Wednesday, November 19, 2008

The Cudgel


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Originally uploaded by thoth92.
Stand back, I am about to blast on a subject that has been pissing me off for a while now. If you don't want spittle in your hair, now would be a good time to move to the back of the room.

I have always had a love/hate relationship with tipping, but moving to the Bow Valley has blown that mild 'meh' attitude away, and replaced it will a frothing anger that I can barely check whenever I see a cup, hand out, or even worse - a debit screen with the option to add a tip.

You can't go anywhere here without someone's hand out or in your pocket expecting a tip. It has just gotten f%cking ridiculous. This has become such a point of contention for me that I actually felt I needed to sit down and make a decision on how I was going to deal with it. That's right, forget global warming, or who to vote for, I need to deal with the cudgel that has become tipping. And you know what? I decided, I don't tip, expect at restaurants. That is it, my line in the sand. I am just stunned that I actually had to take time out of my schedule and expend energy to draw a line in the sand regarding something that should be a non-topic in the vast complication that is my life.

But that is a credit to just how pernicious tipping has become. That a normal person with everyday problems actually has to decide to take a stand on who and what they are going to tip for. Sorry, hair dresser, who makes more then me an hour, you are not getting a tip. Forget it nail lady who is charging me $25 more for a fill here then I paid in Lethbridge. That difference just ate your tip. Leave me alone gas pump guy, I can pump my own gas if your services require me to give you a tip.

For crying out loud, we don't live in a third world country here. Somehow I know you who expect tips have food, and most likely an iPod, and if your living in the Valley, probably a kick ass snowboard as well. So no, I am not going to tip you for a service you are already paid to provide. Jesus, if we apply to this logic to everything in the service industry, I would have to start asking my students to tip me too. Do I stand up at the front of my classroom and provide my students with knowledge and then stick out my hand? Sorry kids, learning how to do that fraction requires a 15% tip. Absolutely, not. But maybe I should, since it seems to have become the low classy way of the service industry.

For more reading, check out The Tipping Plague by Andrew Coyne

3 comments:

Squirrelly Girly said...

Good for you! Getting asked for a tip always makes me uncomfortable. Like I should, but maybe I don't want to. And then I'm being forced to do something I didn't want to do and I feel yucky about it.

Heidi Schempp Fournier said...

And you know I think that is ultimately why this whole subject pisses me off. I am being forced to do something I don't want to do. So I am opting out of the guilt, by just adjusting in my own mind what I do and do not feel is acceptable. I will not let someone else dictate to me.

Anonymous said...

I agree whole heartedly. Let's all get red T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan "I HAVE OPTED OUT OF TIPPING." I'm sure you can all think of other creative slogans for this plight, too.