Leaving a Tip: A Custom in Need of Changing?
Critic’s Notebook
Leaving a Tip: A Custom in Need of Changing?
By PETE WELLS
Published: September 3, 2013
Now, here is a technique that is guaranteed to have no effect on your service: leave a generous tip.
I’ve tipped slightly above the average for years, generally leaving 20 percent of the total, no matter what. According to one study, lots of people are just like me, sticking with a reasonable percentage through good nights and bad. And it doesn’t do us any good, because servers have no way of telling that we aren’t the hated type that leaves 10 percent of the pretax total, beverages excluded.
Some servers do try to sniff out stingy tippers, engaging in customer profiling based on national origin, age, race, gender and other traits. (The profiling appears to run both ways: another study showed that customers tended to leave smaller tips for black servers.)
I could go on against tipping, but let’s leave it at this: it is irrational, outdated, ineffective, confusing, prone to abuse and sometimes discriminatory. The people who take care of us in restaurants deserve a better system, and so do we.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/04/dining/leaving-a-tip-a-custom-in-need-of-changing.html?smid=pl-share&_r=0