Latest / Ridiculous History / The Ridiculous Racist Origin of Tipping, Part Two: The Great Debate and Anti-tipping Crusades

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The Ridiculous Racist Origin of Tipping, Part Two: The Great Debate and Anti-tipping Crusades · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
0:27
Speaker 1: the show, fellow ridiculous historians. Thank you, as always, so
0:31
Speaker 1: much for tuning in. Let's hear it. For the man,
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Speaker 1: the myth, the legend, our super producer, Max 20% or better, Williams.
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Speaker 2: That was sort of like the roar of the crowd,
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Speaker 2: but also the satisfying sound of taking a sip of
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Speaker 2: an ice cold beverage served to you.
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Speaker 3: By a lovely human who you reward for their service.
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Speaker 3: Reward is the wrong word. It's so complicated. It's so complicated.
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Speaker 3: That's Noel Brown. I've been bullied.
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Speaker 1: This is part two of an exploration on the practice
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Speaker 1: of tipping, which has baffled, fascinated people. irritated, and saved
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Speaker 1: so many folks here in the United States. And Noel,
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Speaker 1: as you, Max, and I were discussing at the very
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Speaker 1: end of our first episode on this, tipping in the
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Speaker 1: United States comes from a very problematic place.
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Speaker 3: It sure does. Are we talking about the racist part?
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Speaker 1: We have to talk about the races part. We have
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Speaker 1: to introduce– Max, Nolan, I don't know what kind of
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Speaker 1: sound cue you're going to do here, but I know
1:52
Speaker 1: it's going to be perfect because you're a genius. We
1:54
Speaker 1: have to introduce the Pullman Palace Car Company founded by
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Speaker 1: a guy named George Mortimer Pullman Jr. In the late 1800s. And, Noel,
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Speaker 1: these dudes were super dupes, fancy. They made high-end luxury
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Speaker 1: cars for railroads.
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Speaker 3: Carriages, right? Carriages, yeah, just so.
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Speaker 2: Yes, yes.
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Speaker 3: Also, can we bring back the name Mortimer and Poindexter, please?
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Speaker 1: I like a Mortimer. I like a Mortimer.
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Speaker 3: Not a Poindexter so much?
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Speaker 1: I point Dexter. I haven't met one personally, but if
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Speaker 1: I met, cause they're not around, I'm saying bring it back.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: But if I know that the three of us do
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Speaker 1: our best to be cool, empathetic, hang. So if we
2:41
Speaker 1: met a point Dexter and they had the cojones to say, uh,
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Speaker 1: I am, they call me point Dexter. I would have
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Speaker 1: so much respect. And Max is throwing his hand up here.
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Speaker 3: I would mock them relentlessly. Cause I'm a bad guy.
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Speaker 3: I'm kidding. I wouldn't do that. Do you know a Poindexter, Max?
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Speaker 4: Oh, I was going to just jump in. There is
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Speaker 4: a former NBA player by the name of Quincy Poindexter.
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Speaker 3: Now, as a last name, it's acceptable and it's around,
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Speaker 3: but as a first name.
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Speaker 4: But what about his first name's Quincy? Quincy Poindexter. And
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Speaker 4: he is in the news because he just like recently,
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Speaker 4: like this week, was hired as the new G League
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Speaker 4: head coach of the Chicago Bulls. He's also six foot seven.
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Speaker 4: So I'm not going to make fun of his name
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Speaker 4: to his face.
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Speaker 2: No, no.
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Speaker 3: I mean, you couldn't even see his face. It would
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Speaker 3: be towering above you.
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Speaker 4: And because this is an audio-only podcast, people don't know
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Speaker 4: what I look like, so I won't say it on air.
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Speaker 3: Okay.
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Speaker 1: Well, congratulations to anybody with the cargo to say my
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Speaker 1: name is Poindexter with your chest. You know what I mean?
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Speaker 1: I have such respect for that. I also am fascinated
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Speaker 1: to hear what the short version of your name is.
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Speaker 1: Like if you're a Max Jamin, an old Jamin, or
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Speaker 1: a Benjamin, you usually go with something shorter. So it's
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Speaker 1: just Dexter, right?
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Speaker 3: Is Dexter short for Poindexter?
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Speaker 1: In some cases, it must be statistically.
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Speaker 3: I guess it's got to be.
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Speaker 1: It must be.
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Speaker 3: Okay. So back to the Pullman Palace Car Company and
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Speaker 3: George Mortimer Pullman in the late 1800s. Big time, fancy schmancy,
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Speaker 3: what we might call bespoke carriages for, you know, highfalutin
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Speaker 3: passengers traveling by rail. And I know that we must.
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Speaker 2: Have talked about this aspect of tipping or at least
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Speaker 2: the railroad system either on Ridiculous History in some other
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Speaker 2: context or on stuff they don't want you to know,
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Speaker 2: our sister show. But this company hired thousands of black
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Speaker 2: men to essentially attend to the passengers. on these fancy
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Speaker 2: railway lines. And they were called porters. There were sleeping cars.
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Speaker 2: They would attend to the guests or the passengers, move
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Speaker 2: around their luggage, cargo, all of that kind of stuff.
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Speaker 2: It was not easy work, but they were kind of,
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Speaker 2: weren't they sort of more, like a porter was almost
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Speaker 2: kind of like a valet?
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Speaker 3: Like it was an upstairs job, right?
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Speaker 2: It wasn't like they were down shoveling the coal or
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Speaker 2: like working, you know, Like bag tossers on an airline.
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Speaker 3: These folks were interacting with the public. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: Often there would be public interaction. I do appreciate that upstairs,
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Speaker 1: downstairs idea here. These folks are.
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Speaker 3: Because they wear little suits. They make them wear little outfits, right?
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Speaker 1: Yes. And they had to pay for that on their own.
