In White World, We Tip

We tip. Get used to it. Alpha Unit gives her take on tipping here. Although Alpha is a good tipper, tipping does seem to be one of those Black/White flashpoints. This is Black culture vs White culture. Whites tip. Blacks supposedly do not, so I am told, though I have no personal experience. We just do it. We don’t think about it. Me, I always tip at restaurants and bars. Always, always, always. For one thing, I have worked for tips before, and I know what it’s like. But I don’t agree with bosses paying less than minimum wage on grounds you get tips. Sure, you don’t have to tip, but it’s nice. In White World, we sort of spread the wealth around. Somewhat. You don’t have to tip. But if you don’t, in some cases, you are being a dick. A lot of restaurants are tiring of the Black attitude and now work the tip right into the bill. Most White people think this is right and proper! I hear them talk about it. “Good! They are forcing the non-tippers to tip! Finally!” This thing about Blacks not tipping is one of the things that really pisses Whites off about Blacks. We just tip. You tip even if you’re broke. It’s part of the bill. At a restaurant, you are supposed to tip. At a bar, not so much. At a coffee shop, even less. One thing is that if you tip, you are almost guaranteed to get good service. I use tipping as a way to reward good service and punish bad service. Bad service? Fine, no tip, bye. Then I save it. Bad service 5 times in a row? Fine, I save up 5 tips. When I finally do get good service on the 5th or 10th time, I give that person 5 or 10 tips worth in one tip. They are really freaked out! Sometimes they ask me why I gave such a big tip, and I tell them. There was this coffee shop I used to hang out in. The waitresses did not like me very much. I’m not sure why, but they were all young women, and I think it might have been because I’m an aging lecher. Young women don’t like guys like me too much. Anyway, they were always kind of cold or irritable, so I started withholding tips. Fine, bitch, HAND to you too! And no tip besides! Zero tip for you bitch, HTH! There was this one who was nice to me. She was older and married, and I think she put up with the lecherousness. Plus she sort of liked me. Anyway, I saved up my tips. I had ~10 tips saved up from 10 bad services, and I unloaded them all on her. It was a ~$3 tip for one cup of coffee, where the tip should have been a quarter. One of the girls, Tiffany, who I always stiffed, exclaimed, “Hey! You just gave her a huge tip! You never tip me or the others anything!” I said that’s because she’s nice. Tiffany said, “But I’m nice!” I snorted and said I don’t think so. Then I winked at the girl I just tipped. Every time I went back there, Tiffany was always extremely nice to me. So were most of the others. They were trying for the nice tips. I don’t care if the niceness was fake or not. Maybe it was fake, I have no idea. I want people to be nice, genuine or not. If you hate me, fine, just pretend to be nice. I don’t mind if you’re not sincere. People are like animals or little children. You need to train them with aversive discipline. The Black man in the comments wanted to know some of the rules of White Culture 101 now that he is living in a 9

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27 thoughts on “In White World, We Tip”

  1. It’s actually my husband who isn’t into tipping.
    I believe in tipping if you’re going to go out. Otherwise, stay at home.
    We went to a restaurant once, and my husband didn’t leave the right tip. I told him, “Do you know that we can never set foot in this place again now?”

    1. Hmmm, I think there are some Whites who are not into tipping. You just gave us an example of one right here. I think I have heard of a few others too. I’m sure you can go back to the restaurant again if you don’t tip. Blacks do it all the time. But the help will not be too enthusiastic about serving you.
      I don’t really like that tipping has become almost mandatory. If you get really shitty service, you really should either leave a small tip or none at all. Too many Whites think tipping is mandatory no matter what. That’s ridiculous.
      Good tip is 15%. Not very good service at a restaurant – 10%. Great service at a restaurant – 20%+ (optional).

        1. Can you link the article for me?
          I think that restaurateurs ought to have to pay minimum wage to bartenders, servers, etc. If they make more in tips, no problem.
          I do agree with the poster that it allows inefficient businesses to survive. This guy is paying his employees $2.13 an hour! WTF? Everyone else has to pay theirs $8/hr.

      1. People who don’t like to tip according to the waiter blogs and books I’ve read:
        Groups of women, blks,teachers, service men, elderly people of any race,azns,europeans, immigrants from other parts of the world.
        best tippers…
        wht men in bussiness suits.

    2. To Alpha…
      It’s actually my husband who isn’t into tipping.
      I believe in tipping if you’re going to go out. Otherwise, stay at home.

      Yeah I got the impression from your article that you did tip…

  2. Tips are like subsidies. With them you compensate low salaries, so if you tip you are helping not-so-productive businesses to survive. They are against economic efficiency. So, may be you will be considered a nice guy in that restaurant, but your behaviour will reduce general happiness.
    By the way, I have tried to be consistent with that point of view, but it is rather difficult. I still care too much about what other people say or think.

    1. It is precisely this neoliberal and libertarian “efficiency” fetishism that I despise so much. Slave labor and child labor are very efficient. So is hiring illegal aliens and Hindu 1-B guest workers.

      1. When I say efficiency, I mean utilitarianism, not libertarianism. Libertarians don’t care about common good. The point is, efficiency for which goal? If it is for building unncecessary skyscrapers with cheap labor, I say no. If it is for pushing in some way or another those low-paid waiters and their employers to choose another more productive activity -in the area of health care, for instance- then I say, of course!

