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The Itching Palm, A Study of the Habit of Tipping in America, a non-fiction book by William R. Scott |
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Chapter 5. The Economics Of Tipping |
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_ CHAPTER V. THE ECONOMICS OF TIPPING The basic question is, does tipping represent a sound exchange of wealth? Do the American people receive full value, or any value, for the $200,000,000 or more given in tips? Values, of course, may be sentimental as well as substantial and, so far as tipping is concerned, it can be demonstrated that if any values are received they are sentimental. The satisfaction of giving, the balm to vanity, the indulgence of pride, are the values obtained by the giver of a tip in exchange for his money. It is a stock argument for tipping that the person serving frequently performs extra services, or displays special painstaking, which deserve extra compensation. Only an examination of individual instances can determine whether this is true. The proportion of the tipping tribute which really pays for extraordinary service is negligible. A brief inquiry into a few of the more prominent instances of tipping follows.
If food is sold undelivered, then the waiter in bringing it to the patron and assisting him in its consumption does perform an extra service for which payment is due. But this is not the fact, any more than that a shoe clerk should be tipped for assisting a customer in the selection of his employer's footwear. In both instances, the cost of the service is included in the price of the article--food or shoes. The prices on the bill of fare have been figured to include all costs of serving it, such as cook-hire, waiter-hire, rent, music, table ware, raw materials and overhead charges. If a sirloin steak costs seventy-five cents a definite part of that amount represents the wages of the waiter serving it. Thus the waiter has no claim upon the patron for compensation, because the patron, in paying for the food, provides the proprietor with funds from which the waiter's wages will be paid. If the patron, in addition, gives the waiter a tip it is clearly a gift for which no value has been returned. The waiter is paid twice for one service.
The question then recurs, is this gift to the waiter a sound economic transaction? Economists teach that no transaction is industrially sound which does not involve an equal exchange of values. The exchange of five dollars for a pair of shoes is a sound transaction because the dealer and the customer each receive a value. But the gift of a quarter to a waiter as a tip is an unsound transaction because the patron receives nothing in return--nothing of like substantiality. The patron may justify the gift from sentimental considerations, of pride, generosity or fear of violating a social convention, but no sophistry of reasoning can prove that a substantial value has been received. Of course, a waiter may give a patron more than the proprietor agrees to give in the bill of fare, and this undoubtedly is an extra service--but it is also a dishonest service. Every extra service to one patron means a deficiency of service to other patrons. It is a common experience that liberal tipping obtains special attentions which non-tipping patrons miss, but, being dishonest, such a condition is outside the scope of this inquiry. When a patron pays for food he is entitled to adequate and equal service, and no largess by other patrons should interfere with this basic right. On its economic side, then, tipping is wrong. Wealth is exchanged without both parties to the transaction receiving fair values. The psychology and ethics of the transaction will be considered in other chapters.
No tipping is so inexcusable as that which is done to a barber. The trade is highly organized and the workers are well-paid under good working conditions. There is not the slightest chance for the barber to serve a patron in a way for which the patron does not pay in the shop tariffs. If a haircut costs thirty-five cents, the patron is entitled to just as good a hair-cut as the barber can give. The patron enters the shop upon the assumption that he is entitled to a satisfactory service. Hence, in tipping a barber a patron is yielding in a peculiarly timid way to the mesmeric influence which the tipping custom exerts over its devotees. It is a wanton waste of wealth, an unsound business transaction, because money is given where charity is unnecessary and where absolutely nothing is given in return. "But my barber takes lots of pains with my hair," the patron exclaims in justification of the tip. As in the instance of the waiter, if he takes more than a normal amount of pains with your hair he is dishonest to his employer and to other patrons whom he must neglect to pay you special attention. Your right is to a satisfactory service, and this you pay for in the regular charge. Any extra compensation is unearned increment to the barber. The unctuous manner he employs to arouse a sense of obligation in a patron, when stripped of disguises, is a plain hold-up game. This will be shown in the consideration of the psychology and ethics of tipping.
The attitude that hotel employees have been allowed to develop toward the public is a blot upon professional hospitality. Every one of them takes the hotel patron for fair game. And the hotel proprietor, with a few notable exceptions, encourages this despicable attitude. The assumption is that the patron pays at the desk only for the privilege of being in the building. Hence, they will not cheerfully move his baggage to his room unless he pays to get it there. He cannot have a pitcher of ice water without being made to feel that he owes for the service. The maid who cares for his room exacts her toll. The head waiter demands payment for showing him to a seat. The individual waiters at each meal (and they are changed each meal by the head-waiter so that the patron has a new tip to give each time he dines) require fees. If he rings a bell, asks any assistance, goes out the door to a cab, in short, whichever way he turns, an itching palm is outstretched! Just think for a moment of the real significance of this state of affairs. Hotel hospitality? Why, the Barbary pirates would have been ashamed to go it that strong! To ignore this grafting spirit means insulting annoyance. The suave hotel manager listens to your complaint and smiles assurance that his guests shall have proper service, but underneath the smile he has a contempt for the "tight-wad," and instructs the cashier always to give the waiters small change so as to make tipping easy for the patrons. In truth, what does a hotel guest pay for when he registers? Certainly for the service of the bell-boy who carries his suit-case to his room; for the keeping of the room in order; for water, clean towels and other necessities for his comfort; for the privilege of finding a seat in the dining room; for the right to use the doors--all without extra charge. But the hotel manager admits this in theory and outrageously violates it in practice. All tipping done to bell-boys, porters, maids, waiters, door men, hat-boys and other servitors in a hotel is sheer economic waste. When the guest pays his bill at the desk he pays for all the service they perform. The hotel manager protests that the money that passes between his guests and his employees is not his affair. But he proves his insincerity by adjusting his wage scale on the estimate that the guests will pass money to his employees! Professional hospitality as "enjoyed" by Americans is a travesty on democracy. That Europe should have such a system and spirit is historically understandable. Tipping, and the aristocratic idea it exemplifies, is what we left Europe to escape. It is a cancer in the breast of democracy.
It would be possible to run through all the classes tipped and prove that the extra compensation is unearned. The chauffeur is a latter-day instance of the itching palm. Like the barber, the chauffeur is paid well for his work. He does nothing for which the patron should give him a tip. The taxi-meter charges the patron roundly for all the service given, yet tipping chauffeurs is as common in the larger cities as tipping barbers or waiters. It simply shows the spread of the practice to workers who have no other claim upon it than their own avaricious impulses--and the extreme docility of the public. Every tip given to a chauffeur is so clearly a bad economic transaction that further argument is unnecessary. So widespread has the practice become that tipping is, individually, a problem, as well as collectively. The traveler has a formidable cost to face in the tipping required. When the total passes $200,000,000 a year, it becomes a problem which the American people will find more difficult of solution the longer it continues unchecked. The whole argument is summed up in this. Tipping is an economic waste because it is double pay for one service--or pay for no service. It causes one person to give wealth to another without a fair return in values, or without any return. The pay that employers give to their employees should be the only compensation they receive. All the money given by the public on the side is unearned increment. The best condition for a fair exchange of wealth is where standards are known and prices are definite. Self-respect and sound economics flourish in such an atmosphere, whereas, if values are hazy and compensation is indirect and irregular, as it is under the custom of tipping, the bickering that follows degrades manhood. From an economic viewpoint, all businesses are on an abnormal basis which figure minimum wages, or no wages, to their employees on the assumption that the public will, through gratuities, pay for this item of service. "One service--one compensation" is the only right relation of seller and buyer, of patron and proprietor. _ |
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