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Speaker 1: Their uniforms were not provided by the company. And like
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Speaker 1: you said, this is very physically demanding work. On top
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Speaker 1: of this, you have no rights as an employee. You
5:51
Speaker 1: are going to suffer intense racial discrimination when you run
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Speaker 1: into not just customers but your management. And this is
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Speaker 1: so messed up. Okay, so our buddy or someone's buddy,
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Speaker 1: George Pullman, he– is on record multiple times saying he
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Speaker 1: specifically sought out formerly enslaved people to do this Porter
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Speaker 1: job because he believed in some very nasty eugenics and
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Speaker 1: social Darwinism. He said these folks are already conditioned to subservience,
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Speaker 1: to working long hours without rest or a past, and
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Speaker 1: they will obey white authorities. Pretty gross stuff.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, man. Yeah, this notion of them being particularly suited
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Speaker 2: for this level of treatment and acceptance of, let's just
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Speaker 2: call it what it is, a slave wage. I mean,
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Speaker 2: a slave wage would be free, but it's still about
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Speaker 2: as low as it goes.
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Speaker 3: Next to free.
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Speaker 1: And because these United States are, if imperfect, definitely aspirational, right,
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Speaker 1: and have some good ideas— We do want to acknowledge
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Speaker 1: that Pullman's villainous practices, which we're about to get into,
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Speaker 1: were so insanely out of the Overton window that he motivated.
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Speaker 1: We'll go to Max with this one. One of the
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Speaker 1: largest strikes in all of U.S. history, even up to
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Speaker 1: the modern day. Max, can you tell us a little more?
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Speaker 4: Yeah, the Pullman strikes. It was a massive strike where
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Speaker 4: they effectively shut down, I think, 25% of the rail
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Speaker 4: industry in the United States during the Gilded Age. Because,
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Speaker 4: I mean, just across the board, Pullman and his company
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Speaker 4: treated their employees terribly. And this actually gave rise to,
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Speaker 4: as a guy who I've referred to before as my daddy,
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Speaker 4: Eugene V. Debs, who was the president of the union
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Speaker 4: at the time, He helped lead this strike and this boycott. So, yeah,
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Speaker 4: thank you for helping give rise to Debs.
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Speaker 2: Guys, it just occurred to me that we have one
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Speaker 2: of these sort of gentrified, redeveloped, big old industrial complexes
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Speaker 2: here in Atlanta called Pullman Yards that was absolutely owned
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Speaker 2: by the Pullman Company.
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Speaker 3: Pullman.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's sixth and final national company. overhaul facility for
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Speaker 2: these luxury sleeping cars, uh, where hundreds of these folks
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Speaker 2: labored and toiled, um, and who became the brotherhood of
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Speaker 2: sleeping car porters is a very, uh, important location for
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Speaker 2: exactly what you're talking about.
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Speaker 3: And now it's like, You know, they have, like, festivals
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Speaker 3: and stuff there. It's cool. It's, like, it's historical, and
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Speaker 3: I'm sure there's plaques and stuff.
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Speaker 2: Around, but it is kind of funny whenever you see
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Speaker 2: something with this sort of historical connotation being turned into, like,
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Speaker 2: a place where the frickin', you know, Monet experience comes
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Speaker 2: on tour.
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Speaker 4: This is the period of monopolies where, you know, you
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Speaker 4: have the guy who makes the sleeping car, the guy
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Speaker 4: who makes the oil, the guy who makes the railroad,
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Speaker 4: the other guy who makes the not railroad, but close
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Speaker 4: enough to it. And the guy who makes steel.
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Speaker 1: Yes. And with the rest, the great unwashed. Now, we're
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Speaker 1: talking about these folks. We're talking about George Mortimer here
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Speaker 1: because he is a big part of why tipping exists
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Speaker 1: in the United States in the modern day. The Pullman Company,
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Speaker 1: being very racist and targeting a vulnerable demographic of employees,
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Speaker 1: they loved, loved, loved, adored the idea of tipping because
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Speaker 1: it let them massively underpay employees. Those employees, things were
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Speaker 1: super terrible for these guys already. Their salaries were way below.
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Speaker 1: what would qualify as a living wage, even as a
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Speaker 1: single person, much less if you have a spouse or children.
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Speaker 1: They had to, as I mentioned earlier, they had to
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Speaker 1: pay for their own uniforms and food. You could not
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Speaker 1: be employed if you didn't have the uniform. They were
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Speaker 1: also expected to This is kind of similar to airlines today.
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Speaker 1: They were expected to do a lot of unpaid work.
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Speaker 1: So they would have to prep the cars for trips.
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Speaker 1: They would have to clean the cars afterwards. That did
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Speaker 1: not qualify as part of their paid employment. And a
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Speaker 1: lot of folks don't know this. I didn't know this
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Speaker 1: until my girlfriend told me about it with her experience
10:42
Speaker 1: in the airline industry. Did you guys know that flight
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Speaker 1: attendants are not paid? in the US until the flight
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Speaker 1: has left the ground?
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Speaker 3: I heard that.
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Speaker 2: I was dating a flight attendant for a little while
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Speaker 2: and she told me something similar and I thought it
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Speaker 2: was really bizarre.
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Speaker 3: I don't understand the logistics of that.
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Speaker 4: What does that accomplish? Why did somebody push for that?
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Speaker 1: I have no idea, guys, but we know that as
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Speaker 1: a result, the Pullman Company made a lot of money
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Speaker 1: by underpaying these porters And it meant that these employees
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Speaker 1: in particular had to rely on tips to survive, which
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Speaker 1: means they are in turn dependent on the generosity of
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Speaker 1: these customers, these strangers, all of whom, as you and
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Speaker 1: I said earlier, Noel, were not technically required to pay
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Speaker 1: these porters one red cent. And they also might be
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Speaker 1: super racist to them. They will call them things like boy.
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Speaker 2: And not to mention, I mean, these outfits that they
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Speaker 2: had to pay for themselves were kind of meant to
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Speaker 2: like sort of gussy them up a little bit for
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Speaker 2: the white folks.
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Speaker 3: I mean, right?
