Food For Thought: Tipflation

In a culture where money is everything, how much of it is spent on guilty expenditures rather than pleasures and necessities?

 I recently went to get fro-yo and was baffled upon my arrival at the register and was prompted with a tipping question. To preface, my favorite part of the fro-yo experience is that it is self-serve. So there I was, with no time to ponder that I had done 100% percent of the serving and 20% of the tipping. Under the guise of my good name, I cracked under the pressure of the cashier’s bulging eyes, watching where my finger would hit the screen. Here’s 20%. Thanks for nothing. Have a great day.

Granted, I could technically live without that $2.37, but it was the principle that pestered me the whole day. 

Tipping culture draws its origins in medieval England as a means for the rich to reward servants for their excellence. This practice has been reworked to be adopted by the society we live in today. The tip jar found its way to the United States post-Civil War. The American adoption of tipping has been held under scrutiny by publications like TIME Magazine for its continued “legacy of slavery.” While slavery was abolished, in the reconstruction era, many servants and slaves would not actually be paid for their labor, merely promised a small tip. This only reinforced the diminishment of human life and work.

Western tipping practices gained further traction as wealthy American aristocrats found another outlet in which they could flaunt their expendable dollars. A classist master-serf kink became widespread but was met with disfavor from the mid-19th-century working class who struggled to afford a meal, let alone a tip. 

The irony struck when the crippling attitude around tipping reached Europe (the home of the tip), which resulted in the total elimination of it from their culture. That’s why today it is not customary to find a pen left with the bill at the end of your meal in many eastern countries. America was stubborn to give it up. Tipping became illegal for a brief period in the early 20th century, but despite legislation's best efforts, tipping has remained ingrained in the framework of American hospitality services.

In restaurants where you are being waited on nowadays, leaving a tip feels logical. Being a server to hungry patrons is not for the faint of heart, so a 20% tip feels like the least we could do. That being said, maybe it is time to explore the idea that the tipflaltion phenomenon has crossed over to tangible practice. Next thing we know, we may be asked to tip emergency services. Where can we draw the line in the sand? Has it become social faux pas to hold on to your wallet at a self-serve establishment? To be left with nothing but a medium cup of fro-yo and an extra large serving of crippling anxiety and guilt? Never mind that. I'm going to learn how to make it at home. Nara Smith, here I come.

Strike Out,

Rosemary Aziz

Boca Raton

Rosemary Aziz is a Content Writer for Strike Magazine Boca. A health and wellness junkie who finds leisure in writing, all things coffee, and observing the human condition– but people-watching is better with friends. Or in her next article. You can reach her by email at r.m.aziz0204@gmail.com or on Instagram @rosemary.aziz.