As a former waiter at an Upper East Side diner, Brian Moore considers himself a generous tipper. But he’s set off by the increasing number of people with their hands out, and a “sense of entitlement” that skips over the time-honored equation whereby a generous tip is considered a reward for a job well done.
“It’s just expected no matter what,” 48-year-old Moore says. “Sometimes I feel like I’m going through life like Robert De Niro going through the nightclub in ‘GoodFellas,’ tipping people right and left just for smiling at me.”
He’s got plenty of company. Consumer experts agree the average New Yorker is being besieged by an ever-growing number of service workers who are after an ever-growing slice of their spending money. Not only are there more hands reaching into your pocket, they’re expecting more: “Suggested” gratuities can run to 25 or even 30 percent, a number that might have been laughed off just a few years ago.
All this inflation is creating an epidemic of what author Steve Dublanica calls “tip creep.”
“People are aggravated to no end by it,” says Dublanica, a former waiter and the author of “Keep the Change: A Clueless Tipper’s Quest To Become the Guru of the Gratuity.”
The endless parade of tip jars in places where they were previously unseen is a major irritant, he says, chuckling over the one he spied recently at a newsstand in a suburban mall. In New York City, those angling for a handout include bodega cashiers, grocery baggers, dry cleaners and hardware clerks.
Michael Lynn, a professor of consumer behavior at Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration who studies tipping, keeps tabs on the way expected gratuities trend upward over time. An obvious example is the slow shift that’s brought the 20 percent restaurant tip from a generous outlier to the expected standard.
Lynn recently studied some 9,000 credit card receipts from a restaurant in Poughkeepsie, NY, and found that more than a third of customers — 37 percent — left a tip greater than 20 percent, suggesting that the journey northward from that standard is already in progress.
This squares with what Dublanica says he’s been hearing from waiters of late: “In Manhattan, when I talk to waiters they tell me, ‘No, we want 25 percent now.’ I don’t know how often they’re getting it, but within the past couple years, I’ve heard that mumbled.”
The 25 percent figure is popping up in other places, as well. At the Shobha salon she patronizes, Brooklynite Sarah Fones has noted that the tip envelopes arrayed by the register now offer suggested amounts for 15, 20 and 25 percent tips. The latter is “a newer thing,” she says, and to a generous 20 percent tipper like herself, it sends a message.
“You see that spectrum and you realize, oh, 20 percent, that’s now in the middle,” she says. “You think, if I’m doing 15 percent, am I now considered a cheapo?”
Lynn notes that her reaction is rooted in basic tipping psychology. When they tip, some people are content just to not be seen as a cheapskate, and will tip the average. A sizable number of others want to feel good about themselves and get positive recognition from the server, so they’ll aim north of what’s expected, a practice that raises the average over time.
The result, says Lynn: “People are tipping more these days than they used to, and the norm is going to go higher.”
Meanwhile, city cabbies get the prize for chutzpah when it comes to suggested gratuities. Pay your fare with a credit card, and the suggested amounts that pop up on screen are for 20, 25 and 30 percent — the previous gold standard for generosity is now the lowest option. You’re free to punch in your own amount, of course, but many don’t — the result is that average tips, which were estimated at 10 to 14 percent before credit-card swipers were introduced five years ago, have jumped to just over 19 percent, according to recent figures from the Taxi and Limousine Commission.
At coffee bars, increasing use of credit cards has actually cut into tip-jar stuffing — but perhaps not for long. As The Post reported earlier this month, a pair of cafes — branches of Oren’s Daily Roast in Midtown and on the Upper West Side — are pioneering a scanner called the DipJar that allows credit card users to leave a dollar tip with a quick swipe. While it’s no doubt a welcome convenience for some, others are less enthused, seeing the scanners as driving home the message that paying $4 for a latte isn’t enough — you’re expected to throw a tip on top of it.
“It’s a sign that tipping culture has gotten out of control,” read a typical message-board gripe, on the site fark.com.
At least when it comes to coffee, you’ve got the option to pocket your change, avoid eye contact and hustle out the door. Not so when a tip is mandatory — as is now the case at a small but growing number of city bars and restaurants.
High-end bars, mainly those located in hotels, have pioneered mandatory-tip drinking in recent years — establishments from the Breslin Bar in the Ace Hotel to Haven at the Sanctuary Hotel now apply automatic gratuities of 18 to 20 percent.
Christopher Elliott, a consumer advocate and travel writer, hears regular gripes that such mandatory tipping is on the rise, on cruise ships and at resorts as well as restaurants.
“This tipping creep is very real,” he says, calling it a “hot-button issue” for his readers. Those bugged by such charges “don’t mind tipping, but they would prefer to do it for good service, and not because it’s required.”
If you’ve wondered how it came to pass that every service worker with a brain stem now operates from behind a tip jar, Dublanica points to Starbucks for pioneering the trend. From there the practice gradually went viral, as other workers saw them and said, why not?
“People have realized, if I put out a jar, people will invariably put money in it, and even if it’s only $5, it’s a little more than I was making before,” he says. Seeing “a benefit for the worker that they don’t have to pay for,” companies don’t complain.
Part of the reason we get so incensed about running an endless gauntlet of tip jars, Dublanica believes, is that most people like to think of themselves as generous — and when they pass one by, it creates “cognitive dissonance,” sending the message that “maybe we’re not as nice as we think we are.”
There is, of course, another way. Practiced in Europe and much of the rest of the world, it’s a system whereby workers are paid more, service is built into the price and tipping is neither required nor expected.
Don’t hold your breath waiting for it to take root here, though. Sure, people are annoyed over constant pressure to tip,
but the only thing they like less, says Lynn, is having the option taken away.
“It’s true that there are substantial numbers of people that are unhappy about tipping,” he says. “But the alternatives are even less popular.”
So the slow shift toward ever higher tips will continue, begging the question: Where will it end? Ten percent was the norm back in Eisenhower’s day, and it’s taken 50 years to reach the point where 25 percent isn’t unthinkable. How much longer before we’re seeing a suggested gratuity of 40 or even 50 percent?
“I don’t know,” admits Lynn. “That’s the question, isn’t it? How high can it go?”
chris.erikson@nypost.com
TIP TIMELINE
* Tipping was rare in the pre-Civil War US; wealthy Americans brought it back from Europe after postwar visits.
* Early Pullman railroad porters — many former slaves — were the first large group of workers dependent on tips for a living.
* NYC’s unionized waiters tried to replace tips with $2.50-a-day pay in 1909. They failed.
Source: Steve Dublanica’s “Keep the Change”
Restaurants!
Having trouble doing math? The bill at Havana Central on West 46th Street does the work for you, with a suggested 21 percent tip — after tax.
Bars!
A $1 tip for a drink used to be the expected gratuity in city bars. Today, hot spots such as the Breslin in the Ace Hotel slap on an 18 percent automatic gratuity.
Cabs!
When it comes to tips for taxis, New Yorkers have always had a sliding scale. Now, when they pay by credit card, that scale has risen, with pre-set options from 20 to 30 percent.
Salons!
At Shobha spa, which has multiple locations throughout the city, tip envelopes suggest gratuities of 15, 20 and 25 percent. The message? A 20 percent tip is middling.