Tho Pham
ESL 51
First Draft
Tip or Not?

It is a beautiful Sunday night; your family chooses a famous Italian restaurant in the area to have dinner. As you are very pleased with the service, you decide to write down 20% of the bill to give to the waitress as tips. This happens every day around the country. Although there are some dissidents of this long-standing tipping custom whose reason is tipping provokes conflict between servers, tipping should continue because it gives servers an incentive to work hard.

In America’s restaurants, the custom is giving a 15% tip (To Insure Promptitude) to the servers. Every year 42 billion dollars of tips were granted to American servers, whose income greatly depends on tips. Recently a manager of a famed California restaurant, Jay Porter, decided to prohibit tipping. The price then included the tip, which is 18%, 15% of which belonged to the servers and the rest went to the kitchen staff. Research reveals that 80% of American diners favor tipping as they think tips incentivize servers to do good service and they feel guilty being served. From 10% in the early 20th century, the tipping rate has increased to18.9% today. While most of Mr. Porter’s customers accept the new policy, very few diners were still obliged to tip and that money went to the charity. Nonetheless, Porter’s restaurant is the only pioneer in the area and it will not likely draw many followers.
Some opponents of tipping say that tipping does not create incentive but conflict. However, conflict only occurs when there is lack of supervision or proper operating system, which is the manager’s responsibility. Those who view tipping as initiator of conflict argue that employees can compete for tables with the potential best tip. Granted, when servers fight for extra money they will create a hostile and stressful workplace as well as reduce the restaurant’s reputation. Nevertheless, a good manager has the ability of handling all these problems. There are countless tactics for the manager to apply, such as training the employees well before putting them to work, discharging servers who display aggressive behavior, assigning certain tables to certain servers, etc.
When we ponder over the underlying motive of this practice, we will understand why tipping should continue. As customers, we look for delicious food in a pleasant space and a good service, especially good service, which affects our mood significantly. As servers, they look for extra money since their wage is low. The tip, in this situation, is the fullest way to say the words “Thank you”. Moreover, the amount of tip can very much tell the servers how good they have done. Just like grades that teachers assign to students, 20% tips can be an A+, while 18% is an A, 15% is a B, and so on. Who doesn’t want an A+? Servers try hard to get good “grades”, at the same time, improve the quality of service, so both the customers and the servers are happy.
In brief, too much incentive from tipping can cause conflict but that is only a trifle to skillful managers. If you are still inclined to no-tipping, whatever your reason is, think about this: Why do we have this custom for years if not because it creates a little incentive that keep things operate so well? Ruminate about it again, because you might look at the wrong problem.