I agree with the replies from Ipreferpl and Raou: in my years of living in NZ I never noticed any passive-aggressive hints to tip. I did, however, see businesses obviously encouraging people from the US (i.e., people with US accents) to tip – typically places that catered to tourists. I think the workers were either hoping the US travelers would follow the home custom, or that tourists were just too clueless to realize that tipping isn’t a NZ norm. But you know what IS a NZ norm? A living wage, even for service workers – along with the holiday pay mentioned by Raoul. The hefty surcharge is added on holidays to encourage consumers to stay home, thereby allowing all workers to enjoy the holiday.
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Yep, as I said above, by mid-trip I started to suspect that was exactly the case. But the service was so universally excellent that a few dollars as tip wasn’t a big deal, it just struck me as funny at the time. I was definitely made aware by our tour guide that a living wage is standard for NZ servers. I loved being there; I’d happily move to NZ if I ever had to choose another country to live in.
That is pretty amazing, but how will I stuff Bacon Wrapped Jalapeno Cheesy Blasters in my mouth if Ruby Tuesday’s isn’t open on Christmas Eve. IT’S A WAR ON CAPITALISM AND CHRISTMAS! QUICK SOMEONE CALL FOX NEWS!
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You’re missing the big picture, and you’re wrong about the quality of service from both the server’s perspective and the consumer’s perspective. As a server, during any given transaction, you have no idea if your good service will result in a higher tip (and the evidence bears this out: quality of service ≠ higher tips). As a consumer, your tip is an unknown/non-factor to the server until the transaction is complete, thereby having no direct influence. If the restaurant pools tips, your large or small tip provides a negligible reward/punishment to your individual server. What would really help your standard of living is a LIVING WAGE that is paid to you independent of the whims of rude customers. (And, yes, of course, because I live in this silly system I tip generously. You deserve nice things, like all workers do.)
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“While wandering a deserted beach at dawn, stagnant in my work, I saw a man in the distance bending and throwing as he walked the endless stretch toward me. As he came near, I could see that he was throwing starfish, abandoned on the sand by the tide, back into the sea. When he was close enough I asked him why he was working so hard at this strange task. He said that the sun would dry the starfish and they would die. I said to him that I thought he was foolish. There were thousands of starfish on miles and miles of beach. One man alone could never make a difference. He smiled as he picked up the next starfish. Hurling it far into the sea he said, “It makes a difference for this one.” I abandoned my writing and spent the morning throwing starfish.”
― Loren Eiseley
Tipping isn’t the problem; tipping is just throwing starfish. Meaningless on any large scale, very meaningful to anyone who needs that tip to make ends meet. The real problem is that we have so many unemployed people, business owners don’t have to pay fair wages to find willing workers.
Outlaw tipping if you want, as long as there aren’t enough jobs to go around workers will line up to be exploited, because they have no other choices (well, other than crime).
Around here illegals will work for a tiny fraction of minimum wage, and as fast as you can catch them and deport them, and as fast as you can put the exploiters out of business, more will arrive, because there aren’t enough jobs for the population.
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Thank you for that. Things are always more complicated than they seem on the surface.
Also, something something ethics in food journalism…
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With a properly implemented national minimum living wage, they would.
O/T I’d prefer it if you didn’t refer to people as ‘illegals’.
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Shout out to Black Star Coop (www.blackstar.coop) in Austin, TX. No tipping. No tip jar. No place on receipt to write in a tip amount. If you ask how to leave a tip tou are told the workers are all paid a fair wage, and please let people know about the place.
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Your story reminds me of a close friend who worked at a very high-end place in SF: Steve Jobs or Willie Brown or Barbara Boxer would come in for dinner and invariably leave an extremely large tip (as public figures, I think they figured their tips would be talked about). Which server got the tip? Whoever had that table, or whoever the manager chose to serve that table. If tipping reflects quality of service, we’re saying that one lucky server performed 10 or 20 times better than their peer? And was paid accordingly? Pooled tips helps this kind of situation, but the entire system is rigged.
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We’ve been in NZ for nearly a decade now and never felt pressurised to tip. Then again, I still have a pretty English accent and there is no tipping culture in the UK either, so they probably know better than to expect it …
I loathe tipping with a passion. It’s particularly unpleasant if sent to a place with a tipping culture by your employer from a non-tipping culture, who will reimburse “all reasonable expenses” as part of the trip … 
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Tipping is one of those cases where people become convinced that there must be a good reason for it precisely because it’s so categorically indefensible: “I’m not sure what the reason for me tipping is, but I know there must be one, because I wouldn’t be doing it for no reason”
This isn’t a mark of stupidity, it’s a pan-human cognitive defect. Smart people are just as prone to being wrong in this way, they just come up with more elaborately flawed arguments. The end result is that when I read think-pieces about tipping by Americans, it feels like reading a thoughtful discussion of how maybe the Earth really isn’t flat, after all.
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The take away from this is that Cory is truly Canadian.
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The only thing that keeps me tipping is how awful a lot of anti-tipping people are.
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He’s convinced me. Gimme my dollar back!
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From reading the above comments, it seems like the standard tip in the US now up to 20%?
I left Canada only a few years ago, and the rule of thumb was 15% was average (less if you were annoyed, more if you were especially happy). Was it always a bit higher in the US compared to Canada, or did it somehow jump up by a third in the last 3 years?
More to the point, why would the ‘base’ tipping percentage need to go up at all? It’s not like the meal/drink prices have stayed static. Are wages trailing inflation by that much?
FWIW, I am happier living in a place where the prices on the menu are higher, but there is no expectation to tip ( sales tax included is so much nicer as well). Not only does it not particularly affect the level of service, but it means that when you do leave a tip, it is completely in the spirit of showing appreciation for good service/experience/meal/sorry-i-broke-that-glass-and-you-had-to-clean-it-up/whatever.
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Wait, do you mean tipping at all isn’t necessary, or overtipping? I figured the latter, although I still don’t know why I leave tips for food that I go and pick up myself. (I don’t overtip for carry-out, though: I just leave a buck or so. I do overtip the barber and cab drivers.)
The couple of times I’ve used Uber I just couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that there’s no way to tip (within the app). My dad prefers to use Lyft over Uber because he’s just so used to tipping.
The worst thing about tipping, to my mind, is how it penalizes a sick worker who stays home. Without sick leave, without a fair wage, sick workers serve food to customers out of financial necessity. Does anyone really think this is a good idea?
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A local restaurant switched to a “no tips” policy, discouraging tipping, raising prices slightly, and donating any tips left anyway to charity. They did this for at least a year, but going back recently, I found they’d switched back. It makes me really curious what problems they had, because they still seemed to have plenty of business during the no tip period, and the service and food were fine.
WHY MUST YOU ALWAYS BE PICKING ON THE MENZ @chgoliz? WHYYYYY?!?!?!
(ETA: How me make @name be BIG SHOUTY LETTERS too? Me am sure is possible)
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Uber walks an awkward line here. They’ve always proclaimed that tipping is included in your fare, i.e., their drivers are so well paid that a tip is not expected or necessary. But in reality, their drivers most definitely appreciate tips, and will confide that they wish Uber would stop discouraging tipping. I always carry some cash if I need an Uber.
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