Some restaurants are now ending the practice
of tipping. Tipping does have the advantge
in providing an incentive for workers to
provide good service. (Customer service
was a serious problem in socialist countries
because workers had no reason to care about
quality. Recommended reading: The
New Russians, by Hedrick Smith.)
However, the practice
of tipping has several disadvantages.
Many workers are needed to prepare a meal —
including the farmers that grow the food,
the workers that provide the tools for
the farmers, the workers that deliver
the food, the workers that built the
restaurant, the cooks that prepared
the food and the workers that clean
the tables. Providing a cash payment to the
server provides no help for all of
these other workers. It would be
impractical for a restaurant customer
to tip all of these workers, but of
course that isn’t necessary — the
payment to those workers is included
in the bill.
Another disadvantage of tipping
is the way it creates dishonest pricing. A
restaurant is able to post a false price
that is lower than the true amount you
are expected to pay after the tip is
added.
In most other circumstances, the practice of
tipping would be called bribery and corruption.
For example, if an employee at the department
of motor vehicles requires you to make a cash
payment to them personally (in addition to the
actual fee for the license) then ordinary
citizens can be exploited by the workers with
the power to issue the licenses. For
another example, students who’ve already paid
tuition should not be expected to make cash
payments directly to their teachers.
Employers can get away with paying lower wages
than they should when they can expect workers to
earn some of their income from tips.
Servers still should be paid for their service.
The practice that is becoming more common
is for the service charge to be added to the
bill. If you really have received bad service,
then you need to take up the issue with the
management. Otherwise, if your service was
fine, it is better if they tell you what you
should pay for the service so you don’t have
to guess (and so mean stingy people also
have to pay for the service, which they
don’t have to do when tipping is voluntary).
……………..
–Douglas Downing
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