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Speaker 2: Like it was a little bit of a demeaning kind
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Speaker 2: of uniform, right? Like a little bit of a, I
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Speaker 2: don't know, it had a certain, I don't know, man,
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Speaker 2: kind of minstrel quality to it, frankly.
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Speaker 1: It was dehumanizing for sure. I agree with that. And
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Speaker 1: there's some great resources to read more about this from
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Speaker 1: our friends at the Jim Crow Museum, and they note
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Speaker 1: that the sheer economic realities here led to porters often
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Speaker 1: working more than, get this, guys, 400 hours per month.
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Speaker 1: And that was not allowing them to save up a
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Speaker 1: bunch of money. That was allowing them to have a
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Speaker 1: basic income such that you could survive.
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Speaker 3: Not good.
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Speaker 2: So essentially, they pivoted the idea of tips being bonuses.
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Speaker 2: provided by these fat cats to their underlings or their inferiors,
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Speaker 2: how they viewed it, to becoming the only source of
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Speaker 2: income for these black workers that they did not want
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Speaker 2: to pay. And we brought up at the top of
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Speaker 2: the first episode just how, and I know it's more
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Speaker 2: complicated than that, but maybe to the untrained observer, it
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Speaker 2: can certainly feel like that's a very similar arrangement for
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Speaker 2: the restaurant owners. I mean, I get it when it
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Speaker 2: comes to like smaller, more independent, you know, restaurants where
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Speaker 2: the margins are so slim and it's really, you know,
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Speaker 2: restaurants fail all the time, but for like these big
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Speaker 2: corporate chains and stuff, it just, it really just seems
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Speaker 2: like this exclusively benefits the folks.
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Speaker 3: At the top rather than the folks doing the work.
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Speaker 3: A hundred percent. Yeah. Nailed it.
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Speaker 1: And this would later become normalized in multiple service industries.
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Speaker 1: But even in the time of this deep blatant racism
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Speaker 1: and discrimination, the concept of tipping was a divisive issue.
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Speaker 1: Maybe not for the reasons we would assume today. Up
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Speaker 1: until the early 1900s or so, there were a lot
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Speaker 1: of normal, non-wealthy Americans who said, hey, tipping as a practice,
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Speaker 1: as an expected thing, is that not inherently contradictory to
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Speaker 1: the values of a democracy? Is it not like a
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Speaker 1: backhanded compliment? Are you not forcing an aristocratic framework upon us?
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Speaker 1: Are we not, when we are having these well-to-do people
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Speaker 1: tip us, are they not saying, Your job's not good enough.
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Speaker 1: You are inferior to me. NPR has a great article
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Speaker 1: on this.
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Speaker 3: Well, I love the word flunkyism.
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Speaker 2: Can I just say that they drop in their very
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Speaker 2: astute description. When tipping began to spread in post-Civil War America,
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Speaker 2: it was tarred, reference not lost, on us as a
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Speaker 2: cancer in the, this is a quote from the time,
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Speaker 2: cancer in the breast of democracy, flunkyism is, and a
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Speaker 2: gross and offensive caricature of mercy. But the most common
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Speaker 2: insult hurled at it was that it was just offensively un-American.
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Speaker 2: This idea of a day's wage for a day's work,
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Speaker 2: you know, it just really did fly in the face
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Speaker 2: of that and seemed inherently designed to benefit, as I
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Speaker 2: was just saying a minute ago, the folks at the top,
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Speaker 2: the folks pulling in all the profits, you know?
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Speaker 4: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: So the question then becomes, or, not to be too
15:28
Speaker 1: Dennis Reynolds about it, the implication becomes you are not
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Speaker 1: a person just doing your honest job. You are somehow
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Speaker 1: my servant, my social inferior. This great debate became a
15:54
Speaker 1: huge issue across the country. It was such a big
15:58
Speaker 1: deal that it would show up in political campaigns. The
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Speaker 1: author we mentioned in episode one, Seagrave, points out that
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Speaker 1: William Howard Taft had this entire plank of his platform
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Speaker 1: about this in 1908 during his presidential campaigns. He wanted
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Speaker 1: to be seen as the patron saint of the anti-tipping crusade.
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Speaker 1: He also, by the way, bragged about, he did this
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Speaker 1: multiple times, he bragged about how he would never tip
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Speaker 1: his barber, and I think, honestly, it shows.
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Speaker 3: Guy's not famous for his good haircuts.
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Speaker 4: Um, all my positive things I've ever said about William
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Speaker 4: Howard tough.
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Speaker 3: I mean, he did do some good stuff, but this
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Speaker 3: is pretty gross.
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Speaker 1: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: Uh, so this debate over tipping became a huge deal,
16:47
Speaker 2: became like almost like a political talking point. Um, so
16:50
Speaker 2: much so that six separate States made tipping illegal for
16:54
Speaker 2: a period of time. And that was Washington, Mississippi and Arkansas. Um,
16:59
Speaker 2: followed by then a handful of other States, Iowa, South Carolina,
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Speaker 2: and Tennessee, um, in 1915, not too far after, uh,
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Speaker 2: Georgia even tried some tipping or we find ourselves, uh,
17:10
Speaker 2: prohibition for a time. Um, but you know what they
17:14
Speaker 2: say about prohibition. We say it all the time. It's
17:16
Speaker 2: not really, uh, the way to, to enact change. Um,
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Speaker 2: you tell someone a thing they can't do and they're
17:23
Speaker 2: going to double down on wanting.
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Speaker 3: To do it and find a way to do it
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Speaker 3: despite you.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. By, uh, you know, the last holdout on this, uh,
17:33
Speaker 1: fad of anti-tipping laws was Mississippi, a famously problematic place.
17:40
Speaker 1: By 1926, even Mississippi had left their tipping prohibition laws behind.
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Speaker 1: These had all been abolished. And the reason they were
17:51
Speaker 1: abolished was similar to the reason so many prohibition laws
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Speaker 1: get passed by the wayside in other milieus. The authorities
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Speaker 1: just can't enforce it. Tipping is normalized now. Some employees are,
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Speaker 1: with validity, saying, I can't make a living without tips.
