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Keep the Change: A Clueless Tipper's Quest to Become the Guru of the Gratuity – A Funny and Irreverent Look at American Tipping, Restaurants, and Casinos
In the irreverent spirit of A.J. Jacobs and Michael Moore, Keep the Change by Steve Dublanica is a pavement-pounding exploration of tipping, a huge but neglected part of the American economy—the hilarious and eye-opening follow-up to his smash-hit New York Times bestseller Waiter Rant . Subtitled “A Clueless Tipper’s Quest to Become the Guru of the Gratuity,” Keep the Change follows the popular blogger known as “the Waiter” from restaurant to casino to strip club and beyond as he explores what to tip and how tipping truly plays out in practice in a series of candid, funny, and sometimes uproariously cringe-inducing adventures.
320 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 2010
40 people are currently reading
746 people want to read
About the author
Steve Dublanica
3 books64 followersThe Waiter waited his first table at age thirty-one. In 2004 the author started his wildly popular blog, www.WaiterRant.net, winning the 2006 "Best Writing in a Weblog" Bloggie Award. He is interviewed regularly by major media as the voice for many of the two million waiters in the United States. The Waiter lives in the New York metropolitan area.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 136 reviews
September 10, 2022
Update Sept 22 Rant. I think I've seen the most audacious attempt to screw money out of people in the name of 'tip' tonight. I was at a Fort Lauderdale street fair, which was 25% jewellery of the hippie kind and 75% food trucks. One food truck selling fried chicken was run by the two owners. No staff to pay. Payment by credit card - on the screen comes up "suggested tip" 18%-20%-22%. Tip for what service?
I have been to several places recently where the bill is very weird. There is the amount, then the 18% service charge then the tax. That means one of two things, either the servers aren't getting any of the service charge as they pay tax on tips, and that would be double taxation, or the tax that is paid is on the bill, and the extra tax from the service charge is being kept by the restaurant. THEN after that ther e is 'suggested additional tip' of 15%-18%-20%. So you want me to give the waiter between 33% and 38% of the cost of the meal? This is really out of hand.
My boyfriend actually fell for that one. He didn't check the bill, didn't note the tax, didn't see 18% had been added and added 10%. Couldn't undersrand why our two-appetizer, one-dessert-two drink meal of about $80 came to almost $120 until he checked the receipt.
Food and drinks are so expensive, cocktails at $16 are common, that the restaurateurs are certainly making enough to pay their staff. Why does America persist in allowing staff to be underpaid even when the restaurant is charging in the hundreds and make the customer pay more? Why does the job of waiting in a cheap restaurant pay less than waiting in a fancy one? The job is the same.
__________
By the end of this book I was amazed, outraged and bewildered by the fact that everyone in America seems to think they should be tipped automatically. That all business owners think they should pay x-15 and the general public can pay for high-priced services +15 (or 20) directly to the staff. Why am I paying the staff you employ to perform certain services for them performing them? Why does a restaurant employ waiters if not to take orders and serve them? Why should they be paid twice? I was never paid for turning up for work and then the clients paid me doing my job.
I stayed in B2 in Miami in September and had very good treatment. I tipped the waiters, I tipped room service, I tipped the maids. This is what I would have done in Europe. I went off to the Bahamas for ten days and then came back to the same hotel in Miami. I was put in a concrete box with scarcely any daylight, moved to another with no aircon, where the shower didn't work and was so small there was no full-length mirror. The night accountant asked me what the fuck I expected him to do when I said (yet again) I couldn't sleep in that room and the night manager declined to see me. Eventually I got a master suite which was not cleaned the next day but the bed thrown together as you would at home. That was it, I threatened reception with writing to the new holding company and the general manager. After that the male receptionists were all rude to me and my phone was disconnected for a day losing me some crucial phonecalls I was expecting. It took me an hour and two engineers (one didn't speak English, this was Miami) to find out that it was reception that had cut off all calls to my room.
Then I read this book... ah I was supposed to tip reception as well for checking me in and connecting phonecalls. Really?
A while later I began to read Heads in Beds: A Reckless Memoir of Hotels, Hustles, and So-Called Hospitality but gave it up (for now). The writing of these books betrays such a self-entitled attitude that it is difficult not to have one's view of the content tinged with utter dislike.Update: So far, it seems that if you don't tip a lot of people from waiters, to car wash people, to hairdressers, to pizza delivery boys they will have their revenge on you. Also if you are a bad tipper. The only people who come out of it looking good are the sex workers who will give you a good time anyway!
I don't know how all you Americans can cope with this endless tipping. I even saw tip jars at 7-11 and those people were so rude, never interrupting their personal conversations while they cashed me and they feel entitled to a tip?
So Heads in Beds is off the menu for now.
__________
Read November 18, 2014
I have been to several places recently where the bill is very weird. There is the amount, then the 18% service charge then the tax. That means one of two things, either the servers aren't getting any of the service charge as they pay tax on tips, and that would be double taxation, or the tax that is paid is on the bill, and the extra tax from the service charge is being kept by the restaurant. THEN after that ther e is 'suggested additional tip' of 15%-18%-20%. So you want me to give the waiter between 33% and 38% of the cost of the meal? This is really out of hand.
My boyfriend actually fell for that one. He didn't check the bill, didn't note the tax, didn't see 18% had been added and added 10%. Couldn't undersrand why our two-appetizer, one-dessert-two drink meal of about $80 came to almost $120 until he checked the receipt.
Food and drinks are so expensive, cocktails at $16 are common, that the restaurateurs are certainly making enough to pay their staff. Why does America persist in allowing staff to be underpaid even when the restaurant is charging in the hundreds and make the customer pay more? Why does the job of waiting in a cheap restaurant pay less than waiting in a fancy one? The job is the same.
__________
By the end of this book I was amazed, outraged and bewildered by the fact that everyone in America seems to think they should be tipped automatically. That all business owners think they should pay x-15 and the general public can pay for high-priced services +15 (or 20) directly to the staff. Why am I paying the staff you employ to perform certain services for them performing them? Why does a restaurant employ waiters if not to take orders and serve them? Why should they be paid twice? I was never paid for turning up for work and then the clients paid me doing my job.
I stayed in B2 in Miami in September and had very good treatment. I tipped the waiters, I tipped room service, I tipped the maids. This is what I would have done in Europe. I went off to the Bahamas for ten days and then came back to the same hotel in Miami. I was put in a concrete box with scarcely any daylight, moved to another with no aircon, where the shower didn't work and was so small there was no full-length mirror. The night accountant asked me what the fuck I expected him to do when I said (yet again) I couldn't sleep in that room and the night manager declined to see me. Eventually I got a master suite which was not cleaned the next day but the bed thrown together as you would at home. That was it, I threatened reception with writing to the new holding company and the general manager. After that the male receptionists were all rude to me and my phone was disconnected for a day losing me some crucial phonecalls I was expecting. It took me an hour and two engineers (one didn't speak English, this was Miami) to find out that it was reception that had cut off all calls to my room.
Then I read this book... ah I was supposed to tip reception as well for checking me in and connecting phonecalls. Really?
A while later I began to read Heads in Beds: A Reckless Memoir of Hotels, Hustles, and So-Called Hospitality but gave it up (for now). The writing of these books betrays such a self-entitled attitude that it is difficult not to have one's view of the content tinged with utter dislike.Update: So far, it seems that if you don't tip a lot of people from waiters, to car wash people, to hairdressers, to pizza delivery boys they will have their revenge on you. Also if you are a bad tipper. The only people who come out of it looking good are the sex workers who will give you a good time anyway!
I don't know how all you Americans can cope with this endless tipping. I even saw tip jars at 7-11 and those people were so rude, never interrupting their personal conversations while they cashed me and they feel entitled to a tip?
So Heads in Beds is off the menu for now.
__________
Read November 18, 2014
May 20, 2012
I thought I was picking up a little how-to title about tipping. Little did I know the book would take me through the 5 stages of grief.
Denial: No. He *cannot* be starting out a book about tipping with a lap dance.
Anger: If he doesn’t stop talking about his first book, and how it was so successful that it landed him this sweet gig flying around the country on an expense account, I’m going to throw the cd out the car window.
Bargaining: Please, please, just tell me how much to tip. I’ll finish reading the book if you stop interviewing sex workers and pretending it’s because you’re interested in how much people tip them.
Depression: It’s never going to end. He’s going to interview every stripper, prostitute, dominatrix and phone-sex worker in America. I’ve lost the will to live.
Acceptance: Yes, I understand. I should tip everyone. Absolutely everyone. I should start every morning with a visit to the ATM, and leave a trail of bills in my wake.
For a guy who covered the sex trade a little too thoroughly, he sure quotes the Bible a lot. It’s a little jarring to go from an interview with a working girl to a verse from Ecclesiastes.
Denial: No. He *cannot* be starting out a book about tipping with a lap dance.
Anger: If he doesn’t stop talking about his first book, and how it was so successful that it landed him this sweet gig flying around the country on an expense account, I’m going to throw the cd out the car window.
Bargaining: Please, please, just tell me how much to tip. I’ll finish reading the book if you stop interviewing sex workers and pretending it’s because you’re interested in how much people tip them.
Depression: It’s never going to end. He’s going to interview every stripper, prostitute, dominatrix and phone-sex worker in America. I’ve lost the will to live.
Acceptance: Yes, I understand. I should tip everyone. Absolutely everyone. I should start every morning with a visit to the ATM, and leave a trail of bills in my wake.
For a guy who covered the sex trade a little too thoroughly, he sure quotes the Bible a lot. It’s a little jarring to go from an interview with a working girl to a verse from Ecclesiastes.
March 6, 2015
This book had all the potential to be a really dull read. Dublanica (in spite of his smug, smarmy, smartass attitude that made me want to kick him in the liver) has managed to make the mundane interesting by actually going out and rubbing shoulders with the people in professions that depend on tips for a living. in the case of the strippers, a little bit more than shoulders got rubbed. Hard to take, I'm sure, but one must suffer for his art. No doubt the suffering was eased by the fact that his trips were claimed as a tax deduction.
My desire to give Dublanica the mother of all wedgies aside, I think he did a creditable job of writing, but I got a kick out of the cast of characters he encountered in his travels...they saved the book for him. I do take exception with some of his conclusions, however.
For example, he opines that Canadians are bad tippers. There is some justification for this position, but only in comparison to Americans. People in other parts of the world think that Americans are just plain nuts in their tipping habits, and in fact have turned some of the service industries into extortionists. Don't tip? I won't change your sheets, or throw your newspaper in a puddle, or rub my private parts on your coffee cup. Apparently the land of the free allows the practice of paying people a substandard wage (or no wage at all), forcing employees to rely on tips. Visitors to the USA probably come from a country (like Canada) that enforces minimum wage laws. Naturally we tip as well, but we don't grease every palm we encounter. The mechanic? Seriously? Charges over $100 per hour and you want me to tip him?
