We live in a country that has normalized this concept in which the customer not only pays for the good or service, but we also then help the owner of the company in paying part of the employees salary. This double paying we call “tips”. The corrupt business owners have even caused the culture to look at you as if you’re some demon if you decline to pay. How dare you, they say; how dare you let this poor, innocent employee suffer. All the while, they’re perfectly happy to shift the blame on you, when they are the ones not paying them. Did I not just pay for the product?
Even now, every company out there is trying to exploit this concept. Every time I go to a coffee shop where they literally just poor me a cup of coffee, they want to flip that iPad around and guilt trip me into paying more than the agreed on price. It won’t be long until the Walmart self-checkouts start begging for a tip for a job-well-done. If you don’t tip that poor self-checkout, then you are nothing more than a low-life, greedy, human being.
We need a tip revolution. The only way this can happen is by two steps. First, we must stop tipping. Yes, we must be the bad guys in their eyes. Second, those who earn their pay by tips must demand their boss pay them fairly or they leave.