Why am I being asked to leave a tip for the purchase of a bottle of water?

This new and pervasive trend of asking customers to tip for everything is getting to be a bit much

(I write a monthly column in my local paper and often share it here so that readers outside of northern Rhode Island can read it too. This is a slightly longer version of the column that ran here last week.)

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Do you suddenly feel pressured to leave a tip everywhere you go and for almost everything you buy? Are you unsure, frazzled even, after running in to buy a cup of coffee and being prompted by a screen to choose how much of a tip you want to leave? 

For a very long time, there has been a basic understanding that tips make up the bulk of the money that waiters and waitresses —or “servers”—earn. The minimum wage in Rhode Island for tipped employees is $3.89. Their tips account for most of their income and we, the customer, understand that we offset that low hourly wage with an average tip of 20 percent. 

And it’s not only sit-down restaurants. We have also long been accustomed to tipping the hairdresser, the barber, the housekeeping staff in a hotel, the manicurist, the cab driver, the valet and the pizza delivery guy. Coffee shops and ice-cream places often had a small cup or a big jar on the counter labeled “college fund”— a friendly and pressure-free way to welcome tips. Lots of people would throw their change in there, others would throw in bills. No one was obligated to answer a specific question about tipping right in front of the person who just scooped their ice cream or made their coffee. 

This change in tipping expectations is largely a consequence of electronic payments becoming the norm. A feature of the machines increasingly used to process credit and debit card transactions is to ask customers if they’d like to leave a tip. Usually, the options start at 15% and go up from there with additional buttons to “customize” the amount or leave “No Tip.” This means that in order to complete a transaction at almost any establishment that serves food and beverages, the tip question is required. The transaction literally won’t go through and the receipt won’t print until the customer answers the question. It can be uncomfortable. 

My sense is that this trend of asking the public to tip for so many more things could be headed for a bit of a backlash, not only because it feels like overkill but also because basic expenses have risen so sharply. I recently purchased a bottle of water at the airport. I got the water myself and walked it over to the counter to be rung up. Then I was prompted to leave a tip. For what exactly? 

Of course we are all free to hit the “no tip” option and occasionally I do but there are lots of people who can’t bring themselves to do that because of the awkwardness or guilt they feel, knowing that the person standing in front of them will immediately know they pressed the “No Tip” button. Customers feel like they are put on the spot. And they are. 

There will inevitably be readers who think I’m being ungenerous or cheap but neither is true; instead, I’m just raising a topic that people increasingly seem to vent about a lot. They’ll say, “we ordered take-out to save money and now the guy who takes my order over the phone asks me if I want to leave a tip.” One woman told me that when she bought one cookie for $4, the suggested tip on the screen was $3. That seems kind of nuts, no pun intended.

The most common argument against my critique is that “if we just paid people a living wage, we could get rid of tips” and this may be a strong argument in certain tipping contexts. Would the massage therapist rather be paid more by the company and give up their tips? I don’t know. But having worked as a waitress for several years in my twenties and knowing people who currently work as waitstaff, my hypothesis is that one would be hard pressed to anyone, especially in mid to high end restaurants, who would prefer to make more per hour and give up all their tips. I suspect the same is likely true for food delivery drivers and people who valet cars but again, I don’t know.

If you’re wondering what most customers do, a young woman working at a local Subway tells me that no one used to tip and now, since they got the new machines, nearly everyone does. The question is, will those who leave a tip every time but grumble about it afterwards keep giving or will the fatigue of being asked all the time lead them to finally take the leap and hit that “no tip” button? 

I recently stayed in a hotel for three nights in Charleston, South Carolina. I left a $20 cash tip for the housekeeping. I just don’t want to be prompted to add on an extra 20 percent when I buy a bagel.