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Speaker 1: Pullman is not going to ever pay me enough. And
18:15
Speaker 1: then on the other side, you have customers who are saying, well,
18:19
Speaker 1: gosh darn it, it's my money, right? I already pay
18:23
Speaker 1: you taxes, so why should you get to tell me
18:28
Speaker 1: who I can or cannot give money to. Those are
18:31
Speaker 1: good points, but the entire time, tipping is still deeply,
18:36
Speaker 1: deeply rooted in racial prejudice and the shadow of chattel slavery.
18:42
Speaker 1: There are journalists who, and I hate to say it,
18:46
Speaker 1: they were quite respected for their day. They would write
18:50
Speaker 1: at length about how tipping black people was fine because
18:54
Speaker 1: it was a token of black inferiority, And they would say,
18:58
Speaker 1: in contrast, tipping white people was embarrassing to everyone, which
19:05
Speaker 1: is such a weird bit of mental parkour, is it not?
19:10
Speaker 3: It sure is.
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Speaker 2: The Pullman Company that we've been talking about and others
19:13
Speaker 2: may have gotten away with this practice forever, but the
19:16
Speaker 2: Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and all the black porters involved,
19:21
Speaker 2: led by Philip A. Randolph, said, fought against this in 1925.
19:27
Speaker 2: This organization became the nation's first Black union to be
19:31
Speaker 2: affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, and they fought
19:34
Speaker 2: for and won higher wages and were also still able
19:39
Speaker 2: to take their tips.
19:41
Speaker 1: A little bit of have your cake and eat it, too.
19:43
Speaker 1: And we have to do an episode maybe in the
19:47
Speaker 1: future on the American Federation Federation of Labor. This is
19:53
Speaker 1: a huge historic milestone for the porters, for their union.
19:58
Speaker 1: And it is a big win. We cannot take that
20:01
Speaker 1: away from the tremendously courageous people who at this time
20:06
Speaker 1: were literally risking their lives for equality. But we do,
20:12
Speaker 1: at the same token, have to say there were a
20:15
Speaker 1: lot of restaurant workers who were also being victimized for
20:19
Speaker 1: their race or for their gender. Many of these restaurant
20:24
Speaker 1: workers were women. They did not see the same success.
20:28
Speaker 1: We're doing a setup here, folks. It'll take us to
20:31
Speaker 1: the present day. In the restaurant industry, The concept of
20:37
Speaker 1: tips replacing wages was still very much a thing, even
20:42
Speaker 1: after Congress passed the first minimum wage law in 1938. Right.
20:51
Speaker 2: This allowed states to set a lower wage for tipped workers,
20:56
Speaker 2: but it excluded restaurant workers. In 1942, the Supreme Court
21:01
Speaker 2: ruled that employees had an exclusive right to their tips
21:05
Speaker 2: and that their employers couldn't force them to share their
21:09
Speaker 2: tips with kitchen staff.
21:10
Speaker 3: Like that pooling concept I was talking about. Tip out.
21:13
Speaker 3: Pretty divisive today. Yeah, exactly. I think pooling is a
21:17
Speaker 3: little different than tip out.
21:17
Speaker 2: You're right, Bennett.
21:18
Speaker 3: It is more of the tip out situation.
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Speaker 2: In fact, in 1966, when our nation's minimum wage was overhauled,
21:24
Speaker 2: restaurant workers were even more formally cut out of the conversation.
21:28
Speaker 2: And Uncle Sam greenlit a sub-minimum wage for tipped workers,
21:34
Speaker 2: calling this tip credit, which allowed employers to pay tipped
21:37
Speaker 2: employees a sub-minimum wage on the understanding that the rest
21:41
Speaker 2: of that wage would be made up, subsidized by the
21:44
Speaker 2: customers themselves, who, again.
21:46
Speaker 3: Were gently asked.
21:50
Speaker 2: Expected-ish, but not required to leave that money on the table.
21:57
Speaker 3: So basically, we're right back where we started. Yeah, boom.
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Speaker 1: We're back to Pullman at this point. Congress and the
22:06
Speaker 1: SCOTUS in their infinite wisdom said, everybody but you. It'll
22:12
Speaker 1: be fine. There is no law that says a customer
22:17
Speaker 1: needs to pay anything more than the official price for
22:21
Speaker 1: a good or a service. And that's part of why
22:24
Speaker 1: this is so befuddling and bedeviling to people who are
22:29
Speaker 1: not from the United States and As you can tell, folks,
22:33
Speaker 1: the three of us are still baffled about this today.
22:36
Speaker 1: There's a grand debate that continues. Tipping is now ubiquitous
22:42
Speaker 1: in U.S. culture. It was once seen as un-American, as
22:46
Speaker 1: a moral malady, as one journalist called it. And then
22:50
Speaker 1: there was a lot of victim blaming, too, at that time.
22:54
Speaker 1: Like in the 1800s, 1900s, there were, I'll say it,
23:00
Speaker 1: there were more well-to-do people, journalists, authors of note, who
23:05
Speaker 1: would say that your local server is overly entitled. There
23:10
Speaker 1: were a lot of accusations of what they called itchy palms, right?
23:14
Speaker 2: Oh, gosh.
23:16
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. Which is where, you know, like you— Sounds
23:19
Speaker 3: like a disease.
23:21
Speaker 4: Exactly.
23:21
Speaker 1: They were portrayed just as that. Thankfully, that's fallen to
23:25
Speaker 1: the wayside. And guys— Maybe this is naive on my part,
23:30
Speaker 1: or maybe we're all too optimistic, but I'd like to
23:33
Speaker 1: say that most people in the United States today understand
23:38
Speaker 1: that servers, in particular, people working at restaurants, they're not
23:43
Speaker 1: the real beneficiaries of this awkward system. They, like the
23:47
Speaker 1: customers complaining about itchy palms, are instead the victims of
23:52
Speaker 1: the larger system. Because tipping is... I was reading some
23:57
Speaker 1: really upsetting studies about how discriminatory tipping can be. Like
24:03
Speaker 1: a customer will make a subjective call, not on the service,
24:08
Speaker 1: but on how they feel an employee looks or how
24:13
Speaker 1: they feel their background is. Profile. They'll profile them. Yeah,
24:17
Speaker 1: that's a perfect word. And there's not really a recourse
24:21
Speaker 1: for the workers who are victimized, right? Like, I mean, no,
24:29
Speaker 1: you and I both worked at restaurants, I think for
24:31
Speaker 1: a brief time. Is that correct?