Dublanica did engender some sympathy...particularly for the shoeshine guy who works only for tips. In spite of that, I feel that these people are being victimized by their employer, who is getting richer on the basis of the fact that he is guilting the consumer into paying his employees' wages through gratuities. Why not campaign for legislation that bans tipping and forces the billionaire hotel owners to take a couple of billion out of petty cash to give their employees a living wage?
Back in the real world, Dublanica's book is nicely developed, the only flaw being that he lets some of his own personality show through. He is unnecessarily profane and a name-caller, and obviously thinks quite highly of himself. But he did write a decent book, and thoughtfully added a couple of appendices to let us know whose palms should be greased at Christmas and at weddings. Sorry grandkids, if Poppa follows these guidelines there won't be a penny left for Christmas gifts!
My desire to give Dublanica the mother of all wedgies aside, I think he did a creditable job of writing, but I got a kick out of the cast of characters he encountered in his travels...they saved the book for him. I do take exception with some of his conclusions, however.
For example, he opines that Canadians are bad tippers. There is some justification for this position, but only in comparison to Americans. People in other parts of the world think that Americans are just plain nuts in their tipping habits, and in fact have turned some of the service industries into extortionists. Don't tip? I won't change your sheets, or throw your newspaper in a puddle, or rub my private parts on your coffee cup. Apparently the land of the free allows the practice of paying people a substandard wage (or no wage at all), forcing employees to rely on tips. Visitors to the USA probably come from a country (like Canada) that enforces minimum wage laws. Naturally we tip as well, but we don't grease every palm we encounter. The mechanic? Seriously? Charges over $100 per hour and you want me to tip him?
Dublanica did engender some sympathy...particularly for the shoeshine guy who works only for tips. In spite of that, I feel that these people are being victimized by their employer, who is getting richer on the basis of the fact that he is guilting the consumer into paying his employees' wages through gratuities. Why not campaign for legislation that bans tipping and forces the billionaire hotel owners to take a couple of billion out of petty cash to give their employees a living wage?
Back in the real world, Dublanica's book is nicely developed, the only flaw being that he lets some of his own personality show through. He is unnecessarily profane and a name-caller, and obviously thinks quite highly of himself. But he did write a decent book, and thoughtfully added a couple of appendices to let us know whose palms should be greased at Christmas and at weddings. Sorry grandkids, if Poppa follows these guidelines there won't be a penny left for Christmas gifts!
January 10, 2011
The guy who wrote this, author of "Waiter Rant" , must have used up every dime he made on that NY Times Best Seller in order to do the research for this one. I never considered myself a Cheap Charlie, but according to what he comes up with in "Keep the Change" I must big one of the biggest tightwads on earth! I don't tip at McDonald's, as do those described in this book (but then, I don't even GO to McDonald's much less eat there).
He does cover the gamut of service providers fairly well:
restaurant servers, Maître d', doormen, bellhops, maids, concierges, auto mechanics (???), parking valets, car wash attendants, baristas, bartenders, tattoo artists, massage therapists, barbers, hairstylists, beauticians, pet groomers, deliverymen, movers, casino hosts, card dealers, cocktail waitresses, shoeshine men, bathroom attendants, taxi drivers, & limousine chauffeurs. Then, of course, he goes into great length (two full chapters), gleaned from his research(!), on tipping practices at "sexy time" with dominatrixes [sic], phone sex operators, prostitutes, strippers, and exotic dancers. He failed to include tipping practices aboard cruise ships - big bucks involved in that. Also, he limited himself to tipping within the United States. Tipping while on guided tours is also not mentioned.
After reading this book and, especially, after copying down all of these categories, it occurred to me that I don't USE most of these types of services. I polish my own shoes, I drive around for blocks to find my own parking space, I arrange for my own tickets to the theatre, etc. For the above mentioned services I DO use, I tip reasonably.
Steve Dublanica, author, doesn't argue one way or another except that in one section he totals up what it might cost to for a visit to a VIP lounge in Las Vegas. All too much a foolish squander in my book. But then, the baseline for all of this is that one must pay for their vices, be they great or small. I guess I'm not that vicious.
Interesting read, and it will undoubtedly come to mind as I go about daily life and employ the service of others.
He does cover the gamut of service providers fairly well:
restaurant servers, Maître d', doormen, bellhops, maids, concierges, auto mechanics (???), parking valets, car wash attendants, baristas, bartenders, tattoo artists, massage therapists, barbers, hairstylists, beauticians, pet groomers, deliverymen, movers, casino hosts, card dealers, cocktail waitresses, shoeshine men, bathroom attendants, taxi drivers, & limousine chauffeurs. Then, of course, he goes into great length (two full chapters), gleaned from his research(!), on tipping practices at "sexy time" with dominatrixes [sic], phone sex operators, prostitutes, strippers, and exotic dancers. He failed to include tipping practices aboard cruise ships - big bucks involved in that. Also, he limited himself to tipping within the United States. Tipping while on guided tours is also not mentioned.
After reading this book and, especially, after copying down all of these categories, it occurred to me that I don't USE most of these types of services. I polish my own shoes, I drive around for blocks to find my own parking space, I arrange for my own tickets to the theatre, etc. For the above mentioned services I DO use, I tip reasonably.
Steve Dublanica, author, doesn't argue one way or another except that in one section he totals up what it might cost to for a visit to a VIP lounge in Las Vegas. All too much a foolish squander in my book. But then, the baseline for all of this is that one must pay for their vices, be they great or small. I guess I'm not that vicious.
Interesting read, and it will undoubtedly come to mind as I go about daily life and employ the service of others.
August 12, 2010
This seminary student turned waiter turned blogger turned author set out to become “the Guru of the Gratuity.” I thought that his first book, Waiter Rant, was a fun, light read, better than I was expecting, so I was happy to give this one a try.
I'm a self-serve kinda gal living in a self-serve kinda community so I don't have a lot of tipping angst. Still, there are those occasions when I don't know if I should tip or how much I should tip. I thought that looking through a former waiter's eyes would be a good place to find the answers.
I found a good deal more than that. The book was sometimes funny, as I expected. There were tipping guidelines. But as much as anything, the book was a social commentary containing some psychology, some philosophy, a dash of religious viewpoint, and some seriously good insight.
And serious research, as the several-hundred dollar tab for one evening at a strip joint in Vegas proves. Hey, I never said he did his research in a lab.
The beginning was a bit dry, too much information for me on the origin of the term “tipping.” and I didn't quite follow some of his logic. Any dryness disappeared in the description of the tipping habits of Lexus drivers, and of Buffy and Tyler. No offense to Lexus drivers, some of my best friends are Lexus drivers, but it was really funny. (Truth in advertising: Actually, I don't think I know anyone, other than casually, who drives a Lexus.)
Mr. Dublanica doesn't cover just the professions that normally come to mind when I think of tipping: waiters, hair stylists, the obvious layer that most of us see on a regular basis. He looks at parking attendants, doormen, shoe shiners, hotel housekeepers. He also delves into tipping for the sex trade, including some information about an S/M “dungeon” that I could have gone to my grave without knowing and not felt overly ignorant. What was most important to me was not how much I should tip a dominatrix but that he gave faces to the people working in the trade. People were amazingly open with him, and he looked beyond the trade and into their hearts. Sounds cheesy, but he did.
He also showed how some of the people working in the service industry see us, their customers. Not always flattering. And then there was the down-and-out couple who stopped their cab ride short of their destination and walked the rest of the way so that they could give the driver a $2 tip of the $10 total they had to their names.
For those with tender sensibilities, you can skip the sex trade parts, although I found that some of the most interesting. There are some bad words sprinkled throughout, but nothing you haven't heard before.
The way some of the people who work for tips are cheated should be and often is criminal. Kickbacks are rampant. So next time it comes to leaving a tip, don't be a flea or a schnorer. And read the book.
A copy of this book was provided to me by the publisher for review.
I'm a self-serve kinda gal living in a self-serve kinda community so I don't have a lot of tipping angst. Still, there are those occasions when I don't know if I should tip or how much I should tip. I thought that looking through a former waiter's eyes would be a good place to find the answers.
I found a good deal more than that. The book was sometimes funny, as I expected. There were tipping guidelines. But as much as anything, the book was a social commentary containing some psychology, some philosophy, a dash of religious viewpoint, and some seriously good insight.
And serious research, as the several-hundred dollar tab for one evening at a strip joint in Vegas proves. Hey, I never said he did his research in a lab.
The beginning was a bit dry, too much information for me on the origin of the term “tipping.” and I didn't quite follow some of his logic. Any dryness disappeared in the description of the tipping habits of Lexus drivers, and of Buffy and Tyler. No offense to Lexus drivers, some of my best friends are Lexus drivers, but it was really funny. (Truth in advertising: Actually, I don't think I know anyone, other than casually, who drives a Lexus.)
Mr. Dublanica doesn't cover just the professions that normally come to mind when I think of tipping: waiters, hair stylists, the obvious layer that most of us see on a regular basis. He looks at parking attendants, doormen, shoe shiners, hotel housekeepers. He also delves into tipping for the sex trade, including some information about an S/M “dungeon” that I could have gone to my grave without knowing and not felt overly ignorant. What was most important to me was not how much I should tip a dominatrix but that he gave faces to the people working in the trade. People were amazingly open with him, and he looked beyond the trade and into their hearts. Sounds cheesy, but he did.
He also showed how some of the people working in the service industry see us, their customers. Not always flattering. And then there was the down-and-out couple who stopped their cab ride short of their destination and walked the rest of the way so that they could give the driver a $2 tip of the $10 total they had to their names.
For those with tender sensibilities, you can skip the sex trade parts, although I found that some of the most interesting. There are some bad words sprinkled throughout, but nothing you haven't heard before.
The way some of the people who work for tips are cheated should be and often is criminal. Kickbacks are rampant. So next time it comes to leaving a tip, don't be a flea or a schnorer. And read the book.
A copy of this book was provided to me by the publisher for review.
February 15, 2019
Having recently completed Larry Tye's book on the history of the Pullman porter, I stumbled into this 2010 book by Steve Dublanica. Frankly, I was looking for Kerry Segrave's Tipping: An American History of Gratuities, but that's out of print. It's probably just as well… Dublanica's a fine writer in his own right, and he devotes the entire first chapter of this work to synopsizing Segrave. As he puts it at page 277, "I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Kerry Segrave. Almost everything I know about the history of tipping came from his excellent book."
