JOHNSON – Tipflation is annoying but it’s not out of anyone’s control

THEY SAY the culture behind tipping is out of control.

Today we all regularly use a retail debit/ credit terminal at a store or take-out establishment, and are confronted by the option to provide a tip. Many of us are either hit with a pervading guilt if we question the appropriateness of tipping at this moment, and end up doing it based on that guilt … or if you’re like me, become annoyed by it.

How did we get to the point where so many retailers include these gratuity options?

They say that there are statistics out there that show that when comparing prior to the pandemic, to during and now after, companies have done this as a way to keep their prices down and encourage the customer to directly subsidize their staffing costs.

In 2022, even Starbucks broke down and added the gratuity option to the point of sales devices, including their drive thru’s. A popular local ice cream store in town even has the tipping option … and I am sure that we all can think of a place that have this point-of-sale option turned on, and for a moment question ‘what the …’.

This propensity to this new tipping culture has become so pervasive that I even heard a reporter commenting on this culture, saying, “If I don’t give my car mechanic a good tip … how do I know my car is safe …”. Think about that for a second. This is the instillation of cultural fear … and hearing this created a visceral reaction in me.

This reporter just ignored something called certified professionalism, and embedded in the minds of many that a mechanic would intentionally hurt someone because they didn’t receive enough of a tip. Do I now have to give my doctor a tip because he might prescribe a dangerous drug to me? Obviously ridiculous, but see how that sounds? Where that could go?

I know a young person who works at a local large multinational chain pizza outlet that has the tipping option on their point-of-sale device turned on … and this young employee showed me their paycheque, which did not in any way include any additional payment, beyond the hours worked times the hourly wage … in other words the company just keeps it.

Let’s consider these well … scams … and just back away for a minute and think about this.
It’s being called an out-of-control cultural norm.

I have a hot take on that.

It isn’t an out of control cultural or societal norm at all. Gratuities are a personal decision, and it’s up to each person to control their choice to tip, or not. It always has been, and always will be even as today we find that the gratuity is just rolled into the main purchase amount.

For me? It’s simple. I have not changed my tipping routines in decades: if I am at a sit-down restaurant … I tip 15%, same for drinks service (occasionally more for extraordinary service but that’s a rarity, but I will always round up from there).

I will try to find out if the restaurant business keeps tips, or I try to discover if a restaurant pools tips with the kitchen … and then I tip less or zero if my server does not receive the gratuity at all via debit/credit, but I will quietly ask the person if pure cash tips have to be handed in and react accordingly.

How do I quantify gratuities? How come I don’t like to tip the kitchen?

For restaurant service personnel, I am paying extra via a gratuity, to the single person that serves ME, in gratitude for taking care of ME and my party. Although the skills necessary to provide incredible service is a highly professional skill set, and not everyone has the natural skill set to do this well … as it’s not easy … it is historically a non academically accredited trained skill set.

Few restaurants hire servers with this level of training (which does exist), but I can almost guarantee that not one eating establishment in Kamloops hires, needs or could afford a Cordon Blu trained French server, or any specific food service genre.

Because of this, servers in the real world are not accredited to earn at this level, so historically we as customers provide a financial gratuity in appreciation of a job well done.

I happily provide my appreciation to a server, in a private way between myself and the server person. It is no one else’s business, certainly not the business owner.

A restaurant owner knows which server earned how much tips, earned via a debit machine. They work that way. The only response is for the business to pay out to a server 100% of their earned gratuities, nightly, or on their pay cheques. It is up to the server to pay to others down the line; bus people, hosts, bar etc. That’s how it used to work.

Kitchen staff are supposed to be (and historically have been) paid more for a reason; their professional accredited skill set is more prevalent in the average restaurant workplace than the accreditation of servers. The employer is supposed to pay these red seal papered or trained kitchen people in accordance to their trained capabilities.

I will not subsidize an employer’s inability to pay their kitchen staff for their skills, expecting the customer to provide the pay to keep staff working in their kitchens. That’s not how it works.

