Will Miss #41 - no tipping (reflection)

I read several blogs devoted to food and cooking and little is more contentious than the custom of tipping in the U.S. One side claims it is a system designed to allow restaurants to justify grossly underpaying their employees. The other side says it allows the customer to be empowered in a fashion the promotes good service. My reply is, "can't it be both?" I am also only too aware that there are wait staff in some restaurants who make a good deal more in wages due to tipping than they would if they were paid minimum wage or even above it. It is a complex situation which has room for both abuse of and benefits to employees. There is nothing out there which does not have a good and a bad side, as this blog has endeavored to show for the years it has been in existence.

All arguments aside, the bottom line is that tipping is a pain. While the math doesn't trouble me, the need to calculate a tip after paying the bill adds this layer of hassle at the end of a meal which detracts from the overall experience of dining. It causes you to reflect not on the experience, but on the quality of service and how much you will want to "reward" the server for a job done well or poorly. It's simply not the way to finish a special evening in which you're not cooking and cleaning. I miss the fact that there is no tipping in Japan.

Will Miss #41 - no tipping (reflection)

We don't think too carefully about it, but many things in life are about power. Why do people prefer to be attractive to being unattractive? It's not because of vanity in most cases, but rather because beauty gives them power over others. Why do we want money? It's not because a pocket full of cash is intrinsically satisfying. It's about the power to get what you want.

The whole point of tipping is to give the customer power. If your server was not good to you, you are empowered to "punish" him or her by not leaving a tip. In a country like Japan, in which the customer is supposedly king, you'd think that they'd give customers that power. They don't. However, that's because there is an assumption the moment you walk in the door that you have the power already. You don't need to prove it with leaving spare change on the table for the server.

Given how many business leave a tip jar on the counter in America - even in cases in which service is defined as handing you a donut in a paper bag after snatching a sad-looking one from the display case - I miss the fact that there was no tipping in Japan even more. Tipping has become less about empowering the customer and more about shaking her down as time has gone by and I could really do without it.