Tipping is a provocative subject that Dublanica, a former waiter himself, treats with utmost passion. I have strong ambivalence about the topic I'll explore at greater length below, but first let me dispense with an at-a-glance synopsis so you know what to expect if you should pick this up yourself. Dublanica teases his treatise by asking his lapdancer how much he should leave her. From that spicy start and a brief history, the author proceeds in gonzo fashion to personally experience the occasion for tipping with all manner of service professionals. He ranges through the rooms of restaurants, bars, hotels, and casinos; cruises down the mallways of beauticians, barbers, salon workers, streetwalkers, tattoo artists, and exotic dancers; and ultimately pulls up to a caravan of cabbies, auto mechanics, teamsters, haulers, and hacks. Each chapter he sounds his call to professional adventure, interviews subjects in medias res, shines an "inward smile" to underscore a quote by reference to his personal past waitstaff experience, before leaving the "correct" amount and reflecting on how tipping is a right and proper thing to do. You'll read this quickly, but be sure to stay until the end as the third of his three appendices (an in-depth look at how race impacts tipping) is one of his best chapters. (That the chapter should be buried in the endpages is a bit bizarre, considering the author suggests we "take this topic out of the darkness and move it into the light.") The only thing this book lacks relative to its subject matter is a table that accumulates the author's recommended tip rate in each service category, showing deviations for special occasions like holidays and weddings. Those interested in such a cheat sheet can easily find others' opinions on that around the internet.
Of course, online algorithms designed to help you calculate the proper tip presume that tipping is appropriate at all. Is it? Why? When? And who says so? Even professional golf, which Dublanica does not cover, seems to have clear, unwritten rules intended to harmonize wage imbalances between players and their sherpa/swing coach caddies. Although Dublanica devotes about 30 pages of boldfaced rationalizations of tipping (we do so to show off, to feel generous, as a reward, as a bribe, to acknowledge an occasion, etc.), this idea of managing wealth disparity doesn't explicitly enter into the author's discussion. It's not an economic incentive, that's for sure. "In 1997 two researchers named Bodvarsson and Gibson surveyed five restaurants to see how service quality affected tips," Dublanica notes at page 27. "After they crunched the numbers, they noted that the customers who ranked the service highest increased their tips by only a measly 0.44 percent of the bill. When you’re a waiter, that’s chump change. And it tells servers that no matter how hard they hustle, their service has a negligible effect on their tip."
So why bother? At the end of the day Dublanica believes we ought to dole out extras as much to cement as to memorialize what he calls "microcosmic" relationships. Seeking to sum up his tipping-quantification quest, the author cites E.M. Forster's "Howard's End" (at page 273): “'Only connect,' I think to myself. 'Live in fragments no longer.' That’s tipping. And that’s life." Yeah, not so much. I'll grant the author one out of two on that observation. Seeking connection does seem essential to cultivating good tips. After all, if you're invisible, your client might easily imagine you don't exist. In discussing the salience of the service provider, Dublanica argues that anonymity's real impact is to encourage or exonerate boorish behavior. Again, I find myself not wholly persuaded. Rather, I think that anonymity undermines the empathy essential to make tipping a mutually satisfactory experience. You can't care about someone you can't "see," whose humanity you are not made to acknowledge.
Dublanica comes closest to sharing this realization around page 240. The former divinity student quotes the homily of the foot washing episode in John 13:16, "No servant is greater than his master," then concludes,
Irreverent wordplay aside, I think Dublanica's reference to karma is a poor choice that sabotages the workers he means to support, inasmuch as it exempts patrons from doing the work needed to change the system. It's comforting to believe in divine justice, but let yourself be contented with the belief that what goes around eventually comes around and you strip yourself of any immediate call to action. Here, the author wraps up this particular line of thought by tipping his shoe shiner and reporting himself, "Oddly rejuvenated." Divine justice, karma, enlightened altruism, or dispensation of guilt? The best summation of the ethos expressed that occurs to me comes out of Avenue Q. "When you help others, you can't help helping yourself."
Tipping culture makes me uncomfortable in many ways. I dislike its historic roots, the economic incentives that perpetuate it, and the way its opacity corrupts transactions. Even Dublanica, the tip recipient's self-appointed champion, reveals himself to be frequently conflicted and internally inconsistent relative to the psychology and social merit of gratuities. As he puts it at page 6, "Gratuities in this country are a gigantic pain in the ass. A largely under-the-table, unregulated practice that accounts for a bit less than one half of 1 percent of America’s GDP (approximately $66 billion!), tipping causes no end of confusion, anxiety, and anger for both the tipper and the tippee."
Seriously, tipping has a terrible pedigree. Passing from the aristocratic largesse administered begrudgingly to placate peasants to the bourgeois' attempts to ostentatiously disassociate themselves from their servants, Dublanica writes (at page 15), "Prior to the Civil War, tipping was rare in America, a fact that caused no small amount of amazement to European travel writers of the day…. it was when employers discovered that they could use gratuities to pay their workers lower or even no wages at all that tipping really took off…" It's not a coincidence I was led to this subject by a book on Pullman porters. Leaving aside the possibility that Tye, Segrave, and Dublanica were all pulling from the same source material, there's a consensus that the Pullman Palace Car Company popularized the pernicious practice.
Once established, tipping culture has proven nearly impossible to eradicate. Change requires shifting incentives at the roots of behavior, and what will do that? Universal living wage? Imposition of taxes on employers for presumed (heretofore undeclared) income? Replacement of waiters, bellhops, and cabbies with automats, robot caddies, and autonomous cars? Forget it. We who confuse social and economic transactions will ever conflate distributing money with spreading love. A huckster's confidence and a bit of willful blindness are all that's needed to buy our way into paradise.
Throughout his book, Dublanica encourages us to reconsider tipping as a surcharge hidden in plain sight. Who routinely gets seated at the best restaurants without need of a reservation, the best service, the benefit of the doubt at the blackjack tables, and a place at the head of the line at nightclubs?
Yet not overt enough. The ambiguity of value consideration presenting as a gift instead of as a service charge is inherently discomfiting. How do you distinguish a gratuity from a bribe or a kickback? Wherein lies the custom of giving handouts to strangers? The experiential difference enjoyed by first class and FastPass purchasers are explicitly written into exchanges which are open, transparent, and low-risk, not duplicitous and corrupt. The reason no tipping is expected at Starbucks is not, as Dublanica argues at page 88, because "a higher level of service is expected there. If I fuck up your drink you can send it back. No, no tipping is allowed because it's published, corporate policy.
Seriously, to the extent a tip is intended to act as a service fee, why not be upfront about it? This conundrum surfaces again in the context of a furniture store's unwritten policy of assessing a delivery charge to customers that the store owner suspects will refuse to tip his drivers. Unsurprisingly, that chapter begins and ends with a nasty dispute. What's the point of this? Even Las Vegas' dealers, who wish to promote the practice of "toking" (tips placed as side bets) and pool the results at the end of shifts, can't quite reconcile the shadier aspects of the arrangement. At page 164, Dublanica quotes a dealer, "Don’t make giving us a tip look like you’re doing us a favor…. We’re professionals doing a job." Again, if you feel there's nothing personal involved, assess a cover charge.
The currents of tipping culture pull Dublanica into the treacherous depths of Las Vegas' underground economy. There, devoid of legal recourse or governance, graft begets graft. Strip clubs pay off cabbies to promote themselves to visitors, cabbies pay off doormen for the same reason, strip club hosts extract tithes from strippers for the promise of big spending clients who in turn throw love back on the cabbies and limo drivers for shepherding them around. Oh, it's grand how the money changes hands. Yet having established a microcosmic relationship with one cabbie willing to expose the complex web of kickbacks that drives Las Vegas, the author vents frustration at another (at page 243).
Tipping is a provocative subject that Dublanica, a former waiter himself, treats with utmost passion. I have strong ambivalence about the topic I'll explore at greater length below, but first let me dispense with an at-a-glance synopsis so you know what to expect if you should pick this up yourself. Dublanica teases his treatise by asking his lapdancer how much he should leave her. From that spicy start and a brief history, the author proceeds in gonzo fashion to personally experience the occasion for tipping with all manner of service professionals. He ranges through the rooms of restaurants, bars, hotels, and casinos; cruises down the mallways of beauticians, barbers, salon workers, streetwalkers, tattoo artists, and exotic dancers; and ultimately pulls up to a caravan of cabbies, auto mechanics, teamsters, haulers, and hacks. Each chapter he sounds his call to professional adventure, interviews subjects in medias res, shines an "inward smile" to underscore a quote by reference to his personal past waitstaff experience, before leaving the "correct" amount and reflecting on how tipping is a right and proper thing to do. You'll read this quickly, but be sure to stay until the end as the third of his three appendices (an in-depth look at how race impacts tipping) is one of his best chapters. (That the chapter should be buried in the endpages is a bit bizarre, considering the author suggests we "take this topic out of the darkness and move it into the light.") The only thing this book lacks relative to its subject matter is a table that accumulates the author's recommended tip rate in each service category, showing deviations for special occasions like holidays and weddings. Those interested in such a cheat sheet can easily find others' opinions on that around the internet.
Of course, online algorithms designed to help you calculate the proper tip presume that tipping is appropriate at all. Is it? Why? When? And who says so? Even professional golf, which Dublanica does not cover, seems to have clear, unwritten rules intended to harmonize wage imbalances between players and their sherpa/swing coach caddies. Although Dublanica devotes about 30 pages of boldfaced rationalizations of tipping (we do so to show off, to feel generous, as a reward, as a bribe, to acknowledge an occasion, etc.), this idea of managing wealth disparity doesn't explicitly enter into the author's discussion. It's not an economic incentive, that's for sure. "In 1997 two researchers named Bodvarsson and Gibson surveyed five restaurants to see how service quality affected tips," Dublanica notes at page 27. "After they crunched the numbers, they noted that the customers who ranked the service highest increased their tips by only a measly 0.44 percent of the bill. When you’re a waiter, that’s chump change. And it tells servers that no matter how hard they hustle, their service has a negligible effect on their tip."
So why bother? At the end of the day Dublanica believes we ought to dole out extras as much to cement as to memorialize what he calls "microcosmic" relationships. Seeking to sum up his tipping-quantification quest, the author cites E.M. Forster's "Howard's End" (at page 273): “'Only connect,' I think to myself. 'Live in fragments no longer.' That’s tipping. And that’s life." Yeah, not so much. I'll grant the author one out of two on that observation. Seeking connection does seem essential to cultivating good tips. After all, if you're invisible, your client might easily imagine you don't exist. In discussing the salience of the service provider, Dublanica argues that anonymity's real impact is to encourage or exonerate boorish behavior. Again, I find myself not wholly persuaded. Rather, I think that anonymity undermines the empathy essential to make tipping a mutually satisfactory experience. You can't care about someone you can't "see," whose humanity you are not made to acknowledge.
