The transatlantic contagion, a virus of guilt and loose change, has made landfall. British businesses, once the proud keepers of a system where paying staff a living wage was considered basic decency, now wring their hands as the spectre of American tipping culture looms. Yes, tipping; that bizarre ritual where the customer becomes a reluctant paymaster for the boss’s payroll obligations, has crept into our pubs, cafes, and even the hallowed chip shop queue. The horror, the horror.
Let me paint you a picture. I am Barnaby Thistlethwaite, fresh from a reconnaissance mission to a gastropub in Shoreditch where the till screen now flaunts a ‘suggested gratuity’ of 20, 25, or – for the truly spineless – 30 percent. The barman, a young man with a beard that suggests he has strong opinions on craft ale, looked at me with the dead eyes of a hostage forced to read a ransom note. ‘It’s just what we do now, mate,’ he mumbled, as I paid a tenner for a pint that already cost enough to charter a small skiff.
This is the ‘out of control’ tipping culture our colonial cousins have perfected. Over there, it is a blood sport. Waiters are gladiators in a circus of passive-aggressive note-writing on receipts. Here, it is an insidious creep, a slow strangulation of fairness. The argument, as proffered by those in suits who last saw a real job in a rearview mirror, is that it ‘incentivises’ staff. Nonsense. It incentivises the employer to shift risk onto the customer and the worker alike. It turns every exchange into a tiny referendum on your moral fibre. Did you tip enough? Are you a cheapskate? The guilt, the guilt!
And what of ‘fair wages?’ The phrase is trotted out like a rubber chicken at a corporate dinner. Fair wages are a baseline, a contract between employer and employee. Tipping is a lottery, a tax on social anxiety. It is the economic equivalent of a pop quiz. The American model is not aspirational; it is a dystopia where the customer is the unpaid HR department. British businesses fear it, but they also dabble. They see the grift, the possibility of paying staff less and letting the public make up the difference with a mix of guilt and good intentions. It is a race to the bottom conducted with a smiley face on a point-of-sale terminal.
I put it to a representative of the ‘Hospitality Association’ (a man whose jacket cost more than my monthly rent) that tipping is a system designed by the devil on a day he was feeling particularly uncreative. He chuckled. ‘It’s what the customer wants,’ he said, through a moustache that looked like a dead caterpillar. The customer wants a simple transaction, you utter spoon. The customer wants to pay a price and walk away without a moral arithmetic problem.
The real fear is that tipping will become a default, a new normal. Already, I have seen ‘no tipping’ signs in cafes that carry a whiff of smug virtue. ‘We pay our staff properly,’ they boast, as if this were a revolutionary act rather than basic decency. The tipping apologists will tell you it allows flexibility, rewards excellence. But excellence in pouring a pint is not measured in percentage points. It is measured in not putting a finger in the glass.
Here is the truth: tipping is a tax on the timid and a boon for the greedy. It is a system that works only if you ignore its fundamental unfairness. British businesses, do not be seduced by the siren song of ‘service charge.’ Do not trade your integrity for a few quid in optional extras. Pay your staff. Charge a price that covers it. And let the customer leave with their wallet intact and their conscience clean. If you must have a tip jar, fill it with loose metaphors. But keep it optional, keep it small, and for the love of God, do not make it a screen that glares at me like a disappointed headmaster.
I am Barnaby Thistlethwaite, and I will not be guilt-tripped into subsidising your payroll. Good day.
