It doesn’t feel very hospitable when you’re out for lunch with your friends, and instead of a nice meal, you are met with an hour of being ignored by the staff who attend to every table but yours, assured that it’s simply not worth it, because students are too broke to tip. And yet, as someone who has been on both ends of the argument, I can confidently say that both sides are justified in their feelings.
The culture of tipping is often seen as an American invention – yet another tool in forcing workers to depend on the mercy of customers brought over from across the pond. While reliance on tipping has been largely popularised by the cruelty of the American food industry, the origins of rewarding people for a service well done are, in reality, rooted in European aristocracy as a symbol of status.
Tipping was never about generosity – it was a way of showing off your wealth and maintaining status. Originating in the Middle Ages, tipping began as tossing coins to carriage drivers and servants to make your fortune known to everyone, and to ensure satisfactory levels of service. The very word for it allegedly originates from Samuel Johnson, who noticed the word T.I.P. (“To Insure Promptitude”) written on bowls in London coffeehouses. Tipping was a way for the wealthy to reinforce their societal position and ensure the social hierarchy stayed in place.
What was later adopted by American employers to prevent them from paying their employees adequate wages has made its way back to Europe, in what is now considered a useless American creation. It cannot be argued that the United States popularised the notion of always tipping and tipping well, but the truth is that if tipping is coming back, it is happening for a reason. The number of people villainising workers for wanting some additional money for the emotionally draining, underpaid jobs they are working is frankly shocking. No country’s “minimum wage” is a livable one – especially not Ireland’s. And anyone who says otherwise has clearly never had to support themselves off of it. When you earn a minimum wage in Dublin, you’re not living, you’re surviving. You cannot save up for the future, and renting a flat that’s not a flatshare is entirely out of the question. Those under twenty years of age are earning even lower hourly rates, which decreases their chances of being financially independent even more. It is difficult to call tipping an Americanism when it is just as necessary in Ireland.
The question, however, remains: why should I ensure that a stranger is getting paid? You shouldn’t. The very fact that discourse like this is even happening goes to show just how much the capitalist system does not respect both the workers and the consumers. After all, tipping is really not that different from bonuses one would receive in an office job, with two crucial differences: the latter is considered more “respectable” and deserving of it, and the former is sponsored by the customer, rather than the employer. This is where the issue lies. Without sounding redundant, this is yet another issue of class. If hospitality and customer service workers were more respected by the general public, the outrage at the demand for tips would not be as intense. Similarly, if the workers were respected by their employers, they would receive higher wages instead of relying on the customer’s goodwill.
What definitely does not help the case is the creative, yet exhausting, ways in which cafés and restaurants attempt to persuade customers into tipping. Nothing screams hospitality like being greeted with a touchpad which asks to “add on gratuity” when you don’t even know if your coffee is going to be good. It is these additions that feed into the stereotype of American-influenced “ungrateful” workers. You immediately start feeling less generous when a tip becomes a moral obligation, or when you’re under the impression that you’re tipping twice. Newsflash: the mandatory service fees usually don’t go to those who actually provided the service.
So, who really is afraid of tipping culture? Frankly, we all should be. There is nothing inherently wrong with tipping; in fact, that extra money can really make someone’s day. Workers should be rewarded for the harrowing and draining job that is customer service; this much is true. At the same time, tipping should never become an excuse not to pay workers livable wages, which, in some cases, it already has. What we should focus on is not whether or not we have acquired the habit of tipping from the US, but rather the consequences it has brought that none of us are immune to.