Dublanica comes closest to sharing this realization around page 240. The former divinity student quotes the homily of the foot washing episode in John 13:16, "No servant is greater than his master," then concludes,
All human beings are equal. So, no matter what job you do, whether you’re a banker, a bathroom attendant, or a shoeshine man, your work is noble. Why? Because it’s performed by a human being. I remember Casey’s words: “I figure any job worth doing is worthy of respect.” So when companies cynically exploit tipped workers by failing to pay wages or by stealing tips, they’re playing with karmic fire. They’re disrespecting the human dignity of their workers, and eventually, one way or another, they’ll get their comeuppance…. When I was a waiter, I got sick of being a servant. I wanted to be the master. But my lack of pride probably had less to do with being a waiter than with the lack of respect I had for myself. It wasn’t the job that was beneath me; it was how I was looking at it. When I was a kid, my dad told me he’d love me if I became president of the United States or a garbage man. “As long as you’re a good person, that’s all that matters,” he said. It’s not the job you have, it’s the person you are. “No servant is greater than his master.”I'm fine with the author's sentiment here, much as it seems to veer away from justifying tipping (because service and performance integrity are their own reward). As an aside, it seems like a Delphic quote. Really, unless the intent is "Suck it up, that's the way it is," wouldn't egalitarian intent be better asserted as "no master is greater than his servant?" Okay, okay, I appreciate that by "master" here, Jesus presumably intended God, making the statement geared toward promoting personal humility among the priestly caste, as in: "Don't exalt the priest higher than you would the almighty." That's still pretty high as exaltation goes; it must be nice to be a cleric.
Irreverent wordplay aside, I think Dublanica's reference to karma is a poor choice that sabotages the workers he means to support, inasmuch as it exempts patrons from doing the work needed to change the system. It's comforting to believe in divine justice, but let yourself be contented with the belief that what goes around eventually comes around and you strip yourself of any immediate call to action. Here, the author wraps up this particular line of thought by tipping his shoe shiner and reporting himself, "Oddly rejuvenated." Divine justice, karma, enlightened altruism, or dispensation of guilt? The best summation of the ethos expressed that occurs to me comes out of Avenue Q. "When you help others, you can't help helping yourself."
Tipping culture makes me uncomfortable in many ways. I dislike its historic roots, the economic incentives that perpetuate it, and the way its opacity corrupts transactions. Even Dublanica, the tip recipient's self-appointed champion, reveals himself to be frequently conflicted and internally inconsistent relative to the psychology and social merit of gratuities. As he puts it at page 6, "Gratuities in this country are a gigantic pain in the ass. A largely under-the-table, unregulated practice that accounts for a bit less than one half of 1 percent of America’s GDP (approximately $66 billion!), tipping causes no end of confusion, anxiety, and anger for both the tipper and the tippee."
Seriously, tipping has a terrible pedigree. Passing from the aristocratic largesse administered begrudgingly to placate peasants to the bourgeois' attempts to ostentatiously disassociate themselves from their servants, Dublanica writes (at page 15), "Prior to the Civil War, tipping was rare in America, a fact that caused no small amount of amazement to European travel writers of the day…. it was when employers discovered that they could use gratuities to pay their workers lower or even no wages at all that tipping really took off…" It's not a coincidence I was led to this subject by a book on Pullman porters. Leaving aside the possibility that Tye, Segrave, and Dublanica were all pulling from the same source material, there's a consensus that the Pullman Palace Car Company popularized the pernicious practice.
If the porters hadn’t received tips, the company would’ve had to increase their wages to $60 a month just to keep them above subsistence level—which would have added $2,535,000 a year to Pullman’s payroll costs. There wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of that ever happening. And even with their tips, Pullman’s porters never came close to making $60 a month. The Pullman Company shafted their porters because they were poor, black, and easy to exploit…. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the company cynically made sure its passengers knew the porters were underpaid and depended on tips to survive…. [To cite a St. Louis Republic article from this period,] “It was the Pullman Company which fastened the tipping habit on the American People and they used the Negro as the instrument to do it...." (page 16)All etiquette aside, that's an extremely ugly origin story. Nor have economic circumstances changed all that much for tip recipients or the economics that allow employers to perpetuate a substandard wage. Dublanica attempts a pragmatic argument to justify tipping as ennobling rather than enabling: if we're stuck with tipping culture, we must obey its prerogatives. That rings more like a self-fulfilling prophecy to me. If tip recipients are so beleaguered why don't they rise up?
So when the traveling upper classes imported this nouveau riche habit from Europe, employers such as Pullman were quick to realize they could play on public sympathy to use gratuities to shift part of their payroll burden onto the backs of the American consumer. And since the public had already been conditioned by centuries of slavery to having low-cost servants in their midst, the stage was set for tipping to take hold. It should come as no surprise that the first workers forced to depend on gratuities were ex-slaves. And when millions of immigrants began crashing onto America’s shores in the late 1800s—becoming waiters, barbers, bellhops, and the like—the new system of tipping was in place to exploit them. (pages 17-18)
Whether they’re food delivery people, bathroom attendants, or waiters, tipped workers get exploited every day. Unscrupulous companies are quick to siphon off their workers’ tips in order to lower overhead, increase profits, and line their own pockets. Wage theft is rampant, and some companies are cynically throwing their workers to the wolves. And it’s tough for people to complain about their working conditions when they’re trying to put food on the table. It’s easy to be a Cesar Chavez when times are flush, but when your children are hungry, concepts like fairness and justice often have to take a backseat to reality. (page 77)The Progressive movement of the late 1910's/early '20's sought to abolish tipping for this very reason. Tragically, like many other social reforms, it failed.
Once established, tipping culture has proven nearly impossible to eradicate. Change requires shifting incentives at the roots of behavior, and what will do that? Universal living wage? Imposition of taxes on employers for presumed (heretofore undeclared) income? Replacement of waiters, bellhops, and cabbies with automats, robot caddies, and autonomous cars? Forget it. We who confuse social and economic transactions will ever conflate distributing money with spreading love. A huckster's confidence and a bit of willful blindness are all that's needed to buy our way into paradise.
Throughout his book, Dublanica encourages us to reconsider tipping as a surcharge hidden in plain sight. Who routinely gets seated at the best restaurants without need of a reservation, the best service, the benefit of the doubt at the blackjack tables, and a place at the head of the line at nightclubs?
Some of you may think, “That’s not fair! You should have to wait like everyone else!” Give me a break. Look around you: people use money to jump ahead of each other every day. Pay extra for that ticket at Disneyworld and you’ll leap over sweaty tourists with wailing children and get first crack at the best rides. Fly first class and in addition to the privilege of getting killed right after the pilot in the event of a crash, you get on and off the plane first. When I go to my doctor, I have to wait forty-five minutes for a triple-booked fifteen-minute slot that had to be arranged weeks in advance. But if I shelled out a couple of thousand dollars a year to belong to a concierge medical practice, they’d take me that same day. And if you’re a good tipper you’ll always get a reservation in a restaurant ahead of a bad one. (page 66)Later at page 258, he adds, "Some people might take umbrage at this kind of wheeling and dealing, but let’s face it, tipping exposes how the world really works. Just look at how doctors refer patients, at insider trading on Wall Street, and at political horse trading in Washington. The only difference between Vegas and the rest of the country is that the dynamic is more overt here."
Yet not overt enough. The ambiguity of value consideration presenting as a gift instead of as a service charge is inherently discomfiting. How do you distinguish a gratuity from a bribe or a kickback? Wherein lies the custom of giving handouts to strangers? The experiential difference enjoyed by first class and FastPass purchasers are explicitly written into exchanges which are open, transparent, and low-risk, not duplicitous and corrupt. The reason no tipping is expected at Starbucks is not, as Dublanica argues at page 88, because "a higher level of service is expected there. If I fuck up your drink you can send it back. No, no tipping is allowed because it's published, corporate policy.
Seriously, to the extent a tip is intended to act as a service fee, why not be upfront about it? This conundrum surfaces again in the context of a furniture store's unwritten policy of assessing a delivery charge to customers that the store owner suspects will refuse to tip his drivers. Unsurprisingly, that chapter begins and ends with a nasty dispute. What's the point of this? Even Las Vegas' dealers, who wish to promote the practice of "toking" (tips placed as side bets) and pool the results at the end of shifts, can't quite reconcile the shadier aspects of the arrangement. At page 164, Dublanica quotes a dealer, "Don’t make giving us a tip look like you’re doing us a favor…. We’re professionals doing a job." Again, if you feel there's nothing personal involved, assess a cover charge.
The currents of tipping culture pull Dublanica into the treacherous depths of Las Vegas' underground economy. There, devoid of legal recourse or governance, graft begets graft. Strip clubs pay off cabbies to promote themselves to visitors, cabbies pay off doormen for the same reason, strip club hosts extract tithes from strippers for the promise of big spending clients who in turn throw love back on the cabbies and limo drivers for shepherding them around. Oh, it's grand how the money changes hands. Yet having established a microcosmic relationship with one cabbie willing to expose the complex web of kickbacks that drives Las Vegas, the author vents frustration at another (at page 243).
“Just out of curiosity, what’s the fare from my hotel to the airport?”“Forty bucks,” the cabbie says, handing me his card. “When you ready to go home, just call me.” When I’d asked the doorman at my hotel what the going rate was, he said the trip should cost only fifteen bucks. “Sure thing,” I say, taking the cabbie’s card. “And by the way, the fare’s only fifteen bucks.”Obscurity lies at the core of a corrupt practice. Like most of us, Dublanica doesn't mind having to pay "extra" so long as he's the one who calls the tune. Tipping culture lets him feel in command, even if it's normed. Of course, the author had earlier and happily paid out the same amount for a lesser charge. Again and again, Dublanica insists we should always tip, unless… leading to endless cycles of vicious or virtuous performance and behavior that end in burnout and confusion for everyone involved. Round and round and round we go. Inevitably, the tables turn on the former waiter. Oh, the irony.
“What?”
“Thanks for giving me your card, asshole,” I say, anger heating my voice. “Maybe I’ll rat you out to the Taxi Authority.”
December 5, 2010
I won this book on an Ecco Books giveaway on Facebook .
