It’s been nearly two decades since I was in the USA and understanding how and when to tip has evaporated from my memory. I do recall however that tipping used to be a bit less, perhaps 10% of the bill whereas this trip the helpful suggestions were starting about 20%. My understanding is that the minimum wage hasn’t kept up with inflation and as a result people are relying more on tips today in the USA than ever before.
Having said that, I was told that tipping through drive-through isn’t generally the done thing and whilst you are technically served by someone in Target, Best Buy or a goods purchasing store, tipping isn’t required in those instances as they have a higher hourly rate that factors the lack of tipping in.
The idea seems to be the more personal, face to face, “service industry” (which can be confusing since someone telling me about a product in Best Buy is still ‘serving’ me) this industry is where you’re expected to tip, proportional to the service that is offered by the staff.
Okay so far I’m wrapping my head back around it. Next problem: when I came to the USA previously there were two types of transactions in the majority: cash and credit card. Cash was easy - they give you the bill and you pay them that amount plus a bit extra for the tip. Then you can ask for a receipt if you like. Super simple.
With credit cards in a sit-down restaurant environment you’d be given a small folding wallet thing, with a bill in it and a slot for your card. You’d fill in the tip amount, insert your card in the wallet and hand it back. Then they would wander off with it and hopefully come back without skimming your card and you’d sign and you’re done. Although requiring some degree of trust that was also straight forward to me.
Where I got lost this time was the introduction of payment at the till using a credit card either inserted (chip), swiped or pay-wave. In these cases they’d show me the amount, I’d usually insert my credit card, they’d print a receipt then I’d sign it, add a tip, then total it, then hand it back to them. At that point what happens? I’m assuming the original transaction is re-run or something? It’s not clear how that authorisation happens but they all seemed to accept this. Oh well, hope that worked. In those cases sometimes they’d give me a second receipt that included the tip amount, other times they wouldn’t with some looking confused when I asked for a receipt since I was still holding a pre-tip-filled-in copy.
The final conundrum was when it wasn’t a seated meal in a restaurant, when you’re just getting takeaway but it’s not via a drive-through I was given conflicting advice on whether to tip. The most regular example of this was a Barista. I defaulted to a tip for them however in the end I did it because I didn’t want to upset anyone, rather than it being a reflection of service.
The problem is that if you don’t grow up in a tipping culture, there’s no accepted set of rules and a lot comes back to the potential to reward good service or if you’re confused about whether tipping is the right thing to do, you end up insulting someone that’s good at their job that probably deserved a tip, at least in their opinion or based on the rules they are told apply.
I was once lectured by someone that grew up in that culture after they visited my country and they were horrified by a bad experience in a hotel blaming it all on our country’s lack of tipping leading to poor customer service. That was 20 years ago mind you, but I’m not entirely sure it’s that simple.
Either way towards the end of my trip I was so confused about the tipping grey areas I realised I was developing a ’tipping anxiety’ where I was starting to avoid situations where it was unclear when I should or shouldn’t tip or how much to tip. Sigh.
Maybe I’ll do better next t(r)ip.