This post viewed: 2616 times

Double dipping tipping is getting out of hand

Service industry businesses like restaurants, limousines, hotels and cruise lines are getting into the habit of imposing a 20 percent “tip” for services rendered to customers. But they are still asking for an additional “tip” when the bill arrives. A “tip” is supposed to reflect a customers satisfaction or dissatisfaction with an employee’s work, not a supplement to offset a cheap employers who doesn’t pay his or her employees enough for their work

By Ray Hanania

There is a disturbing new trend in tipping that is bothering me and I think it bothers most of you, too.

But what do we do about it?

It’s something you might see Larry David, the creator of Seinfeld, explore in his successful HBO comedy series “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” If you haven’t watched the series, you should. David precisely captures the paradoxes of everyday American life.

We let this happen more and more these days.

Dinner table setting at a high end restaurant. Photo courtesy of Ray Hanania

You go to a restaurant and when you get the bill, the restaurant automatically includes a 20 percent “service charge” which is basically a “tip.” The normal “tip” used to be 15 percent but somehow many companies have decided that 15 percent isn’t enough.

Worse – and this is what really bothers me – in the same bill, they include the cost plus the 20 percent service charge as your bill, with a line that allows you to add a “tip” before filling in the final balance that will be charged to your credit card.

Now, many times, the businesses don’t explain that they added the “service charge” to your bill.

But when they do, normal conscientious people like me, find ourselves in a quagmire. For you readers who went to the Chicago Public Schools, I have to always look that word up too in order to find its meaning. Quagmire means “bad situation” or a “dilemma.” (Why didn’t I just use those words instead? I have no idea.)

I feel guilty totaling the bill without adding a number to the “tip line” on the bill receipt. It’s like automatic. I write in an amount, usually 15 percent for average service and 20 percent for service that goes above and beyond.

When I know they added a service charge, I can’t look the waiter or waitress in the face and return the bill without a “tip” written in and totaled on the bill.

It’s just wrong. I’m discombobulated (confused – OK, I’m just having fun with words here.)

I feel guilty not writing down a “tip” amount because that is the way my father raised me. Be respectful of people in the service industry. Their employers pay them less to serve the food and tend to our meals in restaurants. But the “service charge” added to the bill disconnects from that feeling and leaves me feeling disrespectful. (I could have found another word for that, but I won’t burden your mindset anymore.)

This whole system nearly ruined a recent cruise I took during the Christmas and New Year Holidays – Merry Christmas people! (The Orthodox celebrated Christmas on Jan. 7, 2018, two weeks after everyone else.)

When you take a cruise, they automatically demand a “gratuity” charge that is 20 percent of the basic cruise costs. For three people, that was well over $300. But on top of that, I still found myself giving the waiters and room service people “tips”. So, I basically gave 35 percent “tips” for the service.

There are other industries that have turned to the hidden “service fee” as a means of increasing the “tip” from 15 percent to 20 percent, such as the limousine industry.

Deep down, I also have this suspicion that the businesses are taking all or part of the “service charges” for themselves.

A “tip” is supposed to be an expression of gratitude, not a required payment for services. You “tip” someone when they do well, and you “tip” more when they go above and beyond. You shouldn’t have to “tip” someone just because their employers are too cheap to pay them the minimum wage.

If a waitress or waiter is not getting enough money for their work, that’s not the problem of the customer although that’s how we have been taught. It should be the problem of the business owner who exploits the waitresses and waiters, collecting huge profits from the sale of product and demanding that customers add more to help cover the cost of the employees.

If you have this experience, I’d really like to know how you are handling this change in our societal norms. And, in what industries are you seeing this trend take place?

If a limousine company charges me $67 to take me to O’Hare Airport, then I should decide if the driver deserves another 15 percent as a “tip,” or maybe a larger “tip” of 20 percent of even 25 percent. But from now on, I’m not giving anyone a “tip” if the restaurant, limousine service, the cruise line or any other service business imposes a “service fee” to cover the employees’ work.

(Ray Hanania is an award winning columnist, author and former Chicago City Hall reporter. Email him at rghanania@gmail.com.)

Facebook Comments

This post viewed: 2616 times

About
Latest Posts

Ray Hanania

Ray Hanania is an award winning political columnist and author. He covered Chicago Politics and Chicago City Hall from 1976 through 1992. Hanania began writing in 1975 when he published The Middle Eastern Voice newspaper in Chicago (1975-1977). He later published “The National Arab American Times” newspaper which was distributed through 12,500 Middle East food stores in 48 American States (2004-2007).

Hanania writes weekly columns on Middle East and American Arab issues for the Arab News in Saudi Arabia at www.ArabNews.com, and at www.TheArabDailyNews.com, www.TheDailyHookah.com and at SuburbanChicagoland.com. He has also published weekly columns in the Jerusalem Post newspaper, YNetNews.com, Newsday Newspaper in New York, the Orlando Sentinel Newspapers, and the Arlington Heights Daily Herald.

Palestinian, American Arab and Christian, Hanania’s parents originate from Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

Hanania is the recipient of four (4) Chicago Headline Club “Peter Lisagor Awards” for Column writing. In November 2006, he was named “Best Ethnic American Columnist” by the New American Media. In 2009, Hanania received the prestigious Sigma Delta Chi Award for Writing from the Society of Professional Journalists. He is the recipient of the MT Mehdi Courage in Journalism Award. He was honored for his writing skills with two (2) Chicago Stick-o-Type awards from the Chicago Newspaper Guild. In 1990, Hanania was nominated by the Chicago Sun-Times editors for a Pulitzer Prize for his four-part series on the Palestinian Intifada.

His writings have also been honored by two national Awards from ADC for his writing, and from the National Arab American Journalists Association.

The managing editor of Suburban Chicagoland Online News website www.SuburbanChicagoland.com, Hanania's columns also appear in the Southwest News Newspaper Group of 8 newspapers.

Click here to send Ray Hanania and email.

His Facebook Page is Facebook.com/rghanania

Visit this link to read Ray's column archive at the ArabNews,com ArabNews.com/taxonomy/term/10906