A solid, three-and-a-half star book. It's a very quick and interesting read. The author has a down-to-earth, conversational writing style. He explores tipping in many different professions--from movers and delivery people (think furniture and food) to barista and bar tenders; from beauty workers and bathroom attendants to sex workers and concierges . And, of course, restaurant wait staff. Much of the information I will never use (if I ever find myself at a point in my life needing to know how much to tip a prostitute or stripper, I'm probably not far from BEING one, and someone should hold an intervention, please!). But, much of the information was enlightening. I've always been a good tipper of restaurant workers (even--at times when I've dined with family members who I know are not good tippers and were treating me to lunch or dinner--excusing myself "to go to the restroom," finding our server, and giving them the tip I know they deserve but won't get from the person kindly paying for lunch), but I had no idea how much I was under-tipping my massage therapist and the cocktail waitresses in Vegas when I was there several years ago. Oh! And taxi drivers, too. It was a good education for me. I also liked how he got into the psychology of the workers he interviewed; for the most part he was very good at not being judgmental and at seeing the person as a human being.
A solid, three-and-a-half star book. It's a very quick and interesting read. The author has a down-to-earth, conversational writing style. He explores tipping in many different professions--from movers and delivery people (think furniture and food) to barista and bar tenders; from beauty workers and bathroom attendants to sex workers and concierges . And, of course, restaurant wait staff. Much of the information I will never use (if I ever find myself at a point in my life needing to know how much to tip a prostitute or stripper, I'm probably not far from BEING one, and someone should hold an intervention, please!). But, much of the information was enlightening. I've always been a good tipper of restaurant workers (even--at times when I've dined with family members who I know are not good tippers and were treating me to lunch or dinner--excusing myself "to go to the restroom," finding our server, and giving them the tip I know they deserve but won't get from the person kindly paying for lunch), but I had no idea how much I was under-tipping my massage therapist and the cocktail waitresses in Vegas when I was there several years ago. Oh! And taxi drivers, too. It was a good education for me. I also liked how he got into the psychology of the workers he interviewed; for the most part he was very good at not being judgmental and at seeing the person as a human being.
There are also three appendices at the back of the book, and they hold almost as much valuable information as any other chapter in the rest of the book. I particularly found the first one on holiday tipping to be useful (it being so close to Christmas as I write this).
In the early parts of the book, he also goes into explorations of why people tip (and why some don't) and how tipping got indoctrinated in American culture. And, at the end, he finally figures out what tipping is all about (but you'll have to read it to find out yourself!).
October 11, 2011
I was ready to smack the author about 10 pages in. The subject is no doubt fascinating, and I did learn some interesting things here and there. However, I had two big problems with this book. The author's writing style was incredibly distracting from the topic. He was trying to be a smart ass, but he wasn't any good at it (clearly, he should have consulted me). He seemed to think he was clever to use examples like going to a strip club and describing the lap dance he received (and presumably tipped for, but I'd long since moved on), but he's got a pretty big ego if he thinks I really want to hear about it. And I like a good swear word as much as the next guy--perhaps more, in fact, when used in the particularly expressive, illuminating, and enlightening manner that I try to model--but once again, he wasn't GOOD at it. Point of information. Knowing how to use these words make them fun to say and can be quite entertaining. Just throwing them around for the sake of saying them is crass. And that was only the first issue. The other is that he went way beyond describing how, why, and what people tip to put forth his own opinion that the general public doesn't tip enough. Which I suppose he can do, what with it being his book and all, but what happened to objectivity in journalism? It's not fair to force people to live off a couple of dollars an hour pay and then expect everyone else to fill in the blank. IMHO. So reading over and over again about how I need to be tipping more, both in how much and to who (did you know you're supposed to tip both your auto mechanic AND your local phone sex operator? I know. Right?). I just kept getting angry that we can't seem to pay these people a decent wage in the first place. I barely made it through the book, but I needed to know how much to tip the tattoo artist.
December 28, 2010
I read Steve's first book Waiter Rant last year and really enjoyed it but I like Keep the Change even more. It's well-written, informative, witty and entertaining with some good life lessons as well. For instance -
"Beauty workers can't fix who you are as a person. Beauty comes only when you accept who you are. When you accept the truth of yourself. It's a journey we all have to make. I'm still working on it."
"Any job doing is worth doing well."
"And as I've learned from bitter experience, you can never make anyone change her life until she's ready to change it."
It's interesting to read why some people are better tippers than others and what those in the service industry have to say about it. I'll remember this book the next time I leave a tip!
"Beauty workers can't fix who you are as a person. Beauty comes only when you accept who you are. When you accept the truth of yourself. It's a journey we all have to make. I'm still working on it."
"Any job doing is worth doing well."
"And as I've learned from bitter experience, you can never make anyone change her life until she's ready to change it."
It's interesting to read why some people are better tippers than others and what those in the service industry have to say about it. I'll remember this book the next time I leave a tip!
April 4, 2011
I liked his previous book Waiter Rant: Thanks for the Tip-Confessions of a Cynical Waiter well enough, but not so much this one. Actually, by the end, I developed a mild dislike for him. As a disclaimer, I should say that I'm one of those who feel there's too much tipping expected in America, so his exhortations to tip generously at every turn were grating.
Not particularly recommended.
Not particularly recommended.
December 16, 2015
Reviewed on my blog: Escapism Through Books
Waiter Rant has been on my radar for a long time, but for some reason just never got around to picking it up. I waitressed for a period of about 3 months back when I was 16, and even from such a short amount of time, I had some crazy stories! I've worked directly with customers in a service industry in some way or another since then (until last July anyhow), so the premise of Waiter Rant and all that it entailed was appealing to me. Sharing experience stories with people who've been there and who know what it's like to be on the receiving end of someone else's bad day with a smile plastered on your face is only one of the aspects that appealed to me about the book. But I'd also heard that it was funny, and I love funny. And then there's the added bonus of maybe people on the other side of life seeing a bit of perspective in the "people in the service industry are people not slaves" variety...
Anyway, when I saw that the author of Waiter Rant had a new book coming out, I requested a review copy. I worked in the service industry, as I mentioned, since I was about 16, but only the 3 month waitressing segment involved tipping. Still I considered myself to be a good tipper anyway... Until now. I've learned quite a lot from this book, and find that my tipping habits don't quite make the grade except in the case of restaurant gratuities. In almost every other category, I'm abysmally ignorant of correct tipping etiquette.
My tipping habits:
- I tip 20% of the total whenever we go out to a restaurant. (Grade: A)
{Industry standard is 15% of the bill, including drinks.}
- I tip $1 a drink at bars. (Grade: C)
{Should be approx. 20% of the bill. I do not give myself a lower grade here because drink prices are pretty reasonable in my area: $2-4/beer/shot or $7-9/mixed drink.}
- I did not know to tip the doorman at hotels. (Grade: F)
{Shame!!}
- I tip cabdrivers, but generally far below average. (Grade: D)
{Should be around 20% of the fare. But in my defense, I don't use cabs often!}
- I didn't know to tip car mechanics or detailers. (Grade: F)
{Should be $20-50 or so, depending on the work.}
... This is getting ugly, so I'm going to stop now.
If an A grade is 5 points, B is 4 points, C is 3 points, D is 1 point and F is 0, my average would be... 1.8 - D minus. Ouch.
So, needless to say, I feel like I've learned something from Steve here. I feel like I've been something of a tipping stiff in my life... and this despite the fact that I've worked for tips in my life and know how hard they are to come by and live on. But, the good thing is that Steve has given me the means to mend my ways, and I intend to follow them. I kind of feel like keeping this book with me at all times, kind of like a Tipping Bible, to be used in times of need (when stepping out of a cab, or into a hotel, etc) and containing words to live my life by.
That might seem a little extreme, but honestly I don't think so. Steve represents the facts of the working-for-tips way of life, and they aren't pretty. I knew that wait staff is usually underpaid, which is why I tip 20% rather than 15%, but I had no idea that was the case with so many other service jobs. It makes me rather ashamed of myself for not realizing this was the case, and corporate America for allowing and encouraging this kind of workforce exploitation. Steve presents the situation as he sees it, and in often brutally honest, no-holds-barred way, but still with an edge of wit and humor that makes the message a little easier to swallow. It still packs a wallop, at least for me it did, but it's a necessary evil to learn these things. Ignorance is bliss... for the ignorant. For the person on the other end, another's ignorance isn't going to put food on the table or a roof over their family's heads.
I found this book to be very informative and entertaining while still providing me with information I might never have learned on my own. I appreciate that. And not only did it serve both of these purposes, but Steve seems to also something of a philosopher and has an ability to understand human nature. Probably this is from so much time working with people, but it's refreshing to see a book about human nature that's not pretentious and not full of drivel. It's refreshing to see a book which doesn't feel like its author is above the reader somehow. This is just a regular guy, trying to understand a prevalent issue. I liked that.
So I will definitely be going out this weekend and picking up Waiter Rant. I know it's a little backwards, but better late than never, right? I definitely recommend this book for anyone who is confused by tipping (as I was!)... And remember - when in doubt, ask. :)
Waiter Rant has been on my radar for a long time, but for some reason just never got around to picking it up. I waitressed for a period of about 3 months back when I was 16, and even from such a short amount of time, I had some crazy stories! I've worked directly with customers in a service industry in some way or another since then (until last July anyhow), so the premise of Waiter Rant and all that it entailed was appealing to me. Sharing experience stories with people who've been there and who know what it's like to be on the receiving end of someone else's bad day with a smile plastered on your face is only one of the aspects that appealed to me about the book. But I'd also heard that it was funny, and I love funny. And then there's the added bonus of maybe people on the other side of life seeing a bit of perspective in the "people in the service industry are people not slaves" variety...
Anyway, when I saw that the author of Waiter Rant had a new book coming out, I requested a review copy. I worked in the service industry, as I mentioned, since I was about 16, but only the 3 month waitressing segment involved tipping. Still I considered myself to be a good tipper anyway... Until now. I've learned quite a lot from this book, and find that my tipping habits don't quite make the grade except in the case of restaurant gratuities. In almost every other category, I'm abysmally ignorant of correct tipping etiquette.
My tipping habits:
- I tip 20% of the total whenever we go out to a restaurant. (Grade: A)
{Industry standard is 15% of the bill, including drinks.}
- I tip $1 a drink at bars. (Grade: C)
{Should be approx. 20% of the bill. I do not give myself a lower grade here because drink prices are pretty reasonable in my area: $2-4/beer/shot or $7-9/mixed drink.}
- I did not know to tip the doorman at hotels. (Grade: F)
{Shame!!}
- I tip cabdrivers, but generally far below average. (Grade: D)
{Should be around 20% of the fare. But in my defense, I don't use cabs often!}
- I didn't know to tip car mechanics or detailers. (Grade: F)
{Should be $20-50 or so, depending on the work.}
... This is getting ugly, so I'm going to stop now.
If an A grade is 5 points, B is 4 points, C is 3 points, D is 1 point and F is 0, my average would be... 1.8 - D minus. Ouch.