  3. Most Europeans are apparently huge dipshits about tipping in restaurants.
    It’s not even a cultural thing, it’s an economic thing: tipped workers are paid sub-living wages because the tips are assumed to make up the difference.

      1. To Rob and David:
        What do you mean they are huge dipshits? Can you explain?
        The tip is usually included in the price of the meal in Europe. Hence when Europeans come to the US they are behaving as they would at home.. they don’t tip. However French and German tour books not tell European tourists that’s the proper thing to do is to tip in an American restaurant.

    1. Yea and they know better when they come here. Tipping in America is in the lonely planet and let’s go books. They just use that to save a couple of bucks.

  4. Hmm, unlike you RL, I reward bad service with a terrible (as opposed to no) tip.
    If you don’t leave a tip, they might think you just forgot.
    I’ve had some terrible, terrible service in my life. I have left a penny before and the concept is beautifully reinforced, if you have the opportunity, to quip to the server before you leave: “Don’t spend it all in one place.”

  5. Interesting…
    I didn’t realize that Blacks were perceived this way. I guess bar tenders and waiters in restaurants where Blacks don’t usually eat never have this problem. Who would have thought…
    Personally, I always double the tax at minimum (16%) and go up to as much as 20% for good service. I go down as much as 8% if the service was bad. If it was so horrible that I simply could not leave a tip, I call the manager over to explain why. I think if a person is going to not leave a tip, providing feedback is appropriate and should be done. This has been my policy for years.
    I think what some may not realize is that sometimes in subtle little ways, Blacks don’t get the same service that Whites do (even from other Blacks), then when we don’t tip its like “what’s your problem?” I believe in tipping but for good service, not simply to subsidize a low wage earner.
    With that being said, I think we as Blacks tend to have the “inequity/inequality radar” up at all times which can cause us to over-read a situation or just be plain too sensitive and over-react. Rule of thumb for me is act but never react. If you never react then you can’t over-react can you?
    Then there are people like my brother that are just plain cheap!

  6. Doesn’t tipping essentially let restaurant employers of the hook for providing shitty wages to there waitresses?
    Tipping seems like a tax to me paying extra money for a service they are employed to do anyway.
    In no other job are you obliged to tip people for services rendered.
    You don’t tip you’re dentist or doctor each time you go for an appointment.

    1. I agree. Even though I tip, I don’t see what the point is. Why don’t restaurants just charge an appropriate amounts on the menu that would cover the cost of a living wage for their employees. Why don’t we tip airlines pilots and flight attendants as we exit the plane? That’s a service job. I hate stuff like this. Same with bargaining. I hate bargaining. Just charge everybody the same price for a good.

  7. Even well-behaved Blacks will not be completely accepted until they start doing this
    it doesn’t matter what we do, we’ll never be completely accepted.
    We are the most dispised in this country period. Every country has that group that is the most disliked.
    BTw, I tip. 20-30% if service is good to excellent and 15% for bad service. maybe I should tip only 10% for bad service.

  8. But I kind of thought White World was Europe? ;P
    I don’t know much about tipping, but I think, if you were dependant on it, it’d create a bidding war in a competitive situation and performance anxiety even outside of it, plus I reckon servers would just adjust their baseline service downwards to ensure they get a tip (it would provide a perverse incentive). As a customer, I don’t mind paying a greater standard charge not to have to calculate what a fair tip is and simply wouldn’t go back if service was bad – it’s in the manager’s self interest to monitor that kind of thing, if not, his business will fail and this is as it should be. I’m not going to pay less to him in exchange for the hassle of having to negotiate directly with his waiting staff. In addition, the business would become disorderly, as the wait staff would subordinate the other staff’s needs and requirements to their own short term interest, impeding their long term interest and the business’s function.
    But on the other hand, many people think there’s better, cheaper service in the US than where I live (UK).

  9. Blacks supposedly do not, so I am told, though I have no personal experience.
    I think there’s a certain amount of confirmation bias involved in this. Most of the people repeating this assumption have no experience to back it up.
    I don’t recall a discrepancy between black and white tippers from my brief waitressing career. My main impressions were that most people don’t tip all that well, they decrease tips for things beyond your control, customers in general are jerks, and restauranteurs are even worse. I’ll never do that work again.
    In my particular white world nowadays, we’re lucky if we can order pizza every now and then. I do tip well on the rare occasions I eat out, because I know how hard the job is. If the service is a bit slow, I note whether it’s due to the waiter being stuck with too many tables rather than incompetence.

    1. There are a number of server boards out there on the Net. If you go there, you can find them ranting and raving about how Blacks don’t tip, or actually, how they leave pitifully small tips. Like for a $150 bill, they leave $1. And those were well-to-do Blacks. I assume there is something behind it because so many servers are commenting on it.

  10. I think many Black people generally don’t know that waiters and bartenders get under minimum wage. I honestly didn’t know that for a while. I thought it was just extra. When I found out around 21 years old, I took tipping far more seriously although the amount still depends on quality of service.

    1. I think the U.S. should just become more like Europe in this regard, honestly.
      Both the tax and tip should be factored into the price. Things would be so much easier that way.

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