When it comes to domestic travel, the question hasn’t ever really been whether to tip, but how much to tip while you’re on the road. Well, it turns out that’s the wrong question.
I’ve never seriously entertained the possibility that tipping could be on the verge of extinction. A few years ago, the last time I took a hard look at gratuities in the travel industry, the result was a pretty controversial column that, despite being critical of the tipping economy, didn’t question the system as a whole.
That’s still a commonly-held view, if you read some of the recent articles about tipping, including this magazine article.
So how are we getting it wrong? Well, for the last few days I’ve been having a dialog with dozens of travelers who tell me they’ve simply stopped tipping. That’s right — stopped.
“When you’re traveling, you leave a tip only when the service is extra special,” wrote Mark Terry. “Otherwise, the management should be paying a decent wage. Believe me, you’re not taking advantage of the workers — one way or another they’ll get paid. Or they wouldn’t be there.”
Lorenda O’Brien diagnoses the problem as follows: “Many people in the service industry have come to expect it — even if they don’t deserve it! The taxi driver, often surly, just takes you from point A to B, and frequently not the shortest route. Why should I tip a taxi driver? The hotel maid who barely makes the bed, doesn’t replace anything, doesn’t dust, etc. The tour guide who repeats from memory, boring, not worth the fee and definitely not worth a tip.”
One anonymous reader came out and said it: “I don’t tip.” The reason? “Tipping is paying for someone else’s hired help,” the reader explained, adding, “I did the math on tipping. If you tip only $200 a year you are cheating yourself out of almost $30,000 at the end of 30 years (assumes money is annually invested and a 8 percent rate of return). I’ll take the thirty thousand to start my retirement with, rather than leaving it on bar counters and restaurant tables for total strangers.”
Most readers, however, said that while they hadn’t abandoned tipping completely, they found it completely acceptable to not tip when the service was lacking.
“If the service is sub-par, then I’ll tip under 10 percent to hopefully send a message,” says reader Jeff Hyman. “But, if the service, food or attitude is horrendous, then you bet I will not leave a tip and I’ll do the manager a favor and tell him or her why I wasn’t happy.”
This may seem like a subtle shift in attitudes, but I think it’s important. In travel, billions of dollars in tips exchange hands every year (often under the radar of the IRS). If travelers stop tipping, or even become more selective in their tipping, it could precipitate a major change in the service economy.
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Think of it as tipping fatigue, just being tired of everyone having their hand out expecting 20% just for showing up. And like you, I’ve had people follow me out of a restaurant to demand a tip after screwing up the order.
Then there’s this story of this skycap at Miami:
http://www.suntimes.com/news/zimmermann/300017,CST-NWS-fixer16.article
RE: Jeff Hyman
If you want to send a message, try tipping less than 10¢. Less than 10% just makes you look cheap (as does tipping nothing at all).
I don’t know. All of the ‘hired help’ that we encounter when we travel are paid, but they aren’t typically paid a living wage. It doesn’t bother me even a tiny bit to tip for good service. This is not to say that terrible service deserves a tip, but there are professions, like waitressing, where the tip is the main component of the salary.
I rarely have a bad experience when dining out (but then, I treat the servers with respect and dignity: “please”, “thank you”, looking them in the eye), and customarily leave 20%. If the service is overbearing or perfunctory, then I leave less; accordingly. But if the service really sucks, I have a chat with the manager to explain, calmly and quietly, why I was dissatisfied. Almost every single time the manager will apologize and work to make things right. If they don’t, I just pay the bill (sans tip) and leave, never to return. No one says we have to patronize a business that shows contempt for its only source of income: customers.
I’d like to know how a Skycap was able to gain access to a passenger’s bags if the bags had been checked in at the counter, let alone soil them with garbage without a supervisor stopping him (referencing the linked Chicago Sun-Times column)?