We have experienced a little moral panic in recent weeks, as many Conservative columnists have denounced the proliferation of tipping in businesses where it was not found until recently.
In a post published in The Press, Marie-Ève Fournier was scandalized that the payment machine offered her the possibility of leaving a tip at the bakery. In a subsequent column, she explained that this situation was caused by the workers, who do not hesitate to “twist the arm” of their poor employers.
Philippe Labrecque went further in Deals by arguing that this “tip crisis”, now “out of control”, is “symptomatic” of an economy where we have benefited from the CERB. What is the connection ? The author will not provide further details.
Academics have also fueled the public panic. On RDI, HEC marketing professor Jacques Nantel spoke of tipping as an uncontrollable “forest fire” that spreads through all sectors of the economy. He too had his little explanation: “Quebecers are embarrassed to displease” and are incapable of refusing to tip.
Quietly, these people born for a bun would be dying for a tip.
With a little hindsight, this collective dread seems ridiculous. Faced with the payment machine, it is easy to decline the invitation to leave an extra. We can still ask ourselves: why does tipping cause discomfort? How is it that conservatives have been able to seize on this little everyday practice to stir up resentment against workers and solidarity policies? If we do a bit of history, we discover that this kind of panic is nothing new. In Quebec, in the 1980s, the abolition of tipping was debated in the National Assembly and in the media.
We lament on the various public forums: the tip is now found “everywhere”, it is said, both at the barber and in the taxi. If we go back even further, in the United States this time, we can discover in the 1900s anti-tipping leagues that put pressure on elected officials to outright make illegal the few dollars that we give in addition to the bill .
In reality, tipping makes people feel uncomfortable in any era because its nature is ambivalent. It is halfway between the payment and the gift. A payment is mandatory: it is a fixed price that is paid to obtain a good or service. For its part, the gift is free: it cannot be demanded, because one gives it to mark one’s appreciation of others. Tipping lies precisely between these two types of transactions.
In restaurants, the 15% tip has become automatic, which allows it to take on the appearance of a payment “in exchange” for service. It is only variation to this standard that manages to communicate appreciation (or dissatisfaction).
When tipping extends to other businesses, as it does now, we don’t yet have automation, and that’s confusing. The ambivalent nature of the tip then resurfaces and takes the form of this discomfort that we feel at the moment of paying: “If I am asked for it, it can only be a payment, but at the same time, I have the choice, what must therefore be a gift. This is ambiguous.
We are therefore living in a period of transition. Under pressure, merchants may remove the ability to tip on their payment machines. It is also possible that it settles for good at the bakery and the garage.
Either way, it’s only a matter of time before tipping becomes automatic again and plunges back into the deep waters of the unthought…until the next moral panic.