So, needless to say, I feel like I've learned something from Steve here. I feel like I've been something of a tipping stiff in my life... and this despite the fact that I've worked for tips in my life and know how hard they are to come by and live on. But, the good thing is that Steve has given me the means to mend my ways, and I intend to follow them. I kind of feel like keeping this book with me at all times, kind of like a Tipping Bible, to be used in times of need (when stepping out of a cab, or into a hotel, etc) and containing words to live my life by.
That might seem a little extreme, but honestly I don't think so. Steve represents the facts of the working-for-tips way of life, and they aren't pretty. I knew that wait staff is usually underpaid, which is why I tip 20% rather than 15%, but I had no idea that was the case with so many other service jobs. It makes me rather ashamed of myself for not realizing this was the case, and corporate America for allowing and encouraging this kind of workforce exploitation. Steve presents the situation as he sees it, and in often brutally honest, no-holds-barred way, but still with an edge of wit and humor that makes the message a little easier to swallow. It still packs a wallop, at least for me it did, but it's a necessary evil to learn these things. Ignorance is bliss... for the ignorant. For the person on the other end, another's ignorance isn't going to put food on the table or a roof over their family's heads.
I found this book to be very informative and entertaining while still providing me with information I might never have learned on my own. I appreciate that. And not only did it serve both of these purposes, but Steve seems to also something of a philosopher and has an ability to understand human nature. Probably this is from so much time working with people, but it's refreshing to see a book about human nature that's not pretentious and not full of drivel. It's refreshing to see a book which doesn't feel like its author is above the reader somehow. This is just a regular guy, trying to understand a prevalent issue. I liked that.
So I will definitely be going out this weekend and picking up Waiter Rant. I know it's a little backwards, but better late than never, right? I definitely recommend this book for anyone who is confused by tipping (as I was!)... And remember - when in doubt, ask. :)
November 23, 2010
Ever feel clueless about tipping? Who gets a tip and who doesn’t? How much should you leave? Lately it seems like tip jars are popping up everywhere, creating tipping anxiety for a large number of Americans. I include myself in that group. I know to give my hair stylist, waiter, tax driver and bartender a tip, but what about the barrista or the fast food worker? How about the guy at the car wash, or my auto mechanic? And how much do I give the delivery person? What do I do about the holidays? Whew.
Steve Dublanica has made a book about tipping interesting and entertaining. He traveled the county doing research observing, interviewing and even working with people in a multitude of industries where tipping is a significant part of the worker’s income. Written in a humorous, witty and engaging style, it’s as if he was chatting with me, telling me stories and at the same time explaining the ins and out of tipping.
He begins with a brief history and explains, for better or for worse, how it became such a large part of the American economy. He goes on to interview a wide assortment of workers including waiters, bartenders, hair stylists, spa workers, doormen, valets and casino dealers. Want to know who’s cheap and who’s generous? They will tell you. The valet doesn’t want to see the Lexus pull up, they tend to give bad tips, but the guys driving big trucks give big tips. Do you tip your auto mechanic? It might be a good idea to do so. A little money spent now will get your car in and out of the shop faster the next time it breaks down. There are different types of tipping as the book will explain. There are tips as rewards, tips as a gift and those to ensure better service.
There is a lot to learn from this book. Some of the suggestions I was already practicing. I don’t like to use valet parking because I’m fussy about my car. When I do use the valet I tend to tip up front so my car gets a safe parking space and not double parked somewhere. And you don’t even want to know what one valet did to a habitual cheapskate. I didn’t know to tip the pet groomer and while I tip delivery people such as the pizza guy I didn’t know to tip the furniture delivery men. The few times I’ve played blackjack I didn’t realize I should tip the dealer. Maybe that’s why I got separated from my money so quickly. There is also an entire chapter on tipping in strip clubs, phone sex workers and prostitutes. Interesting, but not something I’ll ever use!
The author is a former waiter and it shows in the way he presents the information. There is a darker side to the industries that make their workers earn their pay through tips and he does an excellent job of exposing that. Many of these people are paid so little by their employer that on a bad day when tips are scarce they will make less than minimum wage per hour.
Keep The Change is more than just a guide to tipping although it is very useful in that regard alone. It’s also a commentary on the tipping system in the US and why tipping won’t be going away any time soon. Once you understand how employees dependent on tips for their income are compensated or, in some cases not, by their employer you realize that the tip is their income and part of the cost of the service. In the end, if you can’t afford the tip you can’t afford the service.
I recommend this book for a good inside look at tipping in the service industry told by people who have experienced the work. Plus, it’s an enjoyable and entertaining read.
Steve Dublanica has made a book about tipping interesting and entertaining. He traveled the county doing research observing, interviewing and even working with people in a multitude of industries where tipping is a significant part of the worker’s income. Written in a humorous, witty and engaging style, it’s as if he was chatting with me, telling me stories and at the same time explaining the ins and out of tipping.
He begins with a brief history and explains, for better or for worse, how it became such a large part of the American economy. He goes on to interview a wide assortment of workers including waiters, bartenders, hair stylists, spa workers, doormen, valets and casino dealers. Want to know who’s cheap and who’s generous? They will tell you. The valet doesn’t want to see the Lexus pull up, they tend to give bad tips, but the guys driving big trucks give big tips. Do you tip your auto mechanic? It might be a good idea to do so. A little money spent now will get your car in and out of the shop faster the next time it breaks down. There are different types of tipping as the book will explain. There are tips as rewards, tips as a gift and those to ensure better service.
There is a lot to learn from this book. Some of the suggestions I was already practicing. I don’t like to use valet parking because I’m fussy about my car. When I do use the valet I tend to tip up front so my car gets a safe parking space and not double parked somewhere. And you don’t even want to know what one valet did to a habitual cheapskate. I didn’t know to tip the pet groomer and while I tip delivery people such as the pizza guy I didn’t know to tip the furniture delivery men. The few times I’ve played blackjack I didn’t realize I should tip the dealer. Maybe that’s why I got separated from my money so quickly. There is also an entire chapter on tipping in strip clubs, phone sex workers and prostitutes. Interesting, but not something I’ll ever use!
The author is a former waiter and it shows in the way he presents the information. There is a darker side to the industries that make their workers earn their pay through tips and he does an excellent job of exposing that. Many of these people are paid so little by their employer that on a bad day when tips are scarce they will make less than minimum wage per hour.
Keep The Change is more than just a guide to tipping although it is very useful in that regard alone. It’s also a commentary on the tipping system in the US and why tipping won’t be going away any time soon. Once you understand how employees dependent on tips for their income are compensated or, in some cases not, by their employer you realize that the tip is their income and part of the cost of the service. In the end, if you can’t afford the tip you can’t afford the service.
I recommend this book for a good inside look at tipping in the service industry told by people who have experienced the work. Plus, it’s an enjoyable and entertaining read.
October 20, 2011
Don’t you love it when you learn something and are vastly entertained at the same time? I certainly do, and Steve Dublanica’s latest – Keep the Change – is my new favorite exemplar of this. The book, a follow-up to his 2008 hit “Waiter Rant”, is a fascinating exploration of the service industry and tipping. Read it – you’ll love it and I guarantee you will never look at a waiter, taxi driver, valet, or any other service worker the same way again.
A review copy of the book was provided free of charge by LuxuryReading.com. The original (shorter version) post of this book review was made available through LuxuryReading.
The book opens with a trip to Vegas to learn about the proper etiquette for tipping a lap dancer – and it only gets better from there… And just to cover this right up front, he does it in an entirely non- skeevy way, even though much of the tipping does border on – if not downright enter – some potentially skeeve-worthy territory. Because yes, his exploration of “personal services” tipping includes how to compensate strippers, prostitutes, dominatrixes (or is it dominatrices? who really knows?), and phone sex operators for their time, as well as the more conventional waiters, bellhops, concierges, and cab drivers.
I’ve never waited tables or relied on tips for my survival – and boy oh boy am I glad. The history of tipping is oddly fascinating, as is the compensatory schemata for all the various service-providing professionals covered in the book. In fact, the information on how all these different jobs pay (or more accurately fail to pay) their practitioners is almost more interesting than the information on how we, the consuming public, are supposed to tip them. I was quite surprised to learn how many ridiculous ways employers screw service personnel out of minimum wage (and sometimes even out of the tips they actually manage to earn) – and once I had read through them all, I found myself a lot more sympathetic as far as tipping is concerned…
The take-home message that Dublanica delivers at the very end is a sparkling little bit of insight that – in the way of all the best sparkling little bits of insight – seems extremely simple and obvious yet contains layers of wisdom: tipping is all about relationships. Relationships between people. Relationships between people who each need something – one needs a service, the other needs to earn a living. And with this realization, comes a way of re-humanizing a lot of jobs that have been dehumanized for far too long. Pretty cool, huh? I thought so too…
Dublanica’s writing style is conversational and extremely engaging. He pulls you right along with him on his tip-exploring adventures, and I dare you to not find him to be a fun companion. And if that wasn’t reason enough to read the book, there are also sections within a number of the chapters that tell you in explicit detail how to handle tipping in certain situations – with specified dollar amounts for appropriate tips that come straight from the workhorses mouths. Add in appendices on holiday and wedding tipping and an interesting review of the literature on the correlation (or lack thereof – you be the judge) between tipping and race, and you have both a great read and a useful reference book.
Pick this one up – I promise it’s worth it. So worth it that I’m now hunting down “Waiter Rant” and eagerly waiting to see where Dublanica will go next…
A review copy of the book was provided free of charge by LuxuryReading.com. The original (shorter version) post of this book review was made available through LuxuryReading.
The book opens with a trip to Vegas to learn about the proper etiquette for tipping a lap dancer – and it only gets better from there… And just to cover this right up front, he does it in an entirely non- skeevy way, even though much of the tipping does border on – if not downright enter – some potentially skeeve-worthy territory. Because yes, his exploration of “personal services” tipping includes how to compensate strippers, prostitutes, dominatrixes (or is it dominatrices? who really knows?), and phone sex operators for their time, as well as the more conventional waiters, bellhops, concierges, and cab drivers.
