POINT

Add 10% or 15% to the bill? I think not
Posted By DENNIS THOMPSETT of TheSunTimes

My mother was a waitress at the Trio for years, but even so, I must admit, I don’t understand the idea of giving tips to people in restaurants. Or anywhere else, for that matter.

I don’t get it. Why am I expected to pay extra to have someone do their job in a pleasant and efficient manner?

And apparently I’m not the only Canadian with this feeling. In Florida and Los Angeles and Hawaii and Las Vegas and most of the other big tourist towns of the world, the natives hate Canadians because we’re just not big tippers.

Apparently we expect value for money.

To get a really memorable tip from me or from any other sensible Canadian, a waitress has to set herself on fire, cartwheel across the floor and deliver hot, heavy plates to the table with her feet. While whistling Dixie.

Otherwise, forget it.

I remember going on a cruise with my family years ago and, at the end, everybody expected a tip. And not just a little tip either. They all wanted $300 or $400 each. We got a circular about it before we disembarked. There were sure a lot of disappointed faces as we waved a fond farewell to that ship of fools.

The common argument is that these people depend on tips to make a living. Well here’s a tip: get a job that pays better. No one should have to depend on the kindness of strangers to support their families.

The only people who really benefit from tipping are restaurant owners who can continue to offer low pay and no benefits. Some places, like pizza joints, often pay nothing and the delivery guy only makes tips. In other parts of the world, or even here in Canada when you have a big crowd, they automatically add a tip on the bill. You have no say in it. You are, in fact, forced to pay the wages of the help in addition to paying for your food.

So here’s something to think about — every time you give a tip in a restaurant or bar, you are supporting an insidious kind of slavery. Low-wage slavery. Sweat-shop slavery. You are perpetuating a system where good people are chronically underpaid, in the hopes that the customer will subsidize that pay. Maybe.

It’s not all the restaurant owners’ fault. It’s your fault, too, for wanting to be well thought of by your waiter or waitress.

And here’s something else to think about for those sad sheep who give tips: There are all sorts of people who work just as hard for your custom, yet you never think of tipping them. Have you ever agonized about whether to give 10% or 15%% to the checkout person at the supermarket? To your bank teller? To the person in the convenience store? To the guy who reads your hydro meter? No? Well let me tell you something; they make the same kind of low wages that restaurant workers make. They often work harder. They’re often nice people. And they have families to support, too. Why don’t you subsidize them, if you buy into the flimsy arguments for tipping restaurant people?

And if you work in a restaurant and take tips, be aware that you’re essentially taking charity. You deserve better.

So what’s the answer? Only tip people who really need it.

I know it’s difficult to accept a new idea. Often you have to digest it a little at a time. So let me take you by the hand and lead you to a new life. First pick a bunch of people who are bitter, overweight, underpaid and shunned in social circles. Then send them a tip.

Address it to your poor Owen Sound Sun Times columnists. We’ll all share it and maybe get a crust of soggy bread to munch on.

Through our grateful tears.

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COUNTER POINT

Letter to the Editor at TheSunTimes by Jesse Wilkinson

Contrarian off base about tipping

Editor:

Add 10% or 15% to the bill? I think so.

In reading Dennis Thompsett’s article on the exercise of tipping, two things became glaringly obvious: one that the Contrarian has never worked as a waiter himself (his attempt at insight using his mother didn’t cut it for me) and that two, he is writing after a bad experience, in which he feels the need to spout his flawed logic and spiteful naiveties.

It’s funny how a person who has no experience in an occupation can speak with such confident condemnation regarding said job. Waiters, waitresses and bartenders work very hard in a fast paced industry that demands you be personable, hard-working and able to “cartwheel across the floor and deliver hot, heavy plates” while singing birthday songs (not Dixie tunes).

Sorry they can’t light themselves on fire for your tip, Sir. I’m sure they’re all dying to impress you.

I agree that many other low paying jobs require hard work and admirable attributes but there is an expectation for good service when spending the night out for dinner.

If that expectation is not met, then you certainly shouldn’t feel compelled to tip. If you have a good experience and your server has been a part of that then they deserve a tip.

Servers make less than minimum wage, which Thompsett blames on the “slave-driving” restaurant owners, and therefore rely on tips to make the job affordable.

The notion that patrons are subsidizing the restaurant industry is flawed. If servers were paid a higher wage, then restaurants would need to charge more for their meals to cover the overhead, which would take the place of the tip anyways. As it stands right now Mr. Thompsett, you should keep quiet. You are riding on the backs of all the other tippers out there to ensure that you get cheaper menu prices and you don’t follow all the “sad sheep” and leave a tip yourself. If your ridiculous, demeaning argument influenced the industry, you would be shelling out a lot more of the precious bills and coins you seem to covet so closely.

