When Europeans go to colonial shores, one of the things we find perplexing at best or bloody annoying is tipping culture. I find it annoying for several reasons, and I will go into each one in turn.
If this post will serve any purpose, it’ll be something I can point people to every time this topic comes up.
History of Tipping
Wealthy Americans discovered it for themselves in the 1850s and 1860s while traveling in Europe. Tipping in Europe was born in the middle ages, a master-serf custom where servants would receive an extra gratuity for excellent performance.
— 7shifts.com, https://www.7shifts.com/blog/history-of-tipping-restaurants/
This is the irony of tipping. It seems the new money colonials visited the old country and decided to bring the custom back to the US. The key thing here is it belonged to another age. It was an age when the tip was an exchange between people separated by an existential wealth gap. It was a tradition hanging around from the last vestiges of a feudal age, and our colonial brethren decided to bring it back despite leaving the old country to escape those exact structures.
A line is missing from this quote, but we’ll return to that later.
It Was Quaint
When travelling to the US we used to find tipping quaint. A peculiar custom that our colonial friends seemed to have made a bit of an institution rather than just paying people proper wages. We suffered it. We just added it to the bill in certain circumstances. Whatever the going rate was at the time on the restaurant bill and whatever the dollar amount was each day for the housekeeping services at a hotel. I believe you were also supposed to follow a set of arcane laws so complicated at a bar that if I did drink I’d be inclined to go teetotal while on holiday.
We did have certain thoughts about these structures along with odd obsessions like valet parking, but we kept our mouths shut as it was just part of integrating with the culture of the country we’d chosen to visit.
Then COVID happened, and it ceased being quaint and went passive aggressive.
Now It’s Aggressive
…Dashers, the people who deliver orders, are “independent contractors” who “have full freedom to accept or reject offers based on what they view as valuable and rewarding.” Tips go directly to Dashers, according to the company. So if an order comes in without a tip, they’re more likely to let it linger.
Jenn Rosenberg, Doordash, https://edition.cnn.com/2023/11/01/business/doordash-tip-warning/index.html
This is a recent quote from a spokesperson for Doordash. Basically, they’re adding a pre-tip feature, and they’re saying what used to not be allowed to be said out loud and that is if you don’t tip they just might put you to the back of the queue, and your meal will arrive cold. In some ways, this is no different from the rating systems on Uber, but is definitely an extra step in aggressive tipping.
Basically, tipping becomes a guarantee of basic service, not a reward for exemplary service (not that I agreed with that performing monkey aspect of tipping, but that was the rule). This is our colonial cousins to the core, take something from another society and turn it into a feature of dystopian capitalism.
While the Doordash news tipped me over the edge, it’s been rumbling since my trip to Alaska. Let’s say tipping culture across Canada and the US has changed. It’s like a series of micro-aggressions. This is especially true if you’re using a credit card as it allows them to hit you with the 10%, 15% or 17-25% tipping question every time you pay.
Yes, the scale often went to 25%. Not only that, but some would play a little game and put the 25% as the first option. What makes it even more nuts is they’d do this in a grab-and-go self-service and a takeaway pizza place. In the grab-and-go, the only service interaction was the act of taking my damned money. Yeah, I get people cook the food and whatever, but how far does this go? Should my tip go to the person who cleans the restaurant after it’s shut?
I was constantly spammed, and it is now just one of 101 ways the hospitality industry has found to be paid extra but without having to put that ‘extra’ on any outward-facing materials.
The Classless Society Myth
American travelers brought it back to the states as a way to feel aristocratic
— 7shifts.com, https://www.7shifts.com/blog/history-of-tipping-restaurants/
That is the extra line from the first quote used in this post. Yes, our colonial friends brought tipping back to their shores as a way of feeling aristocratic.
This is what bugs me. The great pretence many a US citizen likes to hold to that they are this glorious classless society, yet they have big and large examples of them being exactly not that. You can’t be a classless society when you have dynastic families winning the presidency. What about some old-school construction ‘mob boss’ winning the presidency just because he was famous and loaded?
You have a class society built on money, and you sure like those micro-moments to show who has it and who maybe doesn’t.
What bugs me the most, is how all the structures, like valet parking and tipping, aren’t recognised for what they are—a way for normal people or those with a bit of money to feel aristocratic. Yeah, you’re never going to admit it. You’re not going to recognise that some of you get a thrill out of the power dynamic of tipping, but I know some of the language around it, and a power dynamic is exactly what it is. It’s about good service? No, it isn’t. It’s about having a little power relationship where you decide.
This is the funny thing. The UK may still have elements of its old class system hanging around but it takes our colonial friends to weave into every service interaction.
And, Finally…
So, that’s why I dislike tipping. It’s a con. It’s a con as to what it’s actually for regarding those receiving it. It’s a con in terms of being a way to be able to advertise one price when truly it’s another. It’s ceasing to be anything remotely voluntary across any service sector. The final con is a grand gaslighting by US society on itself as it persuades itself it isn’t a power dynamic about enjoying getting to choose, so maybe now not getting to choose is a good thing.
Ultimately, it’s dystopian and is as annoying as hell.