thing is discretionary or none of it.
Agreed.
3. A system of tipping means you can reward good service and punish bad service. It gives employees the incentive to provide good service.
3a. Maybe. But in most industries the tips are pooled. This virtually kills the incentive argument. I can't reward an exceptionally good employee with tips, and they don't have the incentive to work hard because they can just ride along other people's effort. But if everyone thinks like this, they're not motivated by tips any more. A classic tragedy of the commons argument here.
I don't know enough about the industry to comment on this.
3b. There are other ways to give feedback. Why not feedback forms, for example?
Compared to money, feedback forms are not nearly as accurate or ubiquitous as a means of transmitting information about customer satisfaction.
3c. Do we really go through a mental marksheet in our head and award a grade for service and pay our tips exactly according to that grade?
Obviously it's not a highly gradated system...but the general concept does apply, yes. People will pay a few dollars more for good service and a few less for bad service. It's not an exact science as you are implying for some reason, but it is definitely a real phenomenon.
3d. Policing employees and making them work hard and providing incentives to do so is not my job! Again, the employer and specifically their HR department should be doing that.
This is probably true. But at the same time letting market forces play here instead of central management can also be considered a good thing. I don't think it's important or strong enough though to make up for me have to juggle with percents in my head at the end of each meal out.
4. The custom is so well entrenched, there's nothing we can do about it. If you try to "rebel" or "reform" the system, all you're doing is punishing the employees that don't deserve punishment
4a. I don't have a very good response, except to say I object to the "damn, it's too hard to change, just live with it" line in principle. It's a bad attitude. Where would we be if Mandela, Teresa, and Gandhi thought like that?
First of all, comparing this to Mandela, Teresa, and Gandhi is just hurting your argument. I can see where you're coming from, but this just sounds foolish.
Anyway, "just live with it" isn't necessarily a bad attitude in all cases. Sometimes just living with it (whatever it may be) is easier than trying to change it. Trying to change it may not be worth the effort. It's all just part of a utility function.
4b. If that's the only valid or undisputed argument available to the tippers, then aren't we all a bit irrational? I for one don't just want to be a conformist to peer pressure.
Explain how it is irrational to conform. In contrast, I think it would be irrational to pull yourself out of the system without reforming the whole system at once.
4c. Reform isn't that hard. For example, raise the minimum wages (with associated negative market effects, but that's not the point here), and then employees don't *depend* on wages any more
While I agree that reforming the system would be a good thing, I don't think this idea will work. First of all, "associated negative market effects" are not something you can just ignore. Secondly, I think you are underestimating the power of a cultural custom like tipping--it won't just go away because of the introduction of some new market forces that discourage it. In fact I believe that implementing this idea will cause exactly the kind of unfair interference with market forces that you mentioned above. The market accounts for tipping.
Also, while you didn't mention this in your post others have talked about the how it's ridiculous that you pay your tips by % of cost, instead of a flat rate, and I agree 100% that this doesn't make any sense. In fact this has always been my biggest problem with tipping at restaurants--not as much that it exists, so much as that is implemented in a way that doesn't make sense.
|
Originally Posted by bigred
Reply With Quote
