Cookies and tipping gone too far

The social coercion is everywhere y'all

This one really takes the cake. I stopped to buy cookies for my brother-in-law’s birthday at one of the cookies-only stores where they cost a bunch and weigh a bunch. Since I last visited, this location at least has gone entirely self-service at the ordering counter. This conveniently freed up all eight employees to stand around behind the counter looking, for the most part, bored and aimless.

After finally making my cookie selections, I was nearing the end of the order process, when a tip screen flashed up: “Put a smile on our faces!”

This, when they’d done nothing extra to put a smile on my face. I mean, one girl did politely answer an important question from me about just how much chocolate was in the Reese’s peanut butter cookie. Here I was, placing my own order, anticipating with no guarantees that they’d fulfill it accurately, in timely fashion, or with a smile. And they wanted me to tip?

Now, I’m no economist, but can we talk about the overreach of tipping in our times? Out of hand, I tell you. It makes me think about another thing that’s gotten out of hand, and that is the Water Bottle Status Wars. Contenders: 1) The cheapie water bottles you get for free at conference booths or as company swag 2) Owalas, a solid middle-class option which I proudly own, and 3) the popular canteens otherwise known as Stanleys and HydroJugs.

It’s everywhere…

Back to tipping: It’s everywhere. I am fully onboard when we’re talking about tipping in personal services, tourism, and in traditional dining situations. But when it’s requested at counter-serve locations, before you even know how the service or product is going to be? Maybe you’re going to wait 17 minutes for those tacos. We just can’t know at the time we order. This tipping stuff grates on my soul in the same way that budget airline pricing schemes do.

At these locations—think Starbucks, ice cream shops, fast casual restaurants, smoothie shops, and now even counter-serve cookie shops—it’s rarely an actual request, more like a guilt-trip we all know too well. If they asked, “Would you like to leave a tip?” most of us would probably say “No thanks, not today.” Because, a tip for what?

But that’s not how it usually goes.

Here’s how the jig works:

You order at a counter serve location. They tell you your total price. You present your card, and then they say something like:

“If you’ll complete the next screen for me…”

“There are just a couple questions on the screen…”

“If you’ll just answer a quick question…”

And then sometimes they just stand there while you make your choice. The point-of-sale screen might as well serve up buttons for how good of a person you are, but instead they show your possible tip amounts. Featuring the generous options first, of course, with a usually itty-bitty, hard to find “Worst Customer” button. What’s especially awkward is if you have to ask how to skip the tip screen. Or you’ve got a person standing behind you, observing your tipping behavior. Regardless of how you drag yourself over the “How Well Do You Handle Social Coercion?” hurdle, you can’t help but worry about how your future service or food might be compromised.

I don’t actually fault the cashiers, many of whom are too young to remember the good ol’ days where we—novel idea!—only tipped at service-based places, adjusting up or down from the formerly-standard 15% or the now-standard 20% for poor or excellent service. Well, I do actually fault the teenage cashier at the Einstein’s Bagel in Las Vegas whose friendliness evaporated just like that when I didn’t add a tip. For the majority of them, though, I’ve learned anecdotally that they are lured in by a high hourly wage, only to be told that the wage includes estimated tips. Not cool in my book.

You can skip…

The way I see it, it’s gone too far, and me participating in the overreach doesn’t make it right. Right? If this practice gets your goat like it does me and would like to sign my petition to take to the store owners perpetuating this, let me know. Actually, there is no petition; it just felt fun to say.

For now, all I know is two things: 1) This is a hill I will continue to die on as I opt for friendly conversation in lieu of unwarranted tipping, and 2) I adore and am way more likely to tip the rare, cool cashier who says, “You can just skip the next screen.”

Isn’t life rich, and aren’t people interesting? See you in the next one…

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