24:33
Speaker 3: Yeah. I worked in the kitchen. I've never been a server. Okay.
24:37
Speaker 1: You were at a, yes, yes. I remember that story.
24:40
Speaker 1: I had worked as a server, but not, not officially
24:43
Speaker 1: in a kitchen. So Max, you have more experience than
24:47
Speaker 1: Noel and myself. What is the recourse? Like you could,
24:51
Speaker 1: you could quit the restaurant. if you're a victimized employee
24:54
Speaker 1: or you could maybe convince management not to let that
24:57
Speaker 1: customer come back?
24:59
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's about it. That's about all you get. Because,
25:03
Speaker 4: I mean, some places like, you know, but like, honestly,
25:07
Speaker 4: if it's just like, oh, this person doesn't tip well,
25:09
Speaker 4: that's not going to fly because they don't care. At
25:11
Speaker 4: the end of the day, like that's money. I mean,
25:12
Speaker 4: I've had, I mean, I worked at smaller restaurants. I
25:15
Speaker 4: worked with some bigger ones. I did not like it.
25:17
Speaker 4: I usually worked at pretty small ones where I knew
25:18
Speaker 4: the owners as well and stuff like that. You get
25:21
Speaker 4: a lot more leeway there. If you have somebody who
25:23
Speaker 4: has like a pattern of just not tipping or just
25:27
Speaker 4: being a total, just, I don't know, insert 37 different
25:32
Speaker 4: words that I have to beep right here. Then, you know,
25:37
Speaker 4: they'll usually get your back. I would usually, I mean, I,
25:41
Speaker 4: I would, I ended up doing a good bit of
25:43
Speaker 4: management management as well. And, you know, if somebody was awful,
25:46
Speaker 4: I would do my employees, I would throw them out.
25:48
Speaker 4: We usually had the back. of our employees but you
25:51
Speaker 4: don't really get much recourse especially here's the truth too
25:55
Speaker 4: a lot of times you're picking up the check after
25:59
Speaker 4: the person's gone so like you you you can pick
26:03
Speaker 4: it up like i i still remember the the the
26:05
Speaker 4: the one that pissed me off the most ever i
26:08
Speaker 4: was like this is probably my first year or two
26:10
Speaker 4: of me waiting tables in city atlanta i uh i
26:14
Speaker 4: got this guy's car i picked up the guy's check
26:16
Speaker 4: and went and swiped his card his card was like
26:18
Speaker 4: falling apart and i swiped it and it broke you
26:21
Speaker 4: know the guy's card was like literally falling apart and
26:25
Speaker 4: he wrote on the line like he didn't tip me
26:27
Speaker 4: he's like thanks for breaking my card and i'm like
26:32
Speaker 4: and i'm still they like you know resentments are dangerous
26:36
Speaker 4: things to harbor And I've tried to process, but bring
26:39
Speaker 4: that one up right now. That's about 12, 13 years
26:42
Speaker 4: in the past. And I'm still pretty pissed about that.
26:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I get it. That's rough, man. That's like
26:47
Speaker 3: someone looking for a problem that doesn't exist.
26:50
Speaker 4: And then his friend didn't tip me as well, basically
26:51
Speaker 4: because I broke his friend's card, which was already broken.
26:54
Speaker 1: Oh, well, hopefully we will.
26:57
Speaker 4: I'm angry now.
26:57
Speaker 3: I have to go punch a wall. We will see justice.
27:02
Speaker 1: Uh, we do know, um, God, yeah, that guy sounds
27:07
Speaker 1: like a pill, man. I'm sorry that happened to you.
27:10
Speaker 1: We do know that guy's going to have to walk
27:13
Speaker 1: around being him the rest of his life. So that's
27:17
Speaker 1: a pretty damning consequence. We also know... that there are
27:28
Speaker 1: real winners of the tipping system, at least according to
27:32
Speaker 1: the anti-tipping critics, one of whom is Leon Trotsky, famously.
27:38
Speaker 1: That guy? Yeah, from earlier. Famously a resident of the
27:42
Speaker 1: Bronx for a while, and he did some other stuff
27:46
Speaker 1: with Russia. He said the winners of this system are
27:50
Speaker 1: restaurant owners, cough, cough, capitalists, because he had this whole
27:55
Speaker 1: thing about capitalism.
27:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, Trotsky actually had hot soup poured on him by
28:00
Speaker 2: a waiter for his refusal to tip.
28:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, because he was a guy who never shied
28:06
Speaker 1: away from a speech. So can you imagine, just to
28:09
Speaker 1: exercise empathy, can you imagine being the server and expecting
28:15
Speaker 1: some sort of gratuity, and all of a sudden this
28:17
Speaker 1: guy is not only not tipping you, but he's making
28:21
Speaker 1: you listen to his TED Talk about capitalism? you know,
28:25
Speaker 1: and you have other tables.
28:25
Speaker 3: Don't take it with Lanwell. Maybe he deserved the soup.
28:28
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, time and a place, right? Just
28:31
Speaker 1: slide your book across the table and say thank you.
28:34
Speaker 4: I mean, this is a Sir, this is Wendy's moment
28:37
Speaker 4: right here. That's the best way to think of it. Sir,
28:39
Speaker 4: this is Wendy's. What are you doing about this? You
28:41
Speaker 4: have this giant rant about this. It's still not going
28:44
Speaker 4: to pay my bills.
28:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
28:46
Speaker 1: You can't pay me in poems and diatribes and jeremiads.
