At the Tipping Point of Gratuities

America's tipping culture is getting out of hand: time for serious conversations about hidden taxes and underpaid workers.

The other day, while attending a conference in Nashville, I tried to pay for a coffee, but the machine wouldn't accept my credit card. My American Express account was current, the machine was working fine, and the woman at the counter was patiently waiting for me. The issue was that the point-of-sale system was waiting for me to enter a tip amount.

Later that day, I tried to order an Uber. I was in a hurry, but the app prompted me to provide a tip for the previous ride from the day before.

More recently, I attempted to order something online, and the automated system asked me for a gratuity for a purchase that had no direct human involvement—an e-commerce site looking to get its digital hand greased.

Let me state this clearly. I hate tipping. The idea that I must pay gratitude for a service that I'm already paying the price for is antithetical. If you look at the bill at any restaurant, the most common place where tipping is expected, you pay the price of the meal, then a tax or two, and then the blank line for the tip. The diner is expected to tax themselves at least 18 percent on top of the base price. A meal that cost $10, has a 7 percent tax and another 18 percent add-on to cover the server and staff. So that ham sandwich is actually $12.50 – a 25 percent markup.

I get it. Restaurant workers don't make prevailing wages. They rely on tips to cover the gap between their meager hourly wage and what everyone else makes. Tipping is an artifact of the mid-19th century when restaurant owners didn't want to pay black people a living wage. So they came up with this idea of tipping, saying their employees could make more money that way.

It was a neat trick to lower costs without guaranteeing that workers would get paid, since tipping isn't compulsory. The traditional argument is you should give a tip for good service, and that tipping gets you better service. Well, studies and experience shows that isn't true. People are expected to tip even if they get bad service. And the server is no more or less motivated to give superior service since they have no guarantee of receiving a little bonus at the end.

A few months ago, my wife and I stopped at a Korean barbeque restaurant in Queens on our way home from Manhattan. If you've never been to such a place, I highly recommend it. They cook freshly cut meats at your table and serve you course after course until you're ready to explode. At the end of the meal, the waitress gave us the bill and my wife asked me to cover it. I added 15 percent to the $120 bill, and signed the receipt. The waitress gave me a dirty look.

In the car, my wife asked if I left a tip. I told her what I did and she was angry as hell. She scolded me for not leaving enough and that the waitress was relying on me to pay her bills.

Again, why is it my problem that the waitress needs me to cover what her employer isn't paying?

I get it. I conceded to my wife that I was wrong and I will make up for it the next time we go there.

But it still burns me that tipping is so pervasive that it's expected everywhere. We tip bell hops at hotels, hair dressers, Uber and taxi drivers, coffeeshop baristas, movers, landscapers, tour guides, delivery services, pet groomers, fitness instructors, and retail workers. Everywhere you look, you're expected to leave a little something for the person serving you – even if they're getting a full wage.

I would rather pay the real price for goods and services than cover the hidden costs of value-added taxes and tips. But, even then, studies have shown that this isn't a real solution. People will avoid such restaurants when presented with the full cost of meals and instructions not to tip. The higher prices read as unaffordable even though you're paying the same price with a tip.

For a long time, I enjoyed traveling outside the U.S. where tipping isn't as engrained in the culture. One time in London, I tried tipping a taxi driver out of habit; he threw two pounds back at me insulted that I would even try to give him more money. But the American experience is permeating other countries, and now everywhere service people are looking for tips.

I dislike tipping, but I know I'm fighting a losing battle. I'm grateful for the service that people provide at the various restaurants, stores and outlets, and I grudgingly leave the requisite gratuity when appropriate – which is now almost always. But we need, as a society and a culture, to start thinking about when we can bring this practice to an end and pay people what they're worth and not leave them subject to the whims of people like me.

And I’ll be damned if I start tipping websites and automated services.