“Tip
creep”
has
been
a
pervasive
issue
in
American
culture
for
some
time
now.
Many
businesses,
faced
with
rising
costs
or
insurmountable
greed,
have
increasingly
turned
to
tip
encouragement
as
a
means
of
underpaying
their
employees
while
simultaneously
being
reasonably
assured
malnutrition
will
not
sap
worker
productivity.
Personally,
when
faced
with
a
new
tip
line
on
the
receipt
where
formerly
there
was
none,
sometimes
I
don’t
mind
at
all,
and
sometimes
I
do.
A
tip
for
the
woman
at
my
local
bakery
who
indulges
me
as
I
point
out
the
most
desirable
Bismarcks
behind
the
glass?
Absolutely.
She
is
always
nice.
On
the
other
hand,
a
tip
for
assembling
the
take-and-bake
pizza
that
I
ordered
online
and
already
have
to
cook
myself?
Boy,
that
seems
like
a
bit
of
a
stretch.
From
a
tax
perspective,
it
is
a
better
time
than
ever
to
be
a
tipped
worker.
The
“Big,
Beautiful
Bill”
exempts
the
first
$25,000
of
a
qualifying
worker’s
annual
tips
from
income
taxes
(tips
will
still
be
subject
to
the
7.65%
payroll
tax
meant
to
fund
Medicare
and
Social
Security).
Given
the
new
tax
treatment,
employers
are
probably
going
to
try
to
slip
even
more
tips
into
our
lives.
So,
let’s
take
a
look
at
each
end
of
the
spectrum
when
it
comes
to
tipping
culture
to
better
gauge
where
this
actually
makes
sense
and
where
it
is
just
another
shameless
cash-grab.
I
go
on
a
lot
of
tours,
and
occasionally,
for
the
past
two
summers,
even
give
them
on
the
weekends.
Most
recently,
I
toured
the
historic
Anheuser-Busch
brewery
in
St.
Louis,
Missouri
(please
don’t
email
me
criticisms
if
you’re
a
beer
snob,
read
this
instead).
Our
tour
guide,
Grace,
was
friendly,
energetic,
knowledgeable,
and
a
good
sport
about
making
the
distance
covered
easier
on
my
mother,
who
has
a
mobility
impairment.
At
the
end
of
the
tour,
I
asked
Grace
whether
she
could
accept
tips.
Then
I
handed
her
a
crisp
bill.
Tipping
your
tour
guide
is
the
purest
essence
of
what
tipping
culture
should
be.
Tipping
is
not
required
—
I
have
almost
never
even
seen
a
sign
up
indicating
that
tips
were
encouraged.
You
get
to
wait
until
the
end
to
decide
whether
and
how
much
you
want
to
tip,
theoretically
incentivizing
better
service
for
you,
the
guidee.
Plus,
tipping
is
rare.
I
didn’t
see
anyone
else
tip
Grace,
and
in
my
experience,
generally
less
than
10%
of
people
on
a
tour
bother
to
tip
their
guide
(I
have
been
on
only
one
after
which
the
guide
said
she
was
not
allowed
to
take
tips,
so
that
policy
is
itself
rare,
though
still
worth
asking
about).
The
scarcity
of
tips
in
the
guiding
role
makes
tipping
an
unexpected
delight
for
the
guide,
rather
than
a
default
expectation
like
it
is
at
sit-down
restaurants.
Look
up
the
original
definition
of
what
a
“gratuity”
is
actually
supposed
to
be
and
try
to
tell
me
that
the
tour
guide
version
I’ve
described
fails
to
meet
it.
On
the
other
hand,
we
also
ate
at
The
Biergarten
restaurant
while
we
were
there,
which
was
a
new
addition
to
the
Anheuser-Busch
brewery
site
since
the
last
time
I’d
visited
when
I
was
in
college
nearly
20
years
ago.
Although
the
food
was
pretty
good,
the
tipping
experience
was
awful,
the
absolute
antithesis
of
what
offering
a
tip
should
be
for
the
consumer.
It
is
one
of
those
places
where
you
scan
the
QR
code
at
your
table
and
then
view
the
menu
and
order
directly
on
your
smartphone,
which
is
already
a
nightmare
when
you
have
older
people
with
you.
You
had
to
enter
your
tip
right
there
onscreen
in
advance
(at
least
if
you
wanted
to
tip
via
the
credit
card
you
were
using
to
order
without
going
through
some
other
ordeal
to
figure
out
an
alternative).
This
was,
of
course,
long
prior
to
tasting
or
even
seeing
your
food.
The
tip
line
defaulted
to
20%.
I
nudged
it
down
a
bit,
as
I
was
kind
of
doing
the
work
of
an
absent
server
right
there
on
my
phone.
When
our
food
was
ready,
a
youngish
guy
dashed
out
and
deposited
it
on
our
table,
which
was
the
only
momentary
human
interaction
outside
our
own
little
group
that
we
had
during
the
whole
meal.
Did
the
tip
go
to
him,
for
a
solidly
performed
dash?
To
the
chefs?
To
Anheuser-Busch’s
parent
company
ABInBev?
Unclear.
Equally
unclear
was
how
we
were
supposed
to
have
any
agency
in
leaving
this
tip,
given
that
we
had
no
idea
how
fast
or
good
our
service
would
be
at
the
time
we
were
forced
to
leave
it.
There
we
have
it,
located
conveniently
at
the
very
same
brewery:
the
Aristotelian
ideal
of
the
concept
of
tipping
that
is
tipping
your
tour
guide,
and
the
dystopian
techno-hell
that
is
being
forced
to
leave
a
tip
to
a
QR
code
in
advance.
The
good
news
is
that
you,
the
consumer,
have
the
power
to
gently
influence
either
the
proliferation
or
the
slow
withering
of
either
type
of
tipping
culture.
Maybe
question
a
bit
who
you
are
really
helping
when
you
are
herded
into
blindly
leaving
a
certain
tip
in
a
certain
way
like
so
many
steers
in
a
cattle
chute.
Equally
as
important,
if
you
are
pleased
with
a
service
you
just
received,
especially
if
you
don’t
see
anyone
around
you
already
reaching
into
their
pockets,
perhaps
try
to
be
a
little
more
generous.
The
outcome
of
the
tipping
culture
war
is
depending
on
you.
Jonathan
Wolf
is
a
civil
litigator
and
author
of Your
Debt-Free
JD (affiliate
link).
He
has
taught
legal
writing,
written
for
a
wide
variety
of
publications,
and
made
it
both
his
business
and
his
pleasure
to
be
financially
and
scientifically
literate.
Any
views
he
expresses
are
probably
pure
gold,
but
are
nonetheless
solely
his
own
and
should
not
be
attributed
to
any
organization
with
which
he
is
affiliated.
He
wouldn’t
want
to
share
the
credit
anyway.
He
can
be
reached
at [email protected].