I guess by your logic, no one should accept a year-end bonus because that is tantamount to charity as well. Servers are merely given tiny bonuses everyday is they have earned it for a job well done. They sure don’t receive anything of monetary value at the end of the year, merely the hope that they may possibly not have work Christmas Eve, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day so that everyone else can go out and have a good time.

As for getting another job; well there aren’t many jobs one can work between five and midnight while trying to put themselves through university or college. I guess they should just absorb the increasing student fees and try not to keep on top of their debt.

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In your world Mr. Thompsett, many students would be graduating with an even heavier burden than they already have.

I know you really don’t believe all of what you said, because you are self-admittedly “The Contrarian” but for those people who may think your flawed logic makes sense, shame on you and shame on the Sun Times for printing your column.

Owen Sound has many restaurant owners who are struggling during these tougher times and many young, bright, energetic waiters and waitresses who work hard to ensure that when people want to have a good night out, they can.

If one does not enjoy their service, then they shouldn’t tip their server: it will help the waiters that truly strive to work hard and provide a valuable service.

I have lived and worked in other countries that do not subscribe to the culture of tipping and the level of service is far lower than here in Canada and I would hate to see that happen in our country.

I guess it depends on how much we value our ability to enjoy a night out and be taken care of after a long day. Maybe you need to get out a little more often, Mr. Thompsett, and while you’re at it, get to know your servers.

I’m sure you’ll find that they are working harder than you think. And it’s better you keep your tip if you think it’s charity. You’ve insulted enough people already. I can’t wait to see what industry you try to offer your brilliant insight into in your next column.

WARNING: BOTH VIDEOS CONTAIN STRONG LANGUAGE

The Complaint

Response Video

by Jacob G. Hornberger, July 2001

If New Deal legislation had been enacted in the 1930s requiring people to tip waiters 15 percent of the total amount of their restaurant bill, we might have been subjected to the following debate today:

Repeal Advocate: Don’t you think we ought to repeal the tipping law and let each person decide for himself how much to tip a waiter or, for that matter, whether to tip at all?

Law Advocate: Are you crazy? If the law didn’t require people to tip their waiters, no one would tip. We’re lucky that President Franklin Roosevelt had the foresight to realize that people can’t be trusted with that decision.

Repeal Advocate: But we rely on the free market in other areas of our lives, and it seems to work. For example, we don’t force people to fund churches or cancer research, and yet people do so anyway. Why not rely on the free market for tipping?

Law Advocate: The free market is good up to a point, but it’s not perfect. Government often has to step in to make certain it works. In fact, that’s why Congress enacted President Roosevelt’s tipping law. During the Great Depression, waiters were threatened with starvation. Something had to be done.

Repeal Advocate: Isn’t the free market simply a process in which people are trading for mutual gain? Why should government officials be permitted to interfere with that? And I’ve never heard of any waiters starving to death in the United States, even during the Depression. Why not simply leave people free to help others on a voluntary basis rather than force them to do so?

Law Advocate: You don’t know human nature. You put too much faith in people and the free market. Sometimes government coercion is necessary to make people do the right thing.

Repeal Advocate: Shouldn’t a person have the right to decide for himself what to do with his own money?

Law Advocate: Of course, that’s what America stands for. But no one is forced to go into a restaurant. All the law says is that if you do eat out, you’re going to have to tip your waiter. Anyway, it’s only 15 percent, and so what’s the big deal? The tipping law also ensures that a person is caring and compassionate when he goes out to eat. What’s wrong with that?

Repeal Advocate: How can you consider him caring and compassionate when he is forced to leave a tip? I thought that compassion entailed voluntary, not coerced, action.

Law Advocate: In a democratic society, laws are made by the people. In America, we are the government. Because of our tipping law, you’re a better person even if you never go out to eat.

Repeal Advocate: Wouldn’t some people give more than 15 percent if the law didn’t require them to tip that amount?

Law Advocate: Not likely. Again, you trust people too much. After all, the tipping laws do not prevent people from giving more than the required 15 percent, and yet hardly anyone ever does so.

Repeal Advocate: Don’t you think that service would improve if waiters weren’t guaranteed a tip?

Law Advocate: You’re assuming there would be service. Without FDR’s tipping law, there would be no waiters, which means a lot less restaurants. Roosevelt’s New Deal saved not only America’s free-enterprise system but its restaurant business too.

Repeal Advocate: Why not simply leave it to each restaurant to decide whether a tip is required?

Law Advocate: Because those restaurants that didn’t require tipping would soon drive out of business those that did. And it wouldn’t be long before we had either no restaurants or only self-service ones.

Repeal Advocate: You’ve convinced me. Repealing the tipping law is too radical an idea. It might well cause starvation among waiters and closures of restaurants all across the country. Anyway, waiters have a right to a tip. Isn’t that what America is all about?

Law Advocate: You bet! And it’s also what makes us a free and compassionate people. The tipping law isn’t perfect, but let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water.

Mr. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation (www.fff.org) in Fairfax, Va., which has just published Tethered Citizens: Time to Repeal the Welfare State.