28:50
Speaker 1: Maybe this is a good way for us to start
28:53
Speaker 1: to wrap up this episode in the present day. I
28:57
Speaker 1: don't know about you guys, but I was fascinated to
29:02
Speaker 1: discover how deep the tipping versus anti-tipping debate went in
29:07
Speaker 1: the United States, especially because it is so normalized today.
29:12
Speaker 1: Like we mentioned Taft, a president. We mentioned Trotsky, a
29:16
Speaker 1: legendary thought leader. what about tight-fisted millionaires rockefeller carnegie they
29:25
Speaker 1: hated tipping which is kind of predictable.
29:27
Speaker 2: Actually yeah i mean honestly it's kind of a trope
29:30
Speaker 2: that like rich people are some of the worst tippers right.
29:33
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah i i think they earned that stereotype too.
29:38
Speaker 4: I will jump in here and say there is an
29:41
Speaker 4: Instagram account that gained fame. Their names were Tips for Jesus,
29:45
Speaker 4: where they would go to places and rack up these
29:47
Speaker 4: massive tabs and dip like $ 100, 000. And I think they
29:51
Speaker 4: figured it out, but I believe they were supposed to
29:56
Speaker 4: be like connected to like paypal the people who made
29:59
Speaker 4: a bunch of money off of paypal so.
30:01
Speaker 3: More like tips for clicks am i right.
30:03
Speaker 4: Exactly like you know we would always dream like oh
30:06
Speaker 4: man i really hope that they come in here because
30:07
Speaker 4: they rack up a massive tab buy everything in the
30:10
Speaker 4: restaurant and then like tip an insane amount of.
30:12
Speaker 2: Money performative altruism i think we call that not to
30:16
Speaker 2: diminish you know people doing good work but it is
30:18
Speaker 2: sometimes easy to take To take issue with it when
30:21
Speaker 2: it's done for the gram or, you know, like Mr.
30:24
Speaker 2: Beast kind of stuff.
30:26
Speaker 3: Look at me being good.
30:29
Speaker 2: Right.
30:29
Speaker 1: We also we also have to give credit where it's due.
30:34
Speaker 1: I don't know how you guys feel about Dave Matthews band,
30:37
Speaker 1: but apparently the front man, Dave, is a really good tipper.
30:40
Speaker 2: Good.
30:41
Speaker 3: Yeah. He's making up for all that poop he dumped
30:43
Speaker 3: on those poor people in Chicago. He didn't do that.
30:46
Speaker 3: He did.
30:47
Speaker 1: The bus did.
30:49
Speaker 4: It wasn't even his bus.
30:50
Speaker 3: It was his bus. What are you talking about?
30:52
Speaker 1: Dave Matthews' band.
30:53
Speaker 3: Unloaded a septic tank over.
30:55
Speaker 4: I thought it was the violin player's bus.
30:57
Speaker 3: No, it was the band. I was like, he had
30:59
Speaker 3: his own bus, the violin player.
31:01
Speaker 4: I found out about this thing live on an episode.
31:04
Speaker 4: How detailed do you think I know this story?
31:07
Speaker 2: Maybe I don't have all the facts, Max. They are
31:09
Speaker 2: big enough that perhaps each member could have had their
31:11
Speaker 2: own bus, but it was my understanding that it was...
31:13
Speaker 2: the Dave Matthews band and the people commemorate the, this
31:17
Speaker 2: fortuitous date in history. Ben, you, you included for the
31:21
Speaker 2: wrap up here, kind of a little table of some
31:23
Speaker 2: expectations around tipping. And I just thought in setting that up,
31:28
Speaker 2: I did have a question and Max, maybe you can
31:30
Speaker 2: shed some light on this too. If you're eating at
31:34
Speaker 2: a fancy restaurant and the bill is really expensive, like
31:38
Speaker 2: really expensive, like, I guess it still eludes me as
31:42
Speaker 2: to why just standard waiter treatment deserves, earns like the
31:50
Speaker 2: $ 300 tip. Like, it's like, where does that, I mean,
31:53
Speaker 2: is it like, okay, you lucked out. You got a
31:55
Speaker 2: job at a really fancy restaurant. Therefore, you're entitled to
31:58
Speaker 2: like way more tips than someone working at Waffle House
32:01
Speaker 2: doing the same job gets?
32:03
Speaker 1: Interesting. Yeah, I defer to Max here.
32:05
Speaker 2: I'm just saying in some situations, there's definitely extra stuff.
32:09
Speaker 3: There's more volume and all of that stuff. I get it.
32:12
Speaker 2: But it's also like sometimes it confuses me or eludes
32:15
Speaker 2: me when I go to a fancy restaurant and the
32:16
Speaker 2: person is just doing the lease.
32:18
Speaker 3: And then they expect to get that 20% of a
32:20
Speaker 3: $ 200 bill.
32:20
Speaker 2: Yeah.
32:20
Speaker 3: Yeah.
32:24
Speaker 4: Yeah, that is a tricky particular man right there because
32:27
Speaker 4: I have worked– I never worked like fine dining. I
32:29
Speaker 4: worked what was called casual dining. I hated it. I
32:31
Speaker 4: went back to working bars as soon as possible because
32:35
Speaker 4: the churn and burn of a bar is you're just
32:38
Speaker 4: doing so much more volume that it's just easy and
32:40
Speaker 4: that's kind of like a Waffle House server. You're just
32:41
Speaker 4: doing so much volume that like– When you're working at
32:45
Speaker 4: a place like that, you're doing so many less tables,
32:47
Speaker 4: so you're so much more dependent on it.
32:49
Speaker 3: That's right.
32:50
Speaker 2: I guess what I'm saying is at a place like
32:51
Speaker 2: that with an experience like that where the bill is
32:55
Speaker 2: that high, I guess I sometimes expect the wait staff–
32:59
Speaker 2: to be a little more like a maitre d' or
33:01
Speaker 2: like to really have some interesting information or to like,
33:04
Speaker 2: you know, share details about the dishes or really give
33:07
Speaker 2: you an expertise, a level of expertise about the wine pairing.
