Plenty of people do not. Tips and other cash earnings are notoriously a part of the black economy and go untaxed. I do not use the phrase ‘tax free’, as some do when referring to cash earnings, because they are not free of tax in theory even if they often are in practice. This is the main argument against tipping, that it allows some people an unfair advantage over others who have tax deducted at source and have no opportunity to add cash to their pay.
What are the advantages of tipping? Well, I can honestly say that I am a better tourist guide because of it. You soon learn which are the comments and jokes which go down well, how long people want to listen and how often they want to be left to sleep (more than you at first imagine). The potential of earning a tip also makes you remember that you are dealing with real human beings. They do not care if you are hung-over and fed up and that you do not want to go to a cold, windy Stonehenge for the umpteenth time. It is their first and probably only time and they expect someone who is being paid to make it worthwhile.
And they are prepared to pay extra for someone who makes the extra effort to bring a group of ancient stones clustered together on Salisbury Plain to life. That is the thing about giving tips. It is entirely voluntary. When we have a bad day in the tip basket, I will say to a driver who complains that you can take a horse to water but cannot make him drink. You can conduct the same tour with similar sized groups and the same degree of enthusiasm on consecutive days and on one you will feel like you are the best in the world because the tips were good and on the next you will feel like a failure because they were bad.
I like this uncertainty. It adds to the interest of the job, to not know exactly how much you are going to earn. It keeps you both on your toes and down to earth. All the knowledge, qualifications and experience in the world will not compensate for a grumpy attitude or appearance and tipping reminds those who work with paying customers of this important fact. To put it bluntly, tipping prevents you from disappearing too far up your own backside.
There is no rationality about tipping so it does not appeal to those who like an ordered and predictable world. People tip taxi drivers but not bus drivers. They (hopefully) tip tourist guides but not travel agents. Waiters earn tips but not chefs. The story goes that the word comes from the initials of the phrase ‘to insure promptness’ from those who were bringing you dinner or drinks, although this is probably a myth, acronyms being very much a twentieth century invention, occasionally turned into ‘backronyms’ of the past.
Whatever its origins, tipping has survived albeit in a patchy way. Some cultures do not encourage or even allow it and younger people seem less comfortable with it than older ones, although that might well change as they accumulate more disposable income. The biggest threat to tipping could well be the cashless society. You can add the ‘service charge’ to your restaurant bill (and many places nowadays do it for you) but this is sometimes absorbed by the business and only reaches the waiting staff as part of their basic wages rather than the bonus it is meant to be. But how can you tip a barman for making you a particularly nice drink if you pay him with a credit card. As for buskers (and beggars) they face a bleak future in a world in which plastic is king. I have no desire to live in such a sterile place but Sweden, which is usually a good predictor of the future, is going that way and we could well follow, while the USA remains wedded to cash.
Some people find the whole process of tipping demeaning because it encourages a servile attitude. I emphatically deny that it does so in my case. People like a fawning guide as little as a grumpy one and sometimes you have to crack the whip in order to keep the group in shape even if it means missing a tip.
The ultimate justification for tipping is that it is a way of saying ‘thank you’ in financial terms. In restaurants, for example, the person eating is probably earning between two and two hundred (maybe two thousand) times what the person serving makes. The server is performing a service and, if he or she does it well, should be rewarded. Tipping is sending money directly from the richer man (probably) to the poorer person and, as such, it is wealth redistribution in practice. It does make for a perfect world but it helps to nudge us towards a fairer one and so, in practical terms it should be encouraged. It is wealth actually ‘trickling down’.
And so, do I give tips to those who provide services for me. If you get, you have to give.
Edwin Lerner
My other blog is diaryofatouristguide.blogspot.com