I’ve never waited tables or relied on tips for my survival – and boy oh boy am I glad. The history of tipping is oddly fascinating, as is the compensatory schemata for all the various service-providing professionals covered in the book. In fact, the information on how all these different jobs pay (or more accurately fail to pay) their practitioners is almost more interesting than the information on how we, the consuming public, are supposed to tip them. I was quite surprised to learn how many ridiculous ways employers screw service personnel out of minimum wage (and sometimes even out of the tips they actually manage to earn) – and once I had read through them all, I found myself a lot more sympathetic as far as tipping is concerned…
The take-home message that Dublanica delivers at the very end is a sparkling little bit of insight that – in the way of all the best sparkling little bits of insight – seems extremely simple and obvious yet contains layers of wisdom: tipping is all about relationships. Relationships between people. Relationships between people who each need something – one needs a service, the other needs to earn a living. And with this realization, comes a way of re-humanizing a lot of jobs that have been dehumanized for far too long. Pretty cool, huh? I thought so too…
Dublanica’s writing style is conversational and extremely engaging. He pulls you right along with him on his tip-exploring adventures, and I dare you to not find him to be a fun companion. And if that wasn’t reason enough to read the book, there are also sections within a number of the chapters that tell you in explicit detail how to handle tipping in certain situations – with specified dollar amounts for appropriate tips that come straight from the workhorses mouths. Add in appendices on holiday and wedding tipping and an interesting review of the literature on the correlation (or lack thereof – you be the judge) between tipping and race, and you have both a great read and a useful reference book.
Pick this one up – I promise it’s worth it. So worth it that I’m now hunting down “Waiter Rant” and eagerly waiting to see where Dublanica will go next…
January 10, 2011
Tipping. It's so confusing and this book aims to shed some light into the mystery.
The book skips restaurants because that was served in an earlier book of his. Instead we jump into shoe-shiners, bathroom attendants, people who man (or should I the gender neutral word "human" as a verb?) the door, and taxi cab drivers. Steve even dives into the world of "escort services", gentleman clubs and even an S&M dungeon. So, if you ever wondered how much to tip at your local S&M club, you can ask me. :)
Mainly, Steve gives a human face to people we avoid or just refuse to see. The book is less breezy than I imagined. Like other reviewers mention, there's a lot of social commentary here. And he points out a lot on the shady world of kickbacks. Next time at Vegas, I have an idea how to EARN money just by jumping into a cab. But as they say, what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.
Actually, a rule of thumb ... tip 20% on anything. For Xmas tips, just tip the cost of a normal business transaction. Or if you want to boil it down even more, just treat people, all people, with respect.
And next time, instead of just pretending he doesn't exist, I'll tip the bathroom attendant.
August 27, 2013
If you ever wanted to know who to tip and how much to tip them, this book is for you. The author goes through practically every industry where tips are commonplace and breaks it down on what exactly the worker does, how their hourly wage is less so that tips are considered into their total earnings, and how much to tip them.
He interviews workers and finds out what amount of a tip they expect for a service rendered, such as what is a good tip vs. a bad tip. He gets the inside scoop about the type of people that tip well vs those that do not tip at all; and what these workers do to insure you get better service if you do tip well. Parking lot attendants and car washers for instance, you'll get your car faster and cleaner respectively.
He travels with cabbies and furniture delivery men. He talks to strippers, waiters, bathroom attendants, door men, shoe shiners, barristas, bartenders, and hair dressers. He gets to the bottom of the dos and don'ts in the world of tipping.
Very informative with a touch of humor.
He interviews workers and finds out what amount of a tip they expect for a service rendered, such as what is a good tip vs. a bad tip. He gets the inside scoop about the type of people that tip well vs those that do not tip at all; and what these workers do to insure you get better service if you do tip well. Parking lot attendants and car washers for instance, you'll get your car faster and cleaner respectively.
He travels with cabbies and furniture delivery men. He talks to strippers, waiters, bathroom attendants, door men, shoe shiners, barristas, bartenders, and hair dressers. He gets to the bottom of the dos and don'ts in the world of tipping.
Very informative with a touch of humor.
February 15, 2018
I picked up this book after much angst over holiday tipping. Let’s get the straight scoop, or so I thought. This book is written like an extended blog, full of tidbits and interesting anecdotes. But then the complete overview of tipping in the sex industry began...really didn’t want to go there. There are some interesting interviews, and yes, a lot of workers depend on tips to survive. Who knew Starbucks can’t call their tip jar a tip jar? Or that running a bar tab leads to better tips for the bartender? Or that if you are a card dealer you get better tips at the poker table than at the blackjack table? Or that there are well-known profiles to the worst tippers? All of these discoveries are little gems, but still not enough to generate a long-form narrative standout.
April 14, 2018
I bought this book on sale, and I'm pretty sure I overpaid. The author is obnoxious, self-involved, homophobic, and obsessed with sex workers. He spent a whole section on salon treatments making gross "no homo" style comments and commenting selfconsciously about how brave he was for getting a damn facial. He also managed to work the word fag in multiple times by worrying an allegedly overheard conversation... Yeah, I think he probably made that up. The book is boring and unfunny and this guy deserves an atomic wedgie.
March 22, 2011
I don't know if I learned everything I need to know about tipping from this book. I do know that a lot of people expect tips and a little more about the culture behind tipping, but I still don't know why we are expected to give tips in certain situations and not in others. The bottom line of this book seems to be--when in doubt--tip. Not very helpful.
May 15, 2014
Probably 3 and 1/2 stars. The concept was interesting and I learned a lot about who I haven't tipped and probably should. But it felt too focused on sex workers, as though the author wrote this whole book as an excuse to write off going to strip clubs, etc. but that might just be because those are industries I have no interest in. The writing was okay. Overall, not a bad book.
July 1, 2011
Parts were amusing, but the basic thesis is: Tip More. And Tip Almost Everyone. Given that it is written by an ex-waiter, that's probably not surprising.
February 26, 2025
The previous book by this guy was based on his experiences as a waiter and it was funny. This book however, is not in the least bit funny. In fact, it’s boring. That long rambling chapter on the history of tipping for instance; what was the purpose? Then the debates on who to tip, and when to tip and how much to tip. These are serious questions and some people feel tipping has gotten out of hand, but none of this is funny. I was hoping for more funny service industry stories. Instead I got a book of debates and lectures.
March 22, 2015
My husband and I are always arguing over how to tip our waiter. I have always felt my husband to be entirely too generous, while I am much more stingy. No, he was never in the service industry. I was. Still, I see the amount of tip as being conditional upon our quality of service. My husband lays out an even 20% to everyone.
I certainly came out of this book with a much different attitude about tipping. I am now likely to be MUCH more generous than I ever have been before (and less argumentative with my husband). Steve took us directly into the lives of the tippees and that perspective in itself changes things in my mind completely. When you realize that the person you are tipping relies on this little extra from each person to add up into a decent living wage, that additional $5 that doesn't mean so much to me, but for them - in bulk - means the car payment - rearranges the meaning of tips for me. I've also never considered how demeaning it would feel to get a crappy tip or NO tip. I've never thought about the maid service or the car wash attendent - aren't they just fulfilling jobs? Honestly, I'm not a mean person but I had no clue what an impact tips make for people in these low paying jobs. My eyes have been opened and I realize now how important it is to show appreciation to these folks. I'm still never going to tip the fast food worker...then again, when you really think about it...in an industry with such notoriously HORRENDOUS service, maybe that would change the world of fast food completely?? Huh.
I have always thought that the $4 pizza delivery charge we pay goes to the delivery guy to "ensure" their tip. Steve sets me straight on that one too. I have always figured that charge in when determining the tip I give the deliverer. Now I know better and feel terrible for having been such a crappy tipper in the past, substituting $4 from each of their tips!
I also learned a TON about other circumstances that require tipping that I was completely unaware of. Seriously, our tipping "world" almost REQUIRES that you read this book before becoming a service consumer. There's a lot to know. Luckily, my husband has always known and has always handled it without my even noticing. I'm reading the book, thinking about times we should have tipped - so I'm asking him - how much did you tip that valet when we went to lalala place, and are you tipping the car wash extra for my car (an suv)? How much are you tipping the bartender when we go out? We've never left $ for the maids at hotels have we? If it were up to me all this time, I'd probly have butt grease on my back seat, crinkly crumbly sheets and notoriously bad car wash/ travel experiences!
I certainly came out of this book with a much different attitude about tipping. I am now likely to be MUCH more generous than I ever have been before (and less argumentative with my husband). Steve took us directly into the lives of the tippees and that perspective in itself changes things in my mind completely. When you realize that the person you are tipping relies on this little extra from each person to add up into a decent living wage, that additional $5 that doesn't mean so much to me, but for them - in bulk - means the car payment - rearranges the meaning of tips for me. I've also never considered how demeaning it would feel to get a crappy tip or NO tip. I've never thought about the maid service or the car wash attendent - aren't they just fulfilling jobs? Honestly, I'm not a mean person but I had no clue what an impact tips make for people in these low paying jobs. My eyes have been opened and I realize now how important it is to show appreciation to these folks. I'm still never going to tip the fast food worker...then again, when you really think about it...in an industry with such notoriously HORRENDOUS service, maybe that would change the world of fast food completely?? Huh.
I have always thought that the $4 pizza delivery charge we pay goes to the delivery guy to "ensure" their tip. Steve sets me straight on that one too. I have always figured that charge in when determining the tip I give the deliverer. Now I know better and feel terrible for having been such a crappy tipper in the past, substituting $4 from each of their tips!
I also learned a TON about other circumstances that require tipping that I was completely unaware of. Seriously, our tipping "world" almost REQUIRES that you read this book before becoming a service consumer. There's a lot to know. Luckily, my husband has always known and has always handled it without my even noticing. I'm reading the book, thinking about times we should have tipped - so I'm asking him - how much did you tip that valet when we went to lalala place, and are you tipping the car wash extra for my car (an suv)? How much are you tipping the bartender when we go out? We've never left $ for the maids at hotels have we? If it were up to me all this time, I'd probly have butt grease on my back seat, crinkly crumbly sheets and notoriously bad car wash/ travel experiences!
June 17, 2011
I snapped up this book after being constantly confused about what to tip people on my business trips. I enjoyed most of his tipping tips and especially thought he did a good job portraying the many service workers he came across. However, I didn't entirely agree with all of his tipping advice. I felt a little like the fact that he was tipping on the publisher's dime made him more inclined to drop a lot more money and be a lot harsher at those who don't match his big spending. And I've been there done, that in terms of serving and barisita-ing (for the record, we didn't expect ANY tips at the coffee shop, even though we had a tip jar).
As for Dublanica himself, he was what really carried his first book, Waiter Rant: Thanks for the Tip-Confessions of a Cynical Waiter. However, I found that occasionally Dublanica detracted from this second book. I read this over the course of a couple weeks and found that my tolerance varied from day to day. Tipping, as he even says repeatedly, is a touchy subject and sometimes he didn't walk that delicate line very well. But, at the end of the book, I did feel a little wiser on what and when to tip.
I'd also recommend skipping the Prologue. While I didn't mind the Vegas chapter in itself, the stripper anecdote just gave a weird "ickiness" to the start of the book. Bleh, some editor or marketing department had a field day with that decision.
