In Observations From A Tipless Restaurant, Jay Porter discusses his views on tipping in five parts (the link is to part one). He believes that tipping works against good service and he sounds like he’s thought things through over a fair bit of time. He’s also managed a tippless restaurant at the same time that the managed one with tipping and compared the two.
If you don’t want to read through the whole thing, he has three claims. (If you are going to read it all, you can ignore the next three paragraphs.) One is that in a restaurant with tipping, you have three interlocking businesses being run together. You have the provision of food and service. Then you have the garnering of tips, which he argues is not most reliably done by providing good service. And in order to get more tips, you also have a trading of tip-outs for favors between servers and non-tipped staff.
His second claim is that, since most people don’t withhold tips due to bad service, it’s hard to convince marginal or bad servers that they should change their habits. The tips tell them that they’re doing just fine. I think he made a good case for his first two points.
To explain his third point, I should note first that his tipless restaurant did not just add in an automatic service charge to be divided among all the staff, it also forbade any additional tipping. And the people who got angry about that - loudly, loudly angry - were middle aged guys who liked to overtip. So the tips were fantasy connections, for one thing. He then goes on to say that this sort of tipping creates a social construct in which any sort of friendliness, flirting, or sign of sexuality on the part of a server is turned into just something she’s doing to get more tips. It can be ignored as fake. But if it happens in a non-tipping situation, it’s dangerous and makes people uneasy.
I’m not sure that I buy into every part of his third claim. I’m willing to belive that some clients resent losing the opportunity to overtip and that some, perhaps most, of them fantasize hooking up with a sexy waitress. I’m not so sure that tipping is being maintained because it denies female sexuality. That seems like a bit of a stretch.
We’ve had a lot of past tipping threads, and when I saw this I wondered what the teeming millions would think about it. Does any it seem reasonable to you? I’m putting it in GD because past tipping threads have gotten a little heated.
I tip because it’s expected and I buy into, whether it’s true or not, the idea that my total money outlay is the same as someone eating at an equivalent nontipping restaurant. If tomorrow it were decided that tipping is passe and servers will just get a regular wage like the rest of us, that’s fine, it’ll save me the embarrassment of trying to do simple math drunk.
I don’t fully agree with our esteemed colleague, Der Trihs, about the class war aspect but I don’t think it’s about sexism. That doesn’t mean sexism can’t play a role in tipping though. In the mid to late 1990s my sister was a waitress at a restaurant that also happened to serve a lot of alcohol. She was pulling in between $27-30,000 a year which was pretty good for a nineteen year old with no real education. When I jokingly said I should quit my job and go work at her restaurant she flat out told me “You’re not a blonde with big boobs. You won’t make as much.” And, no, it wasn’t an establishment like Hooters and she didn’t wear revealing clothing. According to her, waitresses made a bit more scratch than the waiters. The bartenders generally received more tips than the waitstaff.
I see lots about tipping in the OP but not much about sexism. I think I see what the idea is, but if the sexism aspect is simply that “some middle-aged men tip and some of them probably like tipping more to get the attention of young women” then I think we need a more thorough explanation of exactly how tipping culture “is a form of sexism”. Middle-aged men are not the only people who tip, and young women are not the only people who receive tips.
On the Freakonomics podcast they came to the conclusion that tipping is a pretty screwed up system. Apparently studies show that tipping is not really linked to quality of service, and that statistically you’re likelier to get better tips if you’re a blond, busty female in your 30s. So the system does seem inherently sexist.
I’d say it’s not the system that’s sexist: it’s the tippers. The system is merely reflecting the sexism of the customers. The system, I wouldn’t call it “class warfare”, but other than that I agree with Der Trihs’s post.
If tipping truly were class warfare you would expect to see a lot of other non-skilled laborers working for tips. Tipping seems pretty isolated to occupations that involve food or some personal service. Outside of food/beverage related services the only other person I regularly tip is whoever cuts my hair. The few times I’ve used a valet services I’ve tipped as well.
Young and busty might lead to a higher average tip.
But my experience in restaurant work is that the older waitresses make more per shift.
They are good enough not to get undertipped and efficient enough to serve more tables well.
It’s still sexualized though. Skirt above the knee vs skirt below the knee makes a difference in tips. (With or without tights under the skirt, I’ve been told)
But it’s not just pure sex kitten sex appeal, it’s more subtle. And lots of men make a good living as servers too.
One could say that these jobs were traditianally “women’s work”, and women aren’t entitled to honest wages like men - instead, they’re given “pin money” they can use for various trifles.
He takes pains to insist that it’s always men who are publicly dissatisfied with the loss of their ability to tip – but then when circumstances require he relate a conversation with one such person – the food reviewer who excoriated the server who made an error – we learn that the reviewer’s ire arose from her inability to express dissatisfaction through her tip.
Attractive women also do better in sales positions even if you are talking about high end fields such as software sales.
Being attractive in life will lead you to more success and more money. That’s just human nature. Trying to stamp that out is futile. The fact that attractive women get more tips isn’t indicative of some problem with tipping as a system. It’s just an indicator that people would rather be served by someone attractive that someone who isn’t. As long as that’s the preference of the customer then what’s the problem?
Tipping is at least fair. Servers who are attractive but rude will undoubtedly get less tips than a comely but friendly server. If you get rid of tipping you’d have restaurant managers just using their own judgement to try and hire attractive people.
I’ve been to countries where they don’t tip: Ugly servers, slow service and general unpleasantness was rampant. In the US where they need to earn tips you can sense the hustle from them.
You could say almost anything you want but you’ll have to back it up with more than that. There are occupations where tips are expected today that are dominated by males. Got to Vegas and get valet service and odds are good it’s a man who will give you the ticket and park your car. Back when men when to barbers exclusively their hair was cut by men. Did they tip back then too?
