Why We Should Abolish Tipping

Finally, the tide may be turning against tipping. “Prompted by a spurt of new minimum wage proposals in major cities, an expanding number of restaurateurs are experimenting with no-tipping policies as a way to manage rising labor costs,” the New York Times reported last week.

The Times cited the example of a seafood restaurant, Ivar, in Seattle, where the owners are hiking prices and stopping tipping in order to pay everyone Seattle’s $11 an hour minimum wage (which will eventually rise to $15 an hour). Other restaurants are simply making a service charge mandatory.

While I’m no fan of minimum wage hikes—which make it harder for young workers to get their first job and gain experience, as well as encourage businesses to consider automating or eliminating labor—it would be fantastic if the hikes could kill tipping.

No, I’m not trying to stop waiters and servers from doing their jobs well. But I don’t think tips are the way to do it. As a friend of mine pointed out, tipping makes every customer, not the restaurant leadership, the management. And that’s ridiculous.

Imagine getting a performance review from someone who had worked with you part of one day (a day that might or might not be typical of your experience), and who likely knew little to nothing about your job. Most of us would (rightfully!) protest. We’d point out that the person simply wasn’t qualified to rate how well or poorly we did our job.

When I go to a restaurant, I have no idea about the server’s experience. Maybe a difficult manager assigned my server far too many tables; maybe someone called in sick and the other servers have to cover for that person. I don’t know if the kitchen is functioning smoothly or if the cooks are deliberately altering the timing of the food they are preparing. I’m blissfully unaware if the server neglected to tell the bartender what drinks we wanted or if the bartender opted to serve the attractive customers at the bar first.

And I haven’t, as I’m guessing almost no one has, ever stopped to ask a server if there are any mitigating circumstances I should consider before deciding my tip.

That’s partly because I know many servers are paid wages that everyone presumes will be augmented by tips, and I’ve never had service that was so poor that I denied a server what essentially is a crucial part of their take-home pay. (Again, imagine this situation in another industry. Could you just pay less than the menu price for your latte because a barista went a little too heavy on the pumpkin and a little too light on the espresso?)

Furthermore, the data show that when it comes to judging the excellence of restaurant servers, we are lousy.

Michael Lynn, a professor at Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration, has conducted numerous studies on tipping. In a 2013 interview on the Freakonomics podcast, Lynn said the relationship between quality of service (as judged by the customer) and tips received was “astonishingly low.”

So what does affect tips? “Blondes get better tips than brunettes. Slender women get better tips than heavier women. Large breasted women get better tips than smaller breasted women. . . . Women in their 30s get better tips than either younger or older women,” Lynn told Freakonomics.

Other factors? A server touching a customer’s arm boosts tips, as does a server squatting at a table to take an order and drawing a smiley face on the receipt.

Businesses have other ways besides tips to hold workers accountable for customer service. When I worked at Borders (R.I.P, non-virtual bookstore), managers constantly observed our interactions with customers, and mystery shoppers and callers made sure we stayed on our best behavior.

I’m ready for relaxing dinners that don’t end with me having to calculate percentages. I would be very happy to never have to see another overly-friendly smiley face drawn on my receipt by a server eager to eke out a few more dollars in gratuity. The end of tipping can’t come soon enough.