The Tipping Point

I wasn't planning on blogging about it. I really wasn't.

I went to an Ethiopian restaurant a few days ago in Silver Spring. Nice decor. Nice food. Friendly waitress. Didn't even wait all that long.

The people I went with treated, so all was good.

And then it happened. The waitress came back. She said we didn't tip enough. Why, it wasn't even 15%! She walked away.

To be fair, we did compute the tip incorrectly, tipping maybe 11% or so. But the people I went, being from India, found it shocking a waitress would come back asking for more (which would amount to 3-4 dollars more for her). I had never heard anyone come back claiming the tip wasn't enough.

But the reason it became interesting was a discussion I had with Chris. He believes that tips represent your satisfaction with the service. And yet, tips are hardly the way to express this.

It's easy enough to do a thought experiment. How much do you think a wait-staff person changes the way they handle customers? Now, I can understand there are those who are a bit emotional, and on a given day will have a "bad" day. And as if there's been a bad customer, they may not feel so excited by the next customer.

But all in all, I'd imagine that a waiter is likely to treat everyone about the same. Perhaps that hypothesis is wrong, but let's stick with that.

There's a great deal of variability in customers. For example, suppose you feel tipping 15% is too much, for anyone. You're already spending, say, ten bucks, and now you have to shell out another dollar fifty? 12% is enough, you figure.

Compare that to someone who's trying to say that 12% is eh service. Nothing great. Now, assuming the waiter can actually compute the difference between 15% and 12% in their heads (doubtful, for many), what message are they to conclude? Person is cheap or modify my behavior? And modify in what way? Why were they tipping less?

Worse still, wait-staff depend on their tips, and are often underpaid because they are expected to make the difference in tips. Thankless living to be sure, and you're expected to be friendly to the customers even as it's a whim whether they tip you well or not.

Indeed, little things make a difference beyond service. Maybe you're a female waitress whose a bit more attractive than usual. Maybe you get a little friendlier than usual. Or you decide to crouch down when taking orders so your eyeline matches the customer, rather than looking down upon them. All of these are minor things that may affect your tip.

Chris points out the food. What if you think the food is bad? Do you tip less because of it? Then, with that tip, you are alerting the cooking staff?

Money through tipping conveys far too little information, and because it conveys too little information, what hope is there for behavioral modification? And at what point is it crossing boundaries. Maybe an older gentleman wants the waitress to flirt a little. Nothing terribly overt, but something friendly.

And there's a mental burden on the tippee. I usually tip around 20% all the time, which is higher than usual, but really, how much service do the wait staff provide?

Frankly, if there were someway to communicate to the waiter, that would be ideal. For example, I've always felt it would be good to have a button (or several) that indicate you want a waiter. Among the choices would be "we're ready to order", "I'd like more water", "check please", "what's the status of the order", "other".

The question, once you have the buttons, is whether the wait staff would need to come by your table as often if you can, at the press of a button, get their attention. Some people think it's better for the wait staff to come by often, refilling water, and so forth. They do this because they can't exactly read your mind, so the more often they come by, the more likely they can deal with your issues.

Practically speaking, most waiters don't seem to like to come by all that often. Too much walking, I suppose. And, frankly, some people are likely to be annoyed by being visited too frequently. It just seems to make more sense to get them when you're ready to get them.

Now, if you want to check performance, then you could see how long it takes for the wait-staff to arrive.

Having come back from India, there's a second issue with wait-staff. In countries like India, and Britain, for that matter, where class distinctions are still quite common, a deferential wait-staff, e.g., one that knows "its place" still exist.

In the US, even if the wait-staff are fairly poor, they just think it's their current circumstance, that they are not serving their superiors. Even if they can be easily fired, the wait staff imagine they could have the American dream, and make a fortune.

And that attitude isn't so unusual because waitering is not an uncommon job for someone in college, and certainly, fast food counter waiting for high school students is quite common. Few of these high schoolers imagine full-time food serving is in their future. Indeed, for a few years (or less), fast food places are getting their share of over-qualified employees. Not over-qualified for food serving necessarily (though often, they are quite good at it), but that they have the capability to develop skills that will land them far better jobs.

Indeed, given druthers, I think the average educated person might simply prefer to have a compromise when it comes to slow food. They'd prefer to get the food themselves and be alerted to when this happens, or more simply, just don't have tips. Perhaps the customer can rate their wait staff on the way out, pressing a few buttons (though this is, I'm sure, unlikely to happen--I've given surveys, and people hate to fill them out if they don't have to).

So, the point? Tips don't do what they're intended to do, and if we value what they're supposed to do, we should figure something else out.