I was originally thinking about delivery (isn’t it basically the same effort to deliver 1 or 2 pizzas?). Shouldn’t delivery tipping be based on distance/effort rather than cost of food?
The same goes for restaurants, of course. If I go with a friend and we have the same meal but I have three glasses of wine, and she has three cokes, I am expected to tip more, but the server’s effort is the same for each of us.
Was it always like this or did it change with time?
Note: I’m only trying to understand this aspect of Us tipping culture. I know that tipping isn’t the norm everywhere.
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Tipping culture in America mainly emerged during the great depression. It’s a long and complicated story but the basic gist is that it started out as a quid pro quo arrangement between club/restaurant owners and wealthy patrons. The wealthy patrons could pretty much get exclusive service and do whatever the fuck they wanted and in exchange the business owners could get away with not really paying their staff. Of course at the time this was limited and still optional. But over time, and despite coming out of the depression, business owners liked the idea of not having to pay their staff a livable wage, and establishing a tipping system based on a percentage ensured that the staff would get a certain amount of money rather than relying solely on people’s good will and whims. At this point it’s more or less codified in the US to the point where even if you’re not legally obligated to tip, it’s frowned upon if you don’t.
Funnily enough that’s just a US thing. In other countries it’s very different, with the main tipping system that you’ll encounter being based on the quality of service and not adhering to a specific percentage. It’s more about whether you’ll tip or not rather than how much you’ll tip. There’s also countries where tipping is seen as disrespectful.
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