When you’re traveling, it’s easy to see the origins of modern tipping. A tipped service in a foreign land is typically performed by someone who is not an employee of an establishment but works either as an adjunct or as a free agent — a shoeshine boy, for instance. In a “third-world” city, a self-styled tour guide might be tipped in return for leading a group of sightseers. In Italy, a Neapolitan street urchin might offer to protect a parked car in return for a gratuity.
In both cases, the inference is clear: if you don’t employ me, I will hurt you. This thinly veiled extortion is the subtext to much tipping: if the propertied individual doesn’t comply with the demands of the semi-employed, something terrible might happen to them or their things. So tipping began essentially as a way to stave off violence by the indigent, forgotten people; it is a social contract adhered to by the privileged class who fear and disdain the less fortunate and are aware of the failure of their own class to create equity.
But tipping in the United States is something more nuanced. The people who are tipped in the US comprise an ever-expanding number of employed professions. Employers recognize the tipped individual as a great boon to the business: someone who needn’t be given benefits, a living wage, or employment security. They are essentially a guest at the company who must comport themselves appropriately for monetary reward, courtesy of the customer. And this reward can be large. The tip, though it is a ghost fee, is actually a fairly strict amount — 15 to 20 percent of a tab, $1 per drink — and is essentially mandatory; a failure to pay will result in public shaming or even fisticuffs. The tipping scale varies wildly and is determined by race and class factors. Cute young white people are often given the desirable, highly visible jobs that tip well at restaurants and bars, while Central American immigrants work for trickle-down tips in the back.
In the United States, one is required to tip one’s waiter, bartender, taxi driver, bellhop, barista, sandwich artist, valet parker, coat-check, hairdresser, barber, driver, masseuse, pedicurist, strip-tease artist, dogwalker, hotel maid, concierge, and so on. A tipped job is typically one that is tied to a very quantifiable service done for a particular person or group. It is often linked to the idea of a “luxury” service as well (an espresso could be made at home, so you must tip if you are buying it while out). In this sense, it is maintained by the consumer as a guilt fee.
Meanwhile, a bus driver on a daily route will not be tipped, for example, though he or she is working hard to serve the public. Policemen are not tipped except in the form of donations by ass-kissers to the “fraternal order” in exchange for a sticker that is supposed to confer preferential treatment by officers. Public servants are not tipped. The tipped individual is providing a personal, private service.
Luxury service is therefore the crux. Tipping is the onus of the purchaser who pays the wage of the worker on top of the cost of whatever service provided, which goes to the business itself.
If one ever tries to discuss tipping in America, one is immediately met with a dismissive and lofty: “Well, I tip really well because I was/am part of the service industry.” Like veterans of the armed forces, the “service people” are bound together in a cult whose members have experienced the true nature of work servitude and the demeaning, harrowing experience it represents. The fellow warrior conspicuously tips well in a great display of homage and respect. Service implies a subservience but also a noble sacrifice. The service industry workers prepare our sandwiches nobly, submitting to our personalized mayonnaise requests. Almost all Americans have worked in the service industry at some point and many will only ever work in it.
Tipping for these service-industry comrades is outside of money. It is an alm or genuflection; a gesture of humility to the tippee designed to recognize and rehabilitate the degrading nature of their work, and also to connect with them spiritually. The camaraderie and smile dispensed by the waitstaff on receiving a generous tip after a suspenseful meal service brings the light of spiritual nourishment to the tipper, who can rest well that night. The Neapolitan street urchin’s implied violence still hovers over the interaction, but now the justice and retribution feels more karmic.
by Ian Svenonius, Jacobin | Read more:
Image: Ben Sanders
In both cases, the inference is clear: if you don’t employ me, I will hurt you. This thinly veiled extortion is the subtext to much tipping: if the propertied individual doesn’t comply with the demands of the semi-employed, something terrible might happen to them or their things. So tipping began essentially as a way to stave off violence by the indigent, forgotten people; it is a social contract adhered to by the privileged class who fear and disdain the less fortunate and are aware of the failure of their own class to create equity.But tipping in the United States is something more nuanced. The people who are tipped in the US comprise an ever-expanding number of employed professions. Employers recognize the tipped individual as a great boon to the business: someone who needn’t be given benefits, a living wage, or employment security. They are essentially a guest at the company who must comport themselves appropriately for monetary reward, courtesy of the customer. And this reward can be large. The tip, though it is a ghost fee, is actually a fairly strict amount — 15 to 20 percent of a tab, $1 per drink — and is essentially mandatory; a failure to pay will result in public shaming or even fisticuffs. The tipping scale varies wildly and is determined by race and class factors. Cute young white people are often given the desirable, highly visible jobs that tip well at restaurants and bars, while Central American immigrants work for trickle-down tips in the back.
In the United States, one is required to tip one’s waiter, bartender, taxi driver, bellhop, barista, sandwich artist, valet parker, coat-check, hairdresser, barber, driver, masseuse, pedicurist, strip-tease artist, dogwalker, hotel maid, concierge, and so on. A tipped job is typically one that is tied to a very quantifiable service done for a particular person or group. It is often linked to the idea of a “luxury” service as well (an espresso could be made at home, so you must tip if you are buying it while out). In this sense, it is maintained by the consumer as a guilt fee.
Meanwhile, a bus driver on a daily route will not be tipped, for example, though he or she is working hard to serve the public. Policemen are not tipped except in the form of donations by ass-kissers to the “fraternal order” in exchange for a sticker that is supposed to confer preferential treatment by officers. Public servants are not tipped. The tipped individual is providing a personal, private service.
Luxury service is therefore the crux. Tipping is the onus of the purchaser who pays the wage of the worker on top of the cost of whatever service provided, which goes to the business itself.
If one ever tries to discuss tipping in America, one is immediately met with a dismissive and lofty: “Well, I tip really well because I was/am part of the service industry.” Like veterans of the armed forces, the “service people” are bound together in a cult whose members have experienced the true nature of work servitude and the demeaning, harrowing experience it represents. The fellow warrior conspicuously tips well in a great display of homage and respect. Service implies a subservience but also a noble sacrifice. The service industry workers prepare our sandwiches nobly, submitting to our personalized mayonnaise requests. Almost all Americans have worked in the service industry at some point and many will only ever work in it.
Tipping for these service-industry comrades is outside of money. It is an alm or genuflection; a gesture of humility to the tippee designed to recognize and rehabilitate the degrading nature of their work, and also to connect with them spiritually. The camaraderie and smile dispensed by the waitstaff on receiving a generous tip after a suspenseful meal service brings the light of spiritual nourishment to the tipper, who can rest well that night. The Neapolitan street urchin’s implied violence still hovers over the interaction, but now the justice and retribution feels more karmic.
by Ian Svenonius, Jacobin | Read more:
Image: Ben Sanders