As for Dublanica himself, he was what really carried his first book, Waiter Rant: Thanks for the Tip-Confessions of a Cynical Waiter. However, I found that occasionally Dublanica detracted from this second book. I read this over the course of a couple weeks and found that my tolerance varied from day to day. Tipping, as he even says repeatedly, is a touchy subject and sometimes he didn't walk that delicate line very well. But, at the end of the book, I did feel a little wiser on what and when to tip.
I'd also recommend skipping the Prologue. While I didn't mind the Vegas chapter in itself, the stripper anecdote just gave a weird "ickiness" to the start of the book. Bleh, some editor or marketing department had a field day with that decision.
May 29, 2013
A pretty good read on various areas where people tip and where you might not think to tip. The author talks to a variety of people, some of whom you might expect: waiters, taxi drivers, doormen, etc. as well as some you might not, pet groomers, prostitutes and card dealers. Overall it was pretty fascinating to see who are good tippers, who are bad, and what people do to get tipped, since so many people working in these industries survive on tips.
I found it somewhat frustrating that the author tended to talk about his experiences quite a bit. That's fine if done well, but more often than not I'd skim over it. I could identify when he felt confused and naive, but he was trying to be too smart, as a reviewer said down further. Overall, though, it's a good read that definitely made me think. Some of the stories were quite sad, as a stripper discusses how she raped by her mother's husband at the age of 11 (it's not graphic though). An escort talks about how she felt empowered by taking on her work despite her advanced degree and her wide-range of interests (which perhaps helped her in her escorting).
For all those stories of people who felt they should short out a server, etc. because they are too poor to eat out, are too drunk to think straight, pay God, etc., should really read this book. People might not be so stingy if they knew how many livelihoods depending on how much you plunk down after the original amount is paid.
I found it somewhat frustrating that the author tended to talk about his experiences quite a bit. That's fine if done well, but more often than not I'd skim over it. I could identify when he felt confused and naive, but he was trying to be too smart, as a reviewer said down further. Overall, though, it's a good read that definitely made me think. Some of the stories were quite sad, as a stripper discusses how she raped by her mother's husband at the age of 11 (it's not graphic though). An escort talks about how she felt empowered by taking on her work despite her advanced degree and her wide-range of interests (which perhaps helped her in her escorting).
For all those stories of people who felt they should short out a server, etc. because they are too poor to eat out, are too drunk to think straight, pay God, etc., should really read this book. People might not be so stingy if they knew how many livelihoods depending on how much you plunk down after the original amount is paid.
March 4, 2016
nonfiction; the practice of leaving gratuities/tips. Basically: don't think of it as extra money you're paying; it's more than just rewarding good service. Leaving a decent tip is something we should think of part of doing business = helping people earn a living wage at the places that we'd like to continue using. Worth reading since this is something I admit I am bad at, though Steve does get typically rant-y sometimes (which can be hilarious but also somewhat jarring if you use audiobooks to help you get to sleep).
* leave hotel maids $2-5 daily for routine cleanings and $5-10 on checkout days.
* tip your mechanic $10 each time he helps you if you want to skip the line, or be prepared to leave your car there all day with everyone else (this is probably why the wait is always longer than they tell you it will be).
* tip your bartender for 15-20% of the drink price (at least a dollar, more for pricey drinks); think of it as the same service you'd get if you were sitting at a table. And don't forget to still tip them if it's an open bar party.
* give the valet parking attendant at least $2 when you drop off your car (and don't be rude to him/her) if you don't want to wait ages to retrieve the car later (or discover mysterious damage after you've left the lot). A larger tip ($10-20) will suit you better if you want to be able to leave at a moment's notice.
* leave hotel maids $2-5 daily for routine cleanings and $5-10 on checkout days.
* tip your mechanic $10 each time he helps you if you want to skip the line, or be prepared to leave your car there all day with everyone else (this is probably why the wait is always longer than they tell you it will be).
* tip your bartender for 15-20% of the drink price (at least a dollar, more for pricey drinks); think of it as the same service you'd get if you were sitting at a table. And don't forget to still tip them if it's an open bar party.
* give the valet parking attendant at least $2 when you drop off your car (and don't be rude to him/her) if you don't want to wait ages to retrieve the car later (or discover mysterious damage after you've left the lot). A larger tip ($10-20) will suit you better if you want to be able to leave at a moment's notice.
March 16, 2015
Tipping is part of American culture. This book provides an insightful view of people whose livelihood depends on the tips their customers provide. The author tackles this often contested and uncomfortable topic of who to tip, how much to tip, and how often to tip. The author took an interesting way to research for this book. He had interviewed tip-ees who work in Manhattan, New York, Florida, Oregon, and California. He adds his personal view through out.
The book starts out in a strip club, which sounded weird. I assume that he wanted to start with a shock effect for the reader / listener to get the attention. In the end, I have learned a lot about the lives of people who I don’t register often, such as shoe polisher, wash room attendant, cab drivers, hotel attendants, waiters, hair dressers. There is a lot of discussion on tipping sex workers and how to tip in Los Vegas. Both these aspects were not useful to me but was interesting nevertheless.
I applaud the author for putting himself in various predicaments to collect first person account on how tips affect those whose livelihood depends on it. A shout out to the reader of the audio book for a job well done.
This book is certainly an unique one. I enjoyed listening to it.
The book starts out in a strip club, which sounded weird. I assume that he wanted to start with a shock effect for the reader / listener to get the attention. In the end, I have learned a lot about the lives of people who I don’t register often, such as shoe polisher, wash room attendant, cab drivers, hotel attendants, waiters, hair dressers. There is a lot of discussion on tipping sex workers and how to tip in Los Vegas. Both these aspects were not useful to me but was interesting nevertheless.
I applaud the author for putting himself in various predicaments to collect first person account on how tips affect those whose livelihood depends on it. A shout out to the reader of the audio book for a job well done.
This book is certainly an unique one. I enjoyed listening to it.
December 6, 2013
The author of this book used to be a waiter and wrote Waiter Rant, which is an excellent book also. As a former waiter, he is expecting to be tip every single time.
Keep the Change can be a little outrages. I personally don't feel that I should tip for every single services, like the mailman, but I also think that tipping should be given when service is needed.
For instant, I was at a high end restaurant with my caregiver and the waiter offered to give my staff a break and offered to help me with my dinner. It might been a slow night for the waiter, but I felt like he had my best interest for me and wanted to give my staff a break.
We tipped him heavily because he went out of his way to accommodate my needs.
Really good book. I just learned when you tip at Starbucks, the workers gets taxed on the tips. At the end of the day, they collect the money from the tip jar and send the tips to corporate and they will add the tip in each employee paychecks and get taxed.
I also learned the kick back system, where everyone in the service pool, gets their share of the pie.
Awesome book and it is very entertaining.
Keep the Change can be a little outrages. I personally don't feel that I should tip for every single services, like the mailman, but I also think that tipping should be given when service is needed.
For instant, I was at a high end restaurant with my caregiver and the waiter offered to give my staff a break and offered to help me with my dinner. It might been a slow night for the waiter, but I felt like he had my best interest for me and wanted to give my staff a break.
We tipped him heavily because he went out of his way to accommodate my needs.
Really good book. I just learned when you tip at Starbucks, the workers gets taxed on the tips. At the end of the day, they collect the money from the tip jar and send the tips to corporate and they will add the tip in each employee paychecks and get taxed.
I also learned the kick back system, where everyone in the service pool, gets their share of the pie.
Awesome book and it is very entertaining.
June 30, 2015
I'm really glad that I finally picked this up and read it, because it was the very worthy and capable sequel that Waiter Rant deserved.
It starts out as a sort of dry and straightforward paper on the history and practice of tipping, but Dublanica slowly begins to insert his personal opinions, anecdotes, and theories surrounding the practice as the book goes on, making it feel a lot more personal and relatable. The adventures he goes on to learn more about tipping in various industries (in a wide array of industries, from sex workers to shoe-shiners) are often hilarious and still thought-provoking, and show that Dublanica was extremely thorough to get his information. In the end, while I felt Waiter Rant was more relatable (in no small part due to the fact that my family is in the restaurant business), Keep the Change is a great and informative story about the history of tipping, and a great guide towards proper tipping etiquette in basically any application you can think of.
It starts out as a sort of dry and straightforward paper on the history and practice of tipping, but Dublanica slowly begins to insert his personal opinions, anecdotes, and theories surrounding the practice as the book goes on, making it feel a lot more personal and relatable. The adventures he goes on to learn more about tipping in various industries (in a wide array of industries, from sex workers to shoe-shiners) are often hilarious and still thought-provoking, and show that Dublanica was extremely thorough to get his information. In the end, while I felt Waiter Rant was more relatable (in no small part due to the fact that my family is in the restaurant business), Keep the Change is a great and informative story about the history of tipping, and a great guide towards proper tipping etiquette in basically any application you can think of.
February 10, 2012
I read "Keep the Change," a follow up to Dublanca's first book "Waiter Rant" because I was very entertained the first time around. This work takes on a more investigative journalistic approach, which I found enjoyable and surprisingly informative. Discussing the economy of gratuity, Dublanca's quest to become a Tipping Guru took him to some of the seedier sides of our culture, exposing the both the necessity and etiquette of greasing the palms for those who provide services many often take for granted. As a laymen who has never worked in the service industry, I found how much tipped employees not only rely on their gratuities, and was immediately wracked with some guilt for slights dues to my ignorance. Dublanca's exploration of the history of tipping and the importance it plays in society really opened my eyes to this often overlooked aspect of our culture and I feel more informed and better prepared next time I am in line at Starbucks or handing my keys over to the valet!
January 28, 2023
This is the second book by this author who is a former restaurant waiter. This book is better written than his first and reads more fluidly. For this book Dublanica traveled around the country researching each and every profession where tipping is considered the norm and presents stories about the people he intereviewed. I found it enjoyable and informative.
I did however, find myself challenging Dublanica's explanation of the etymology of the word "tip". I have believed for many years that the word Tip was an acronym for "To Insure Promptness". Dublanica doesn't give any references as to his explanation but does declare that the word isn't an acronym. I would like to see the sources he used to come to this conclusion. Unfortunately he doesn't cite them.
But aside from the etymology of the word, I enjoyed Dublanica's description of the various industries that rely on tips. His coverage is quite thorough.
I did however, find myself challenging Dublanica's explanation of the etymology of the word "tip". I have believed for many years that the word Tip was an acronym for "To Insure Promptness". Dublanica doesn't give any references as to his explanation but does declare that the word isn't an acronym. I would like to see the sources he used to come to this conclusion. Unfortunately he doesn't cite them.
But aside from the etymology of the word, I enjoyed Dublanica's description of the various industries that rely on tips. His coverage is quite thorough.
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