People who work for tips defend the practice, because the people who make it their profession have learned how to work the system. People who aren't good at it have been weeded out. So it's hard to say if it's really good or bad.
I've decided that it's a peculiar form of North American efficiency: part of management and monitoring the service worker has been delegated to the client. If someone's working for tips, less supervision is needed to ensure they are providing great service. As long as everyone obeys the cultural norms, it's a win for the owner, customer, and service worker. For those who don't obey the cultural norms, well, at least the service worker has a base salary.
This explains why it's more normal to tip a waiter, but not so for a fast food restaurant. In fast food, the workers are staying put behind a counter, and the manager is just a few steps away anyway. The more mechanical your job is, the less sense tipping makes. Maybe this is crazy (and if you're a service worker feel free to say I'm stupid), but perhaps we should look at tippable jobs as being good, because it proves that the worker also has some autonomy and has to be acknowledged by the customer as more than a serving unit.
I've decided that it's a peculiar form of North American efficiency: part of management and monitoring the service worker has been delegated to the client. If someone's working for tips, less supervision is needed to ensure they are providing great service. As long as everyone obeys the cultural norms, it's a win for the owner, customer, and service worker. For those who don't obey the cultural norms, well, at least the service worker has a base salary.
This explains why it's more normal to tip a waiter, but not so for a fast food restaurant. In fast food, the workers are staying put behind a counter, and the manager is just a few steps away anyway. The more mechanical your job is, the less sense tipping makes. Maybe this is crazy (and if you're a service worker feel free to say I'm stupid), but perhaps we should look at tippable jobs as being good, because it proves that the worker also has some autonomy and has to be acknowledged by the customer as more than a serving unit.