Tipping is not a city in China

You know what I love about Australia?

Nobody expects a tip.

That’s right. Not tipping is customary here, probably due in part to the fact that servers make something like $16 an hour and therefore don’t need to rely on tips to make a living. In America, the federal minimum wage for tipped employees is only $2.13 an hour, so needless to say, every tipped employee feels entitled to excessive tips.

These days, it seems like you can’t even go out to eat at a crummy diner in America without being expected to tip 18% or more, even if the service is terrible. There is this expectation that the customer, not the employer, is responsible for paying them a living wage. Frankly, I think that’s B.S. I much prefer it when the employer takes responsibility for paying their own employees.

If I go out to eat, I usually have no say in who serves me. I didn’t get to interview the person or anything before deciding if they are suitable for the job. So why should I have to pay their wages? A tip should be a bonus for excellent service, not something that is expected regardless.

I do often see tip jars here in Australia, almost as ubiquitous as in America, but they are rarely as prominently displayed and so far, I have never seen anyone sing a stupid song like they do at Cold Stone Creamery designed to embarrass the person who made the tip. (Strangely enough, Australian tip jars often have American one dollar bills taped around them… go figure.)

In Europe, tipping is customary, but always small amounts. In some countries in Europe, 10% is considered a very generous tip. I don’t think that is too bad overall, but Europeans in general are not very customer service conscious and a lot of times I don’t think they deserve a tip at all.

Despite my general distaste for widespread or excessive tipping, I do tip generously for exceptional service. At one of my favourite restaurants back in America, there is one waitress who is the best waitress in the world and I always ask to sit at her tables. I always tip her a good 25% just because I like her and she is so good at what she does. Plus, she always remembers my favourite dishes and on potato soup night, she always sends a few cups of it home with me for free because she knows I like it so much. I usually tip my hair stylist 25%, too, because she’s the only person I trust to come near my hair with scissors and honestly, that’s just priceless. But those are really the only two exceptions and both are people I have long-standing relationships with. I can’t justify tipping so generously a complete stranger whose service was only average.

But generosity in tipping is only relative. If the standard tip were only 10%, then tipping 15% would be seen as generous, not stingy. Of course, in pretty much any country outside of the US, tipping more than 10% is usually considered ostentatious or even patronising. Maybe it’s because it implies an assumption that the person receiving the tip is poor. Of course, tipped employees in America- restaurant servers being the worst- like to go out of their way to remind people how poor they are and guilt trip people into tipping, like this whiny person who believes it is the customers’ job to compensate for a poorly run restaurant that doesn’t treat their employees well or price their products appropriately. They truly have no shame. I have seen waitstaff in Europe refuse what they thought to be too large a tip, whereas an American server would probably wonder why they hadn’t gotten even more. I guess Americans are just greedy.

I like the Australian idea that good service is simply included in the price of what you pay for, not something you only get if you pony up some extra cash, and that it is the employer’s job to see that employees are paid fairly for their work. I think it should be like this everywhere.