...the tipping point...
“I wish I had the nerve not to tip.”
-Paul Lynde-
For months now I have watched as again and again the news has covered a gasp inducing, ghastly, and painful phenomenon grasping an increasingly terrified public. You might want to sit down for this one and put a pirate patch over your left eye.
The next time you go buy a coffee, or a sandwich, or sit down and eat a meal beware. As the meal ends, as your hot caffeinated drink pours, or as the deli deacon closes you out on your order of jellied pastrami on mayo marmite toast it just might happen.
You might be asked for a tip.
It’s horrible, I'm told. Hell, two thirds of Americans aren’t in favor of it. It has the same appeal of a 2026 presidential election between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Doom.
The practice of tipping began in Tudor, England. In medieval times, tipping was a master-serf custom wherein a servant would receive extra money for having performed superbly well. The custom was imported to the Americas in the mid 1800’s by hoity Americans who wanted to appear aristocratic, and is now it has become a global act. A global act of terror.
Tipping was a taught expectation for me growing up. I would give 10-25% extra cash above the bill to anyone performing a service, like making me meatballs, or blade buzzing my hair helmet into a skullet. And it was also my entire means to a livelihood. I’d cut grass for a dollar a yard, but often would be treated to an extra $5 or $10 for the effort.
When I finally got a job in the service industry, slinging fried fruit to underage drunks at a university set Irish pub, the tip was my only opportunity for survival. My “official” pay at said job was $2.50 an hour. Tipless at night’s end, I could walk home with less cash (after taxes) than the train’s ride to and from said service. Tipless days, I was paying for the opportunity to scrub malty chip vinegar crusted barstools. The concept of meaningless work was lived in.
And historically that level of pay makes sense for tippable industries. The original workers that were not paid anything by their employers were newly freed slaves, whose only opportunity for compensation was a tip. At least I made enough money at the pub to regally purchase half a white castle dinner. But for decades the tip was the only form of pay for workers of the lowest economic caste.
Covid changed a lot of things. It helped the world understand the power of wearing funny masks, taught gross people to wash their ass stained hands, and it also irrevocably changed how we tip. But passing cash became the new passing gas, with the world plugging their nose and saying no thank you. When bars, restaurants, and hair stylists could no longer provide human interaction, these small business switched to delivering services that customers could pay for remotely
During the covid, I attended no less than three online cocktail parties where bartenders awkwardly served me martinis that had been mailed to me pre shaken, not stirred, over a video call. I attended a clown poetry slam, had a naked chef coach me through a taco build, and got video-hypnotized by a hairy healer. With each booking of these services the online digital checkout was accompanied with a tipping option of 15, 20 and 25%.
“Would you like to add a tip?”, I was asked and gladly complied.
Throughout the pandemic, tipping for a wider variety of services became a more common and acceptable occurrence. The general public became more aware and empathetic of the financial needs of service workers. We realized that risking your own personal well being to sell hot dog brine was a commendable act, worthy of financial support beyond the pungent price. As point of sale aka POS tools began to take the place of cash transactions, customers became accustomed to digital payment tools asking.
“Would you like to add a tip?”, they were asked and gladly complied.
But these POS machines are finally proving too much to a population headed back into the office. Inflation, recession and continual job loss in the technology sector means less money all around. With emptier pockets the digital prompt provokes buzzy new word feelings like “tipflation” and “tip creep”. Online purchases still accompany this prompt and an airport kiosk robot just went viral for asking to be tipped after delivering a bag tag.
“Would you like to add a tip?”, we are being asked, but complying is getting increasingly complicated.
Folks are fed up. And I get it. When a robot asks us to tip them we have a hard time conjuring any empathy for work. Our empathy is held for human labor. That robot has no kids to feed, no white castle to lord over. The robot asking for a tip is an inappropriate question, like when Aunt Margey asked me to help her set up -and run!- her Only Fans account.
Boundaries are getting crossed.
But I also think we might be stripping the messenger of its true meaning. The tip is not to blame. The tip provokes Ol’ Margey to play panty fingers for a legion of lookeroos. Her trip to Tibet depends on such transactions. The tip will help her trip.
But why would we tip a vending machine?
We wouldn’t. And the machine asking for one all of a sudden is indeed a tip creeping situation. I find it creepy to envision a humanless future of machines requesting pay for their services, possibly from other machines, as they drive over the skulls of society, and AI versions of too many Margeys silently dance to automated rodeo rock on gas station video screens. I see an elf with no eyes there. And a raven with pig feet. And a dark hole with tentacled mist and squeaking sounds coming from a dusty baby doll with one arm.
What a creepily creepy situation…
“It's not tipping I believe in. It's overtipping.”
-Steve Martin-
If a creep does creepy things, you generally don’t blame the thing. When Aunt Margey whispers squeaky squeals into her microphone to make ASMR for farm festishists I don’t get mad at the microphone. And when the airport servant bot says pay me please, I don’t need to blame the bot. I can instead aim anger at the dork factory creating its code.
Here’s a tip for those creeps…quit being creepy. It feels good to say that. It feels good because giving tips is a good action.
The tip is not always just financial feedback on the end of a receipt. I get tips all the time that are simply information and advice. People tell me to wash my ass hands, put on my monkey mask, and quit whispering like a pig in my ear. These are all great tips and just as valuable as 20% of whatever I am selling or serving.
I like to give these types of tips too. In fact, here is my tip for tipping. Tip. Give tips, get tips, get tipsy and tip some more. If someone does something for you and you like what they did, tip them. If someone does something for you and you don’t like what they did, tip them too. Tip them with constructive feedback on how they might do what they did better next time. And then still tip them money because they need tips to live.
So chipper up big tipper, the tip top of life is yours to tap, just as long as you don’t trip and leave a tip.
Sincerely,
Aunt Margey
I have become a paid subscriber for a month as a way of tipping, and may remain subscribed, at some point, for some time, as long as I receive a drawing, as promised, of an assey chap who doesn't tip.