Is Tipping a Nonsense Way to Expect People to Earn a Living?

To many people who don't live in North America, they find the business of tipping people who are doing their jobs a nonsense way for them to earn a living. When you stop to think about it, isn't it a way of making debt slaves? All the owner of the restaurant is doing is giving them a place to work and for this 'privilege' they get to clean up the restaurant, keep the owners customers happy, take the abuse of angry customers and put up with rowdy, rude ignorant and bad mannered people for the princely sum of $2-3 per hour? OK, so some restaurants would have to pay more than this but if the legislated rate is $2-3 then that is probably what the majority would be paying staff.

In most countries outside America and Canada, people get paid an hourly rate to do whatever they are employed to do whether that is waiting on tables and serving them food or beverages, hairdressing or any service oriented occupation. People get paid for their work and if they are good at it, often pick up a tip as well, as a sign of real appreciation for a job well done. This is extra on top of their hourly rate that has been determined by an Industrial relations tribunal so that people don't get abused and taken advantage of in an effort to earn a living wage.

The idea of earning a living wage being determined by so many variables as being dependant on people's 'generosity' is appaling. Isn't this what charity is? These people work hard and take a lot of unpleasantness on behalf of the restaurant owner when things go wrong and this often happens even in the best run restaurants. Also, rarely do people pay full price for something if they aren't 'encouraged' to do so. Depending on people who no longer need anything from you and expecting them to leave you a reasonable 'tip' is a disgusting way to expect people to be rewarded for their work.

OK, so it's often students who do this kind of work but during my 5 visits travelling around the US and my year of living in Canada, and eating out daily, my experience showed me that the good wait staff in these restaurants and diners, and now more often in the fast food chains, are older people, with a higher than average number being women.

Talking with many of these mistreated souls in my travels, I found the majority of them to be single mums with kids who have delinquent Ex's who aren't paying child support regularly. In the meantime they all have to survive and depending on tips to make up a livable income is unreasonable and quite unfair for their hard work.

Why is the service industry in North America thought so little of? Without these services, life wouldn't be nearly so comfortable. If a person does an apprenticeship of 3-4 years and learns to become a qualified hairdresser, why shouldn't they be paid for their labour, knowledge and experience? To expect them to be paid the lowest rate possible of $8-10 an hour is unfair.

Would a person with a business diploma work for that wage? They couldn't do more damage than a disgruntled hairdresser. If you are a beauty parlour owner and are under paying staff, just remember the price you may have to pay some day if one of them takes an extreme dislike to one of your regular customers and gives them a hair colouring or hair cut that becomes the talk of the town? Employer and employee is a symbiotic relationship that is certainly not appreciated in some North American industries.

The other thing I found to be total nonsense is how can retailers and business people expect a consumer driven economy to continue to thrive and prosper when the very people they want to sell their goods and services to, are the very ones they are determined to pay as little as possible for their work?

To those who live outside North America, this idea of staff being paid by customers "tipping" to make up a livable income is too much like "having your cake and eating it too" and as it is not the magic pudding formula, it has to stop sometime simply because it is devouring itself.