Tipping System in the USA
Sometimes we have a few experiences in our life that teach us so much, which we would have never imagined. For now, let’s keep those teachings as a surprise and start with my background.
I am an Indian-born female living in the United States. I was born in an upper-middle-class family; hence I never faced any issues while living in India. My parents were of the kind on which one is always proud, which means they never restricted me from doing anything. I was good at studies that lead me to study in a top-tier Engineering school, which lead to a good career in the semiconductor industry. My hidden explorer self made me leave all the benefits in India and come to the United States. I went to one of the best universities in the USA; from there, you never have any issue finding a job. So life is good in terms of money. This makes us start thinking that money comes easy. One should just study and will be able to earn money. But then the first question comes: Does everyone in this world get to study??
Leaving money and career aside, I do face some challenges. One of those challenges is finding a partner. Being a strong-headed kind who never budges on any of the things she wants, this became a more difficult task. I might have got more rejections than I rejected in the last 5 years. But this whole dating journey has taught me so much. Once I met this person through a dating app whom I would have never met if I had known his matrimonial resume. I would say that happened for the best that I didn’t know much about him. Being from different backgrounds, we knew that we couldn’t be anything more than friends.
I have heard stories of generosity in my childhood from my grandpa, but I encountered it by being with him. I feel the people who have a lack of money are more generous than the ones who have ample money. Maybe they understand the importance of money for the others more than the one who never saw such deficiency in his/her life. It is not very easy to put oneself on someone else’s shoes, especially when two are from different status quo.
Before meeting him, I never use to give more than 15% tip(mostly 10%) in restaurants. This is because the US tip system was new to me. In India, we hardly paid 1–2% tip and that too when we really liked the waiter services. My this friend, who was from one of the under-developed countries, always gives more than 20% tip. Although he is a software engineer now, his first year in the United-states was full of struggles. He lived-off on tips.
Most of the manual jobs in the United States are heavily based on tips, and hourly pay can be as low as $8 per hour. I got to know from him that many of his friends who came to the United States through diversity visa work here on these jobs. They try to save as much money as they can so that they can send it to their family back home. Later, I started seeing this pattern more. Either I take an Uber or go to any restaurant or beauty salon or home repair, I started seeing different ethnic people, or I would say I started noticing it.
After this whole experience, I started feeling that I am so privileged that I was born into a family that gave me the right tools to make my career. I started questioning myself: Isn’t our duty to contribute back to society? There is no denying that the Bay Area became so expensive because of the high-tech industry and the concentration of millionaires. Housing prices are so bad that if you are not earning above 100K, your living conditions will be miserable. People who suffer the most are the ones who work in the service-based industry, and it is more evident in Covid-19 times.
I am writing this for myself and my friends, who are bad at tipping. Yes, it was our hard-work, which made us come here, but there are other folks as well who work hard, but they never get the right opportunity to reach where we have. Yes, we love saving money, and I think it is one of the best qualities I have, probably due to the teachings I have received from our family. But keep in mind, if we can afford to eat 20$ food we can also afford a 4$ tip. We may not even know what all good those 4$ can do in society. I am not saying that there has to have one percentage in our head while tipping, but being more aware of the implications is always good. We can be more generous to this world, and maybe tipping would be that small step.
