In Opposition to ‘In Defense of Tipping'
2015 has been a year filled with oh so many truly insufferable takes. From the woman at xoJane who pretended to be engaged to try on bridal gowns to whatever it is Jonathan Chait is yelling at kids about these days, the year has been… something. But in all this, there’s there’s one editorial that’s resonated with me so thoroughly in its awfulness that here I am months later dedicating an hour or so to respond. I speak, of course, of Richard Cohen’s Washington Post op-ed “In Defense of Tipping”.
Richard Cohen is a celebrated, award-winning columnist who happens to say a lot of somewhat ill-advised things about, well, everything (see: his support of the Iraq war, labeling anyone who disagreed with the Bush administration’s push for invasion as being either “fools or Frenchmen” — ha, screw the French amirite? #FreedomFries)
Here he is.
Anyway, so what is it that makes “In Defense of Tipping” such an exhausting slog through take-land? Well, let’s take a look at it, paragraph by paragraph, shall we?
He opens the editorial with some background on the debate over whether tipping is worth saving. New York restauranteur Danny Meyer announced he’d be eliminating tipping at his restaurants, and in came the flood of opinion pieces arguing for and against that move.
He then goes into some detail on why some argue that it’s time to end the practice. (Emphasis mine)
“There is much to criticize about tipping. Waiters usually do not share their tips with the kitchen staff, including the all-important chef. (There are, apparently, two classes of chefs: celebrity and impoverished.) It can be demeaning to rely on tips since some people like to see a waiter grovel or they like to criticize just about every aspect of the meal.”
Right?
“It is true also that female waiters not only have to put up with the occasionally obnoxious behavior of co-workers but also sometimes have to wade into a dining room fetid with men who think a good tip permits a sexist comment (or a leer). A New York Times anti-tipping article says that ‘nearly 37 percent of all sexual harassment claims to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission come from restaurants.’ Maybe so, but eliminating tipping will not eliminate boorish behavior.”
This downplays things quite a bit. “A sexist comment (or a leer)?” Not only are there comments and leers to worry about, but also outright groping. And the whole “Well, it won’t completely eliminate the problem” excuse is the same thing gun dudes are always yelling about when it comes to gun control.
The fact is, in a tip-based system women bartenders and waitresses are almost expected to put up with the harassment. When your income depends on whether or not a customer decides to toss some cash your way, you don’t really have the luxury (this shouldn’t have to be a luxury) to stand up for yourself.
“There are, I grant you, some problems with tipping, but it is, overall, worth keeping. Like almost everyone else in America, I was once a waiter — and a busboy, and a short-order cook and a dishwasher — and I never felt I was groveling for tips. I did feel, as a friend told me before I went off on a wait job, ‘Remember, you work for the customer, not the restaurant.’ If tipping doesn’t quite shift loyalties so neatly, it does put loyalties into play.”
First off, using “back in my day” to discuss and defend tipping is ridiculous. So much has changed in terms of culture, economy, and well… pretty much everything since Cohen waited tables. He’s basically Mr. Pink from Reservoir Dogs.
The next paragraph, however, is what made me roll my eyes so hard they fell out of my head, bounced across my living room, out my front door, down the steps, and into a sewer drain.
“The waiter is my guy for the duration of the meal. He’s my agent. He looks out for me and, if he does a good job, I look out for him. He has an incentive to give me exceptional service, not some mediocre minimum, to ensure that my water glass is full, that my wine is replenished, to make sure that the busboy does not prematurely remove the plates — that I am not hurried along so that the owner can squeeze in another sitting. The waiter is my wingman.”
Luckily, Cohen stopped short of saying a waiter should cut his meat and chew his food for him.
“The tip is recognition of service well-performed. It shows that I care, that I notice — that I recognize what the restaurateur way back in the kitchen does not because he cannot. Why would I want to treat everyone as if they were equally good at their tasks? I like to reward, but occasionally I like to punish. Make my meal an ordeal, make me anxious about whether you got the order straight, and no 20 percent tip will come your way. Maybe that’s not democratic, but a meal is not a town hall meeting.”
What an asshole, right?
My guess is that Cohen got paid a flat rate for this column. Maybe he’s on salary, maybe it’s on a per piece basis. Whatever his pay schedule is, I’m guessing it didn’t involve the general public wielding the ability to “reward” or “punish.”
Waiting tables is hard.
It’s literally the hardest job I’ve ever had (and that includes the summer I worked as a groundskeeper for my town’s park district in high school). And it’s hard for exactly the reasons Cohen says he likes the system of tipping: pretentious assjerks who come into a restaurant, have you pretend to be their “wingman,” and then lord the ability to ruin your night over you should you not live up to their arbitrary and unspoken demands.
Restaurant employees have enough on their plates (no pun intended) without having to jump through hoops for your amusement. Your food will taste the same whether or not someone is delivering your meal with a beaming smile or in a businesslike manner. That’s some weird, classist kind of garbage when you’re like, “You! Poor person! Pretend you’re having a grand old time while I debate whether to leave you $4 or $5 on this check!”
Whenever I see someone who clearly hates their job, I don’t hold it against them. Maybe they do, and most of the time it has something to do with jerks like Cohen here. Does it affect me? No. I don’t need “service with a (big, fake) smile.” I, as the customer, am not “always right,” and no, a restaurant employee doesn’t “work for me.”
So why am I writing this? Am I ‘outraged?’ No. Not at all.
I’m writing this for a few reasons. First off, I find the logic that goes into it horrifically flawed. “Why would I want to treat everyone as if they were equally good at their tasks?” is pretty hypocritical when you’re working in a field that doesn’t rely on complete strangers determining your take home pay. If you’re going to make the point that minimum wage/living wage laws “treat everyone as if they were equally good at their tasks,” you should take one for the team. Had you said that you would no longer be accepting a paycheck for your columns and that people could tip you as your sole source of income, that’d be a fun experiment. This, though? Bush league nonsense.
Second, I doubt Cohen even feels this way on the issue. It’s the oldest trick in the editorial book: play devil’s advocate. While others were churning out op-eds about a world beyond tipping, Cohen took the road less traveled, launching a (crappy) defense of it.