33:10
Speaker 3: And I mean, I'm not trying to be Mr. Bougie boy.
33:12
Speaker 2: I don't eat out fancy that often, but I just
33:15
Speaker 2: feel like if you're expected to pay 25% or whatever
33:18
Speaker 2: on a massive bill like that, this person should have
33:21
Speaker 2: a little extra bona fides as well.
33:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I hear you.
33:24
Speaker 4: And that's where I'm kind of getting to the whole
33:26
Speaker 4: like thing where you probably heard me waffling and like
33:30
Speaker 4: hedging a little bit at the beginning because you're supposed
33:32
Speaker 4: to do that because it's like, you know, hey, you
33:34
Speaker 4: have this really small section. You are supposed to be
33:37
Speaker 4: at this table explaining stuff, bringing down like I've I've
33:39
Speaker 4: had a lot of friends who like worked like. like
33:42
Speaker 4: as like nice steak houses and stuff like that, who,
33:45
Speaker 4: you know, are routinely, and they're bringing home really good
33:48
Speaker 4: money and they have like, and they're like, you know,
33:50
Speaker 4: SA server assistants are super knowledgeable would be like running
33:54
Speaker 4: other restaurants. They're doing this because they're making good money.
33:56
Speaker 4: So it is tricky in that way. But I mean,
34:00
Speaker 4: I think the, at the root of the problem, it
34:03
Speaker 4: goes down to this whole thing of just, you know,
34:05
Speaker 4: the person's livelihood being dumped on the customer.
34:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the onus of it. And to respond to
34:14
Speaker 1: these points, which you can tell, again, folks, we're reiterating
34:19
Speaker 1: the great U.S. debate about tipping. If you go to
34:23
Speaker 1: a very high-end dining establishment in other countries, there will
34:29
Speaker 1: be a service charge included typically, right?
34:32
Speaker 2: Oh, about that. It complicates things. It decomplicates things. things
34:36
Speaker 2: so significantly. And Ben, in this list of yours here,
34:39
Speaker 2: I mean, I was, you know, maybe, I don't know,
34:42
Speaker 2: maybe 10 years ago that I realized you're supposed to
34:46
Speaker 2: tip hotel housekeeping, a service that goes largely unnoticed. It's invisible,
34:52
Speaker 2: you know, at its best. You're supposed to like, it
34:53
Speaker 2: happens and you come back and your room's clean. You
34:55
Speaker 2: don't see these folks interact with these folks often. And
34:58
Speaker 2: there is an expectation of tip, but like nobody tells
35:02
Speaker 2: you that. You kind of have to just learn that
35:05
Speaker 2: through like societal mores or whatever.
35:07
Speaker 1: Another unwritten rule, man. And if you're in a fine
35:10
Speaker 1: dining establishment in the United States, you'll often see automated
35:16
Speaker 1: service charge only kicks in if you have a certain
35:20
Speaker 1: number of people at your table, right? So that's where
35:23
Speaker 1: you'll see the little note that says parties of five
35:26
Speaker 1: or parties of six or more will have an automatic
35:29
Speaker 1: gratuity added.
35:31
Speaker 4: And the legality of that has been challenged.
35:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, the legality of that is tricky. It's kind of
35:36
Speaker 1: like when you go to a gas station and they
35:39
Speaker 1: want to charge you extra for using a credit card, right,
35:43
Speaker 1: below a certain threshold. That's also technically illegal in a
35:47
Speaker 1: lot of places.
35:47
Speaker 4: I know friends who have worked at restaurants where basically
35:50
Speaker 4: they have– the way that they're making their money is
35:52
Speaker 4: they're doing so many large parties and their entire night
35:55
Speaker 4: is just working this party. And then– They take away
35:58
Speaker 4: the gratuity coverage on that. So then now they can work.
36:00
Speaker 4: I remember my friend Jessica, she worked this, it was
36:04
Speaker 4: like a high school graduation party. It was like a
36:06
Speaker 4: 50-person party. She got tipped 20 bucks on it because
36:09
Speaker 4: they took away the gratuity on it.
36:10
Speaker 1: Wow. Was Michael Jordan in the party? The famous anti-tipper
36:15
Speaker 1: from the Chicago Bulls?
36:17
Speaker 4: Probably.
36:18
Speaker 1: We also, here's one. No, I feel you on the
36:22
Speaker 1: housekeeping idea. Valet parking. is another one where it's complimentary
36:30
Speaker 1: parking if you're a jerk. That's the implication, right?
36:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's almost never complimentary. Valet parking almost exclusively,
36:38
Speaker 2: in my experience, especially if it comes with a hotel stay,
36:42
Speaker 2: it's a daily charge, right? to valet your car and
36:45
Speaker 2: have them return it to you and keep it in
36:47
Speaker 2: the garage. But then if the valet is literally going
36:50
Speaker 2: and fetching your car, driving it out, returning it to you,
36:53
Speaker 2: they absolutely deserve a tip. But sometimes these services are
36:57
Speaker 2: so overpriced that it's almost a sticker shock that probably
37:01
Speaker 2: keeps a lot of people from tipping.
37:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, what I'm talking about here more is going to,
37:07
Speaker 1: back to the restaurant idea, going to a restaurant that
37:09
Speaker 1: has complimentary valet parking.
37:11
Speaker 3: Got it.
37:12
Speaker 1: You know, and then, uh, if you don't tip it,
37:15
Speaker 1: as you can see, folks, there's a whole regimen of
37:20
Speaker 1: relatively unwritten rules that the United States is still trying
37:26
Speaker 1: to figure out. We definitely understand that a lot of, uh,
37:31
Speaker 1: areas in other parts of the world that get American
37:34
Speaker 1: tourists are having versions of the same conversation, you know, like, uh,
37:40
Speaker 1: You'll see a lot of expats say Paris is getting
37:43
Speaker 1: ruined by Americans who are exporting tipping culture, right? You'll
37:49
Speaker 1: see that happening in cities throughout the world. And a
37:52
Speaker 1: big part of this also here at home goes back
37:57
Speaker 1: to the idea that there is a wide spectrum of
38:05
Speaker 1: minimum payment in the United States today. depending on which
38:09
Speaker 1: state you're going in. Like Washington, you're going to make
38:12
Speaker 1: more money than you would in, say, oh, what's the
38:16
Speaker 1: worst one, guys? West Virginia, maybe?
