Originally Posted by
JBord
I believe in tipping people whose income relies on tips (such as waitstaff in the US), or where there it's a standard, such as a bartender, bellhop, taxi driver. Not just anyone who is cheerfully performing the functions of their job.
I'm mostly with this, with one modification: I don't
believe in tipping, ever. It's a construct that, in the 21st century, is leveraged by powerful industry interests to offload staff costs and risks from the business owner onto the clients and the staff themselves. It's in their interest that it remain a social norm, as it's an effective counterbalance on pressures to raise minimum wages and, to a lesser extent, depoliticize minimum wages by indexing them to regional cost indices. In some cases, tip recipients may say things like "I like tips because I'm engaging in tax evasion, whereas I couldn't do that if I received no tips and an equivalent hourly wage." OK, fine, but I don't look at tax evasion as a great pro-tip argument. From the customer's perspective, it's just a bad, antiquated system. (I'm speaking mainly about the powerful restaurant lobby in the U.S., our political process, and the U.S. IRS here; this may or may not apply anywhere else.)
However, I agree with you in that where it's standard, I try to be an average tipper for that situation. Not a miser, but also not the drunk American slinging abnormally-large tips around. On an individual level, I don't look for confrontations around tipping, with the possible exception of someone trying to inject tips into a traditionally non-tipping situation.