My friend Greg and I were eating at a restaurant the other day when he started complaining about the amount I tipped our server. He thought that it was excessive tipping and accused me of ruining service for the rest of us who would later come into contact with that server. He said it reinforced bad service.
I wasn’t always excessively tipping servers at restaurants. It was quite the opposite in fact. My wife has changed the way that I tip servers at restaurants.
I’ll say right up front that I’ve never worked in the food service industry. I don’t know anything about it other than being a customer. When I met my wife, I gave a standard 15% tip for average to great service, but I was also ruthless when there was bad service. The server got 10% if they were lucky.
It is absolutely true when they say that opposites attract. That is my wife and I to a “T” in most respects. She’s the ying to my yang. She is a very kind and generous woman. And, like most husbands’ wives, she brings out the best in me. My wife has always been big believer in a 20% standard tip.
After four years of dating and now over 11 years of marriage, she has changed me for the better with my poor tipping habits. About three or four years ago, I started giving a standard 20% tip for even average service. Last week, I took some significant heat from my friend Greg for the practice. He said that 20% was excessive tipping for appropriate, average service and that I was
Are We Reinforcing Bad Behavior With Poor, Excessive Tipping?
My buddy Greg thinks that my excessive tipping contributes to the poor service that he gets at restaurants. Let me explain.
Let’s say, for example, that I have poor service one day at a restaurant, but I still give the waiter a 20% tip on my meal. In his or her mind, he must have done a great job. But the truth of the matter was that it was just okay service and maybe even borderline below average.
Now, my buddy Greg goes to the same restaurant the next day and will most likely get the same service because I’ve been positively reinforcing the bad behavior with the waiter with excellent tips. It’s a case like Pavlov’s dogs, and I’ve conditioned the waiter to give unacceptable service because of my tipping habits.
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