Tipping Conventions

Tipping conventions

In the United States, the following takes place millions of times a day: a customer enters a restaurant, orders his meal from the waitstaff, the order is taken, the food and other food related requirements are presented to the customer, and the customer pays out what is called a gratuity for the services he specifically provided. In this brief social exchange, there seems to exist a host of conventions which govern how the exchange should take place. The most controversial part of the exchange is the consideration of how much should be given as the gratuity. The basic question concerns whether there are specific norms which govern this behavior and, if so, what is their nature.

Consider the following, rather common, scenario. A group of 6 friends enjoy a meal at a rather upscale place. Over the course of 3 hours, they order several bottles of wine, appetizers, entrees, dessert and coffee. The wait staff is competent, unobtrusive, and friendly. At the end of the meal, the check is split among them, and tension arises over how much should be left for the wait staff. Some consider the 15% adequate, others note the stellar service and want the gratuity to be at least 20%, still others note that the gratuity should not include the price of the wine, and finally there is one who as a matter of principle does not want to leave a gratuity at all. The 15-percenters cite 15% as the norm; it is, they assert, what most people give, and this determines how much should be given. The 20-percenters cite the good service, and insist that 15% is the minimum gratuity; and so, if the service is beyond the ordinary, the tip should exceed the minimum. The solitary holdout claims that a gratuity is just that--a gratuity--meaning that no one must give it if she does not want to—and he doesn’t want to. Moreover, he argues, it is ridiculous to tip at all on the wine, not to mention 20% because, he asks, How hard can it be to open a bottle of wine? The 15-percenters charge the 20-percenters with being spendthrifts; the 20-percenters counter with the charge that the 15-percenters are insensitive to hard work. And, almost everyone believes the holdout is an ass. Can any facet of this dispute be settled?

Even a superficial glance at the very concept of a gratuity poses immediate problems. Gratuity has several seemingly incompatible meanings. On the one hand, a gratuity can depend only upon the customer’s inclinations, perhaps informed by some evaluation, but ultimately grounded in nothing more than a personal decision. On the other, gratuity means reciprocity, and hence the level of the gratuity is fixed by something extending beyond personal choice—choice is informed and determined by the nature of the reciprocal relationship.

Even if the basis of a gratuity is solely grounded on the inclinations or desires of the diner, there would still be multiple options. If we think of such inclinations as whimsical or unprincipled as in “I just felt like leaving a $10 tip”, then there could be no general formula to fix the amount of the gratuity. The 15% that we Americans are accustomed to giving would be ungrounded, on this picture, in any norm. We give 15% because we feel like it; sometimes we give less, sometimes more. If there is no norm, then there can be no objective evaluation of whether someone tipped poorly or appropriately. And hence no grounds for dispute. Essentially, the holdout from the above story would be correct. Alternatively, if we think of the desire as expressing some sort of evaluation of, typically, the quality of the service provided, then there might exist a formula to fix the amount of a gratuity: the better the service the greater the inclination to give a higher gratuity; the worse, the lower. Gratuities, on this view, can run the gamut, from none to over 100%. The key is subjective assessment of the quality of service.

Distinguish the first conception, on either reading, with the idea that gratuities can be demanded irrespective of anyone’s personal inclinations. If the principle of reciprocity is at work, one would surmise that with a waiter’s increasing attention, devotion and care, the gratuity would appropriately increase. Even if true, however, there appears to be limits beyond which most diners are unwilling to venture—and this applies at both ends. Irrespective of how high the quality of service, few would ponder the possibility of leaving a 50% gratuity; and, similarly, no matter how negligent, few would ponder denying some gratuity altogether. So, the principle of reciprocity, even if in effect, seems to be supplemented by an upper and lower limit.

So, there are considerations which favor the conclusion that nothing could rightfully compel a customer to tip other than her own personal evaluation; and, there are considerations favoring the thought that a norm of reciprocity, suitably qualified, determines how much customers should tip. This ambiguity in the concept of gratuity, I suspect, grounds the frequent disagreement, sometimes very heated, over our tipping conventions.