Arnon Grunberg

Stick

System

David Brooks on tipping:

What matters most is the size of the check. If you want bigger tips, induce your customers to order more. The second thing that matters is the customer. A survey of 40 million Uber trips found that men tip more often than women and people in the middle of the country tip better than people on the coasts. The identity of the customer matters more than the quality of the service.

In short, the meritocratic argument for tipping falls apart. Then there are all the downsides:

Tipping inflames a sexist dynamic. Some men use their tips as leverage to harass female servers. Young blond women are tipped more than older brunettes. Male Uber riders tip female drivers 12 percent more, but only if they are young.

Tipping inflames a racist dynamic. African-American and Latino servers get much smaller tips. In a 2005 study of more than 1,000 tips to taxi drivers in New Haven, black drivers were tipped about a third less than white drivers.

Tipping widens class divisions. Servers who work in upscale restaurants can make good money. Servers who work in diners struggle. The people who work in the front of the restaurant might do well; those who work in the back do not. Many people think the very custom of tipping is a demeaning remnant from the age of aristocracy.

The conclusion from this is that in an ideal world, it would be a good idea to move to the French model: “service compris.”

(...)

'The constrained vision is wiser. So I’ll cheer on those who want to move America to a no-tip system. In the meantime, there are ways we can all make the best of a bad system:

Tip 20 percent when the meal is over $25 and 30 percent when it is under.

Always, always, always leave a tip in a hotel room.

To combat implicit bias when tipping drivers and others, commit to a percentage for all rides and stick to it.

Understand that the advantages you enjoy are products of both your individual effort and privileges you didn’t earn. Tip accordingly.'

Read the article here.

Tipping might be a detail in this world of conflicts, reassuring old and poisonous ghost and injustices, but despite all this tipping is important to me.

I rarely tip my uber drivers only when their efforts were really exceptional.

I always leave 20 to 25 percent in US restaurants, really regardless of the service. Everything but attacking or killing a customer is worth a tip in the restaurant business. You tip because you might come back and you hope to be recognized as a good customer. Outside the US I leave 7 to 20%, depending on the situation,

In hotel rooms I leave tips, but the amount varies between a few dollars to fifty of sixty dollars for longer stays and exceptional services.

One thing Mr. Brooks has forgotten:

Always always always tip the delivery person.

(I would like to be remembered as a good tipper. They might even put on my grave stone: his tips were amazing.)

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