We all tip toe around the gratuity issue. When that check arrives, it is a lonely, single player game filled with mystifying mazes, booby traps, and lava pits … and there is no definitive cheat sheet to help us break the code and achieve ultimate tipping victory.
Just watch a group of friends paying separately after an evening out together: some strain their necks to see how much everyone else is adding, others sign the check with one hand and cover it with the other in the universal “don’t cheat off my paper” position, while some poor patrons just crumble and cry at the prospect of having to do math after several glasses of wine.
What you put on that angst-provoking tip line feels like a test of your innate ability to give — to show compassion towards your fellow man — instead of what it really is: a forced monetary gift given to a person you don’t really know and, in all likelihood, will never see again.
I have personally always viewed tipping as a sort of real-life video game in which I am rewarded with tipping karma points every time I hit the gratuity target exactly in the middle. Give too little, and I risk the scorn of the universe and a possible lightning bolt of bad service the next time I eat out. Give too much, and I might end up with a weird bird, carrying a “financial fool” sign, following me wherever I go. I need to hit that specific tipping sweet spot to collect the karma points I crave.
For me, winning the tipping game doesn’t just depend on how much money I leave. The monetary amount is just the tip of the tipping iceberg. It’s when to tip and whom to tip and who actually sees me leaving the tip that really tips those scales toward gratuity victory.
And yes, I can conclusively answer that age-old question scholars have ferociously debated for years: If you put a dollar in the tip jar and no one sees you do it, did you actually leave a tip?
No, my friend, you did not!
When using drive sharing apps, before exiting the vehicle — and after congratulating my driver on the upcoming arrival of his niece’s second baby and asking him to please send his Nana my best and that I hope her angina clears up quickly — I always say, “Oh wait, I don’t want to forget to give you your tip and five stars” — as if there is a universe in which I might actually forget — and then proceed to do so while I am still sitting on his cracked, red vinyl upholstered seats that smell vaguely of egg drop soup and desperation. Mega tipping karma points.
Establishments that automatically include a tip are much harder to navigate. Sure, an 18 percent tip is already included for most room service orders, but if it’s already added and I didn’t add it, there is no way for the young man delivering my scrambled eggs to know that I am a tipper, a giver, a true humanitarian who stands beside him in his struggle to climb the corporate ladder and make something of himself in the crazy, complicated, knock-em-down world of ours.
In this predicament, I am forced to ask the server, the same young man who has brought me my breakfast the previous two mornings, “Is gratuity included?” For the third time in as many mornings he will nod, and I will say, “Oh, well, I’ll just add a little something extra,” then circle the “gratuity included” on the bill, draw an arrow to my extra tip and write “additional tip” in clear, bold block lettering.
He may leave thinking I have some sort of brain injury that has affected my short-term memory, but no matter. I have successfully leveled up and collected my karma points.
I am aware that not everyone lives like this. I tip my hat to those who can confidently leave a gratuity without an audience, who never add to the “gratuity included” line, and who add the tip after exiting their Lyft without even mentioning the stars they are going to reward their driver.
But even seasoned tippers like myself find it increasingly difficult to maneuver through all the modern-day gratuity pitfalls. Take those checkout tipping screens, for example. They are everywhere. And the amounts suggested, or even preselected, are often outrageous. Those portable credit card machines — where we put in our card and are immediately asked if we want to leave a tip — have pushed the gratuity game difficulty level into expert level territory. We all know we should tip our waiters, valet parking attendants, manicurists, and hotel workers. But now it is not uncommon for boutique dress shop employees, vendors at Soda City, insect exterminators, and even electricians to give the “option” of leaving a tip. As if, for some of us, this was indeed an “option.”
What’s next? Tipping writers for revealing their personal idiosyncrasies in a very public forum? That’s just crazy talk. However, it has been my pleasure writing this for you, and your satisfaction is very important to me. If you find that I have provided above and beyond service, please feel free to leave a gratuity in appreciation of a job well done. Who am I to deny anyone their tipping karma points?
