Opinion: Tips Jars Are Everywhere - Are Employers Not Paying Enough?

PixabayPhoto bytadhanna

When did we start tipping for everything?

It used to be that a tip was given for a service rendered. Deliver the pancakes hot and the milk cold to the table, get the order right and you got a 15% tip.

Today if you hand over the right dry cleaning, or get the correct change at Ace Hardware, there’s a tip jar primed with two $5 bills at the bottom waiting for your generosity.

Why do we have to tip for so many different services today?

My mother gave me advice 50 years ago when getting a haircut. If the owner is cutting your hair pay only the fee. If it’s someone working for him, then give her a tip. And I’ve followed this ever since.

But am I out of date?

When I’m at a restaurant with four other people there’s a great deal to juggle so I appreciate it when the waiter gets it right, the food’s hot, the attitude is helpful and if we’re lucky, the guy’s a little entertaining as well.

So - a good tip makes sense.

But if a person, a nice enough person, reaches behind them to grab a bag filled with wonton soup, eggrolls, and chicken chow mein, Shanghai style, do I need to give them a tip for charging my credit card?

When is a tip really an excuse - for a job done well, but a paycheck that falls short?

Back in the day, the Fair Labor Standards Act allowed employers to not pay a minimum wage if there were tips being given at the same time.

This law has changed over the years as states have set standards for minimum wage.

But the question remains - why are so many new “service” jobs now thinking a tip is fair?

Is it?

We pack the shopping cart with the goods we need. We push the cart through the store, adding potted plants, bags of potting soil, and a few bricks, and take it all to the cashier who tallies it up, usually with a scan gun while everything is in the cart and at the end of the transaction - there’s the tip jar waiting.

Or are the employees making it known that the wages they’re being paid are not enough? Not that their cashier job should get them $40 an hour - I don’t think any of them are saying that. But maybe they are saying $7.25/hour just doesn’t cut it.

Not for someone living with mom and dad, not for someone renting a room, it’s just not enough.

So, is a tip a form of wage subsidy? Are we, the average shopper, purchaser, and eater at restaurants being asked to subsidize the low wages being paid - or it is something else?

I’m not morally opposed to tipping - I’ve done it all my life. At restaurants, for taxi drivers or guys bringing in a new fridge. The ways where tips make sense seem to be self-evident. There’s a service being provided.

But then everything is a service - isn’t it?

Here’s your Meds over the counter. Here’s the large pepperoni pizza with sausage. Here are the replacement bags for your vacuum cleaner. They’re all being slid over the counter - but is that act worth a tip?

I’d like to know.

I know at times I wonder - am I being mean in not giving a tip?

When going through the “self-serve” car wash, they added young employees to work the machines while selling towels, air fresheners, and the like.

Should I tip her as well?

Tipping used to be simple, but now it’s not. It’s not the end of the world. It’s not the housing crisis but it’s something.

It means something has changed. Something bubbling under the surface that isn’t quite right.

A tip is a tip is a tip - isn’t anymore. It’s more complicated, like everything else these days.