A tip is defined as a bonus, a little extra, a bit extra, a present, a gift, a reward or an inducement.  About 25 years ago I lived in the United States (USA) for two years. In those days, if you went to a restaurant where you dined in, the unspoken role was that you left a tip of at least 10% of the bill. At that time, wait staff at restaurants were paid below the minimum wage at the time which was about $5.50 an hour, and that they were expected to make up the difference in tips. The result was that you would typically get really friendly waitstaff who were knowledgeable about the menu, quick to serve and who would ensure that your dining experience was pleasant.

Last month a work assignment had me back in the USA and we were eating out most evenings. I got schooled a good one at the university of character development. Tipping is no longer unspoken. It is blatant, in your face and, in some cases, forcefully added onto your bill. At one restaurant where three of us were eating, the bill for the food came to $108. Added to the bill was a gratuity of 18% or $19.44 and a food tax of $9.18 coming to a grand total of $136.62. At the bottom of the bill was a “Tip Guide” that stated 20% = $23.44, 22% = $25 and 25% = $29.30. I smiled. What was the point of the tip guide, if the restaurant had already decided, arbitrarily I might add, on how much tip to include in the bill? Our waitress at this restaurant had been flat, taking our orders perfunctorily and with a plastic smile that was dropped as soon as she turned on her heel to go to the kitchen.

Look, I have no issues tipping for good service. But I like to feel that it is a voluntary exercise, one that I do to thank and reward someone for exceptional service which I do often. Everywhere we went, the bottom of the menus and the food bills had tipping guides, with the minimum being 18% and the highest being 25%. You had an option to pay higher than the guide, at your own discretion. At one hotel room I stayed at, I found a sticker on the mirror with a bar code for guests to scan in order to tip the housekeeping team. This I thought was quite a useful gesture to appreciate the unseen service providers who kept our rooms clean daily. But I had to do some research on how the tipping culture had evolved. It turns out that it has statutory origins. Under USA federal law, the minimum wage for employees who also earn tips is $2.13 an hour while those who don’t earn tips should earn $7.25.

Quite simply, the US had legislatively shifted the onus of paying employees in bars and restaurants to consumers rather than to the establishment owners.  Each consumptive interaction in these establishments is a real time performance review of the staff, which concludes with a financially defined and payable rating. The beneficiaries of this arrangement are the establishment owners, as they are assured of self-motivated good service delivery from their waitstaff and bartenders.  It is a strange tripartite contract where the consumers become part of the remuneration contract.

I dined with a Kenyan professional who had gone to school and then worked in the US for the last twenty years. As I wrinkled my nose at yet another bill that turned up with a recommended tip for the waiter, she laughed and said that as a student in Boston, she had worked at a high end restaurant at the city’s ocean front. At one particular Mother’s Day lunch, she had made $700 in tips alone. “Service with a smile” she said, chuckling. She had quickly learnt how to raise her service game by attending to the needs of diners quickly, being genuinely friendly and, she said with a wink, always praise the children to the mothers even if they are veritable brats!

As an East African native, this 18-25% tipping thing is a tough one to swallow especially when a restaurant takes the liberty of making payment of gratuity mandatory by including it in the bill. It left a bad taste in my mouth because we were made to specifically pay for sub-par service. It has also redefined my perception of what genuinely good service means. It is the one that comes from someone who wants to serve well because they care, rather than the one who has to serve well to survive.

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Twitter: @carolmusyoka