{"id":152,"date":"2014-11-21T09:35:08","date_gmt":"2014-11-21T14:35:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/?p=152"},"modified":"2014-11-26T13:56:14","modified_gmt":"2014-11-26T18:56:14","slug":"the-tipping-point","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/?p=152","title":{"rendered":"The Tipping Point"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pursuant to the article on the Quebec pilgrimage, I have to vent a little on the topic of tipping.\u00a0 When I travel solo, I tend to go light, with a tent, eating from grocery stores, walking; I rarely, if ever, stay in hotels and, if I can, I try to avoid restaurants.\u00a0 \u00a0I have a number of reasons for that, only some of them financial, but that need not detain us now.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When one is with company, one must do what the Romans do, and join in.\u00a0 So, with my students, I had a pint in a pub, and went to a local eatery.\u00a0 There was one other incident with a squeegee man on the street, which does pertain, so allow me to begin with that.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We were waiting for a red light in downtown Montreal, when out of our periphery a blondish-red-haired and somewhat scruffy man appeared of indiscriminate age, perhaps later twenties, who began squeegeeing our front windshield.\u00a0 We locked the doors and continued our conversation.\u00a0 When we did not open the windows and offer him some a \u2018tip\u2019, he berated us with a \u2018Get back to Ontario\u2019, in a guttural Quebecois accent.\u00a0 Nice welcome to la Belle Provence<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"squeegee\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Driving away, I wondered how many people actually give him something, two dollars, perhaps even a fiver.\u00a0 They would do this partly out of pity (poor guy, trying to scrape out a living), partly out of fear (what if he dents the car, honey, or tries to break a window?).\u00a0 That got me thinking how much he could make per hour.\u00a0 It took our scruffy friend about 30 seconds or so to \u2018clean\u2019 our already-clean window; a brief calculation, and I came to the conclusion that, if even a minority of people offer him something, he could quite easily make forty dollars an hour for doing a menial job that no one needs done, and no one asked him to do. \u00a0\u00a0These squeegee people must be making some incentive, for they keep coming back (the guy in the photo is not the same guy, but the cleanest and most modest stock photo of a squeegee ‘kid’ I could find…).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

An analogous case, although not as bad and more pleasant, is waitressing (at least she is providing as service that I have asked for!): \u00a0At a pub in Quebec City, I bought a pitcher of local brew for our table; the beer itself was somewhat flat and rather insipid (I had better fortune in the hostel with another local ale).\u00a0\u00a0 When I went to pay afterward, the price was $17.50, steep for any pitcher, but especially for what we were served.\u00a0 I handed the waitress a twenty, and she slowly, inexorably, deliberately and painfully, drew out of her apron two quarters, clearly not wanting to reach in for that other two dollars.\u00a0 I took the quarters, and walked away, unable to endure anymore.<\/p>\n

\"waitress\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But, again, I got to thinking:\u00a0 How many pitchers and drinks did she serve that night in that packed bar?\u00a0 One hundred?\u00a0 Three hundred?\u00a0 Did she make $2.50 on each one?\u00a0 To understate the case, that\u2019s quite a bit of extra income.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My point is not about the 2 bucks, or that waitresses should not make a good living, but that, if they are underpaid, it is the owner of the pub who should pay them, not me.\u00a0 Why should I be forced to supplement the income of his staff?\u00a0 I must presume he is already making a very tidy profit on the beer itself (the pitcher of their less-than-Stellar-Artois draft could not have cost him more than a few dollars), to say nothing of all the other drinks and food.\u00a0 So he pays her a pittance, and we, the already fleeced customer sitting at a sticky table listening to over-loud music, are supposed to make up the difference.\u00a0 (You might see why I try to avoid modern bars).\u00a0 If I had left no tip, she would have considered me a cheapskate, even though I was already overpaying for my beverage.\u00a0 A tip that is no longer a \u2018tip\u2019 becomes a service charge, and should be declared as such in the price of food and drink.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This practise of tipping is endemic to our supine society, so given to idiotic \u2018customs\u2019 that we are afraid to change (and I refer not the custom of tipping cows, dangerous and inhumane at the best of times).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Remuneration for work done, I agree, is a complex topic, relative to the virtue of justice, about which the Church and many thinkers have written much, but we as everyday citizens have to put these teachings into practice in a concrete way in what we pay for goods and services.<\/p>\n

\"tipping<\/a><\/p>\n

Why are some professions tipped, and others not?\u00a0 Should we feel constrained to tip in every circumstance, like we now stand in ovation for performances, however grand or mediocre?\u00a0 Should the amount be relative to service received?\u00a0 Does this not lead to obsequious service, forced smiles, and a \u2018how y\u2019all doin\u2019 today\u2019 of pretty young things, whose forced gaiety is primarily to make your wallet a little lighter? \u00a0The same young woman would in all likelihood not recognize you outside the restaurant.<\/p>\n

\"silent<\/p>\n

Give me back the days of the silent waiter or bartender, who was paid well for his job, and did not expect a tip (a custom that I have heard still prevails in my native Scotland, where a bartender will be offended if you try to tip him).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Can we not return to the days of a fair price for a fair service?\u00a0 Tell me what I owe, and I will pay, but do not make it dependent on some vague and ill-defined \u2018tipping\u2019 customs, with the consequent glare of an over-worked bartendress, or disgruntled squeegee \u2018kid\u2019 who is approaching early middle-age.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Let\u2019s get back to simple justice, and we can all do the math.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

November 19, 2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pursuant to the article on the Quebec pilgrimage, I have to vent a little on the topic of tipping.\u00a0 When I travel solo, I tend to go light, with a tent, eating from grocery stores, walking; I rarely, if ever, stay in hotels and, if I can, I try to avoid restaurants.\u00a0 \u00a0I have a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=152"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":180,"href":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152\/revisions\/180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}