Full transparency: In my youth and early adulthood, I worked on the floor providing service and in the kitchen, in restaurants ranging from pancake houses to starred formal dinner rooms, so I am talking from personal experience.

Moving on.

If its a taxi, food delivery or like service like that, that operates on cash and it’s socially appropriate to do so … I round up at the absolute minimum, and add a buck or two or even five, for good to above good attention to service, even if paid for by debit/credit.

On the other side of the decision: If it is pick up, take out food or any counter retail … I don’t tip a dime, not one, either in cash or if a card is given. This is not a gratuitable situation.

They’re not ‘serving me’ … I’m standing at a counter at a store. They are selling me a product, like a candy bar. You’re not going about to tip at a 7/11 for that, now are you? Same for buying a coffee or anything, at the counter or drive thru. 15-30 seconds does not a tip make.

These are all product sales, not unlike at a Home Depot, and they wouldn’t dream of adding a tip option. So why are we feeling obliged to accept this anywhere else?

McDonalds and other fast food have considered joining the rush to adding a tip option to their debit machines, but they realised through focus groups that it would equate a significant loss of business as the response from customers was so negative. People would actually switch to another company not doing this.

Alternatively, if it’s not a physical product, but a ‘service given’ we are purchasing; like getting a meal on an airplane or at a rental car counter or an appliance repairman coming into your home or a bike repair store … then it is a static or predetermined fee for service sale or a pre purchased service sale like on an airplane.

We don’t question not giving these people tips, we wouldn’t even consider it … so why does this change at other locations?

At many of these points of sales, where pre-purchasing by online payment is necessary, like pizza delivery, often the tip option is provided BEFORE we have received the service.

Let me be perfectly clear: There is no. such thing as prepaying a tip before the service is provided, for anything. I repeat, no such thing. Why?? It’s simple, by its very definition there is no tip paid before assessing the service that may be payable upon completion of that service, that’s not how it works.

Provide the service, assess the service, provide the gratuity … in that order,
that’s how it works.

So I say no for this kind of prepaid service tip option, then I am always prepared, old school style, with cash to respond to the service provided. I always have a few dollars in my pocket when expecting to pay a tip … it’s just a normal going out prep.

I do not care if a service person (Starbucks, take out, retail, etc) gives me a dirty look because I follow these personal rules. If they want more money, they should ask for a raise, instead of expecting me to subsidize their employer’s job of providing a fair wage.

By pouring me a cup of coffee, store staff are providing me with the function of their job, at the level of customer service expected by the employer, for which they receive a paycheque for.

Anything less, or poor behaviour because I did not add a buck at Starbucks … reflects only on the inability of that staff person to do the job they were hired for.

If it’s all about money … fine … then ask for a raise, and if you don’t get one … quit. Don’t expect the customer to prop up your employer, and then judge your customer for not doing just that.

Statistics say that with the rise of inflation this year, fewer people are now providing this kind of tip, and when they do … it’s less of an amount than it was a year or two ago. Many just can’t afford it anymore and others … like me … have started to see through the reality of the industrial scam to collect profits in any way they can.

In general, if you are going to reject the pressure for the auto-tip, there is no longer an exaggerated tip economy, or tipflation as it’s now called … it just doesn’t exist. By rejecting this, you are forcing the ball back on the court of whom are ultimately responsible … the employer.

Force employers to pay properly, by refusing to tip where it isn’t warranted. If staff don’t earn enough there, they will leave and get a job where they earn more, eventually forcing employers to pay more. This is proper and natural pressure for economic change. In the long run, this actually improves the lives of the many, instead of the pockets of the few.

The more we continue to tip just because the debit machine asks, the more we perpetuate this … so I say … just stop. Just hit no.

If workers don’t like this, then they can become politically active and noisy to the point that the appropriate governments enact rules and laws to protect both workers and the public from predatory businesses from this kind of abuse.

So … nothing is out of’ anyone’s control regarding this.

We all play a role; we can all can act to hold those actually responsible, and stop the scam.

David Johnson is a Kamloops resident, community volunteer and self described maven of all things Canadian.