38:20
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, yeah, the minimum wage for tipped employees
38:26
Speaker 4: is a very divisive topic, to say the least. It's
38:32
Speaker 4: one of these things where, so I guess, like, the
38:33
Speaker 4: common thing is, like, important thing to know beforehand is
38:36
Speaker 4: while there's the federal minimum wage, you can obviously go
38:39
Speaker 4: above it. You just can't go below it. And a
38:42
Speaker 4: lot of States have actually been pretty proactive about increasing
38:46
Speaker 4: this minimum wage, uh, mostly on the West, uh, coast
38:49
Speaker 4: or the Western part of the country, such as like California, Nevada, Arizona,
38:54
Speaker 4: and Washington, Washington's highest in the country at $ 17 and
38:56
Speaker 4: 13 cents or a clear $ 15 more per hour than
38:58
Speaker 4: the federal minimum wage. Um, But there are some interesting ones.
39:08
Speaker 4: So like Montana has one if you're a business over
39:11
Speaker 4: $ 110, 000 gross annual sales. It's $ 11. Under that, it's $ 4.
39:16
Speaker 4: There's a big thing about like, oh, you're going to
39:18
Speaker 4: drive these companies out of business if you increase the
39:21
Speaker 4: tip wage to make tip employees actually make a real wage.
39:25
Speaker 2: Well, like I was saying earlier, too, like, I mean,
39:26
Speaker 2: I can see how maybe with smaller independent run, you know,
39:31
Speaker 2: businesses and restaurants, they're so in danger of, you know,
39:36
Speaker 2: closing often.
39:37
Speaker 3: I mean, like the margins are really, really slim. And,
39:40
Speaker 3: you know, what did I say?
39:41
Speaker 2: Like new restaurants, there's the ratio of new restaurants closing
39:45
Speaker 2: after a very brief period of time is pretty high.
39:48
Speaker 2: But with like, you know, like massive, like Applebee's and
39:52
Speaker 2: TGI Fridays and stuff like that. It just seems like
39:55
Speaker 2: it benefits the, you know, the corporations more than it
39:58
Speaker 2: does the individuals.
40:00
Speaker 4: It very much. So, uh, I do also want to
40:02
Speaker 4: point out Oregon for being the extra little diva they are.
40:06
Speaker 4: That's just how Oregon is on things. And I love Oregon.
40:08
Speaker 4: You guys know that where they have different wages, depending
40:11
Speaker 4: on what part you're in. So statewide has one, uh,
40:14
Speaker 4: Metro of Portland has one. And then, uh, rural counties
40:17
Speaker 4: are not urban ones have one, but, uh, I found
40:20
Speaker 4: that 12 states slash territories have now a federal tip
40:24
Speaker 4: minimum wage of $ 10 or more per hour. So that's
40:28
Speaker 4: the good. Started with the good. There are 19 states
40:32
Speaker 4: slash territories that still have $ 2. 13 an hour, including our
40:37
Speaker 4: home state of Georgia.
40:38
Speaker 3: That's insane. It's true.
40:40
Speaker 2: We never said out loud what that number is. To
40:42
Speaker 2: hear it, I had no idea that was still a thing.
40:45
Speaker 2: I remember that being the case when I was working
40:48
Speaker 2: in restaurants. That is indefensible.
40:50
Speaker 1: It's unfathomable for sure. We also know that a lot
40:55
Speaker 1: of famous authors were against tipping, including Mark Twain and
40:59
Speaker 1: Ralph Waldo Emerson, who I accidentally put in the notes
41:03
Speaker 1: as Ralph Walso Emerson, which is funny. But we have
41:09
Speaker 1: so much more to get to. We do have good
41:11
Speaker 1: news for you, folks. We are not ever going to
41:15
Speaker 1: ask you for a financial tip. If you do want
41:19
Speaker 1: to tip us, why not head over to your podcast
41:23
Speaker 1: platform of choice and hit us up with a nice review.
41:27
Speaker 3: It does make a difference.
41:30
Speaker 1: Yes, we greatly appreciate you. We're super grateful for everybody
41:35
Speaker 1: tuning in. Big thanks to our super producer, Mr. Max Williams,
41:40
Speaker 1: for lending some firsthand experience. Big thanks, of course, to
41:45
Speaker 1: to Jonathan Strickland, a.k.a. The Quister, who, as we know,
41:50
Speaker 1: outside of podcasting, has fought for the entirety of his
41:54
Speaker 1: life to keep Georgia's minimum wage at $ 2. 13 an hour.
41:57
Speaker 1: Where do you get these things, man?
42:00
Speaker 3: Where does this come from? It comes from him. That's true.
42:04
Speaker 3: But not true. He's actually an okay guy. But we
42:06
Speaker 3: hate him!
42:09
Speaker 1: We hate him so, which is why we keep hanging
42:13
Speaker 1: out with him on this show. Do tune in for
42:16
Speaker 1: future episodes with the quizster. In the meantime, big shout
42:20
Speaker 1: out to AJ Bahamas, Jacobs, AKA the puzzler, as well
42:24
Speaker 1: as a Dr. Rachel, big spinach, Lance.
42:27
Speaker 3: Oh, big spin herself.
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Speaker 2: Christopher Osiotis needs Jeff codes here in spirit. The rude
42:31
Speaker 2: dudes and ridiculous crime. If you like our show, you're
42:35
Speaker 2: probably going to like them. And Hey, We'll see you
42:38
Speaker 2: next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit
42:47
Speaker 2: the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
42:51
Speaker 2: to your favorite shows.