What’s the difference between a Canadian and a canoe? Gotta love that age-old quip aimed at poor Canadian tipping culture. Apparently the difference, and the punchline, is that a canoe tips.
I don’t take offense to that joke, but I never understood it either. Canadians have a pretty strong culture of tipping. More so than other countries I’ve lived.
After returning home from one of those countries in my late twenties, I started to read the local newspaper to get caught up on the local scene and noticed a regular column from a guy called The Contrarian. He intended to ruffle a few feathers each week and often succeeded. He ruffled mine when he wrote about tipping culture and suggested that we scrap the whole thing altogether.
I was working in the service industry at the time, and had been I relying on tips since I was a nineteen – it helped put me through school. So, with feathers fully ruffled, I wrote a response telling Mr Contrarian exactly what I thought of his idea. It was blunt and it got published a week later.
In it, I made it clear that tipping is crucial to the service industry. It’s the carrot that motivates people to do a good job – it motivated me go out of my way time and time again. I smiled and joked day in and day out. I hustled to make sure every table and person felt appreciated. I tried to make sure everyone’s dining experience was a good one. I didn’t always succeed and understood when I received no tip. I never expected a tip, and knew I had to work for it.
With hundreds of things that could go wrong on any given night , tips are the reward for having everything go right. I only made about $6.75/hour so I wouldn’t have done the job if not for gratuities. And it was good money for a university student – if you worked hard.
I lived in Australia for a year where tipping culture doesn’t exist, and I saw the level of service you got there. It was decent but it wasn’t a great. You had to do a lot yourself. It wasn’t the same feeling of being looked after and I didn’t want to see that kind of dining experience come to Canada.
So, I ardently defended the act of tipping, and still do to this day. I tip wherever I go. And today that means at the haircutters, coffee shops, sandwich shops, and fast food. I’ve noticed the tip option arriving on terminals in almost every transaction possible these days.
I have no problem tipping for a cup of coffee or a sandwich – not much difference between those and cracking a cap off a beer bottle like I used to as a bartender. It took very little time to serve someone a beer and I often got a dollar tip. So, my concern isn’t that.
But I do have a concern. And it’s this: I’m constantly asked to enter a tip before the service has been given. I’ve always viewed tipping as a reflection of the experience and judged when it’s over. If I’m tipping before the experience, how do I know it’s a fair reflection?
Case in point, my wife and I spent a weekend in Toronto and we love Mother’s Dumpling. It was too far from the hotel and we had a newborn, so we ordered it through one of the food delivery services. I’ve never used it before, and they asked for a tip ahead of time. We thought: sure, let’s give them a tip. But the food was over an hour late and cold when it arrived. The service of the delivery was poor.
The same has happened at a sandwich shop that asked for a tip right away, and then I waited for 15 minutes for the sandwich with no apology and a poor wrapping job. If someone had been waiting that long for their lunch when I served, I’d likely be stuck without a tip. I was never allowed to ask my tables for a tip ahead of time. It defeats the purpose.
And I do wonder where we draw the line – it seems to exist for almost every purchase we make now. Do I need to tip someone for handing me a cookie? A $3 transaction that takes a mere 10 seconds with a tip option for $1, $2, and $5. A massage therapist even had tip option on their machine at the end of the service. I’m not sure I want to start tipping my health care providers. It may become a slippery slope:“Thanks for the prescription Doc, here’s a ten-spot for doing it with a smile.”
I’ll always tip my barber, barista, server, bartender, Uber driver, hotel staff, and anyone else who has provided a service that makes my experience better. So maybe I should tip that cookie peddler after all, but only after they hand me the cookie with a smile and a recommendation for my next treat, or a cookie pun – something about ‘dough’ should work. Something that makes me walk out feeling better.
I always wanted my customers to walk out of the restaurant happier than when they walked in. That was the gauge for good service. And if I followed that mantra, I’d leave the restaurant with a little fatter of a wallet than when I walked in. Everyone wins.
So, next time you see someone ask for a tip before they offer the service, tell them politely that tipping just doesn’t work that way. But maybe just tip them anyway – they’re probably working hard.
And now that this article is over, if you want to tip me for my service in writing it, by all means, tip away! But only if you feel better after reading it.
Written by Jesse Wilkinson
