It’s surprisingly easy to upset someone by giving them money
Aged 10 and dawdling behind my family as we left a restaurant in north Wales, I noticed my father had dropped a pound note on the table. As we drove away to our holiday campsite I produced it with a flourish: “Daddy, look what you nearly forgot!” His reaction – a mix of annoyance, amusement and embarrassment – was a revelation: thus I learned about the custom of tipping long before I ever paid for my own food.
I thought of this on a trip to Spain last month, when a London-based Australian friend chided me for not leaving a better tip in a tiny backstreet bar in Cadiz. I was forced to fix her with my glittering eye, like the Ancient Mariner, and educate her in the ways of our host nation.
Within our own realm the rules are generally well understood in terms of who, and when, we tip (nothing for the checkout staff at Coles, say, or a bank clerk, or a dentist, no matter how painless the procedure); but head overseas and the game changes.
In the US, where an extraordinary system allows restaurateurs to pay a “sub-minimum” wage to serving staff on the assumption that their pay will be directly supplemented by customers, a tip of 15 to 20 per cent has become the norm; bartenders there expect a dollar for every drink they serve you, whether they listen to your tale of heartbreak or not.
At the other end of the scale are countries such as Japan, where the offer of a gratuity is insulting; or the Pacific nations, where a tip establishes an obligation on the recipient to return the favour, which, to their genuine distress, they never can, because you’re already back on your cruise ship to send more waves through island communities.
Somewhere in the middle lies Spain, a country I’ve spent a few happy years in, and where I seem to have more friends who operate bars than is normal (or perhaps decent). Spaniards might leave their change, a couple of coins, maybe more if they’re in a good mood or a proper restaurant, but there’s no general anticipation of a tip, nor resentment if one isn’t forthcoming.
The service industry is there, as in France or Italy, a respectable, reasonably-paid profession, not staffed by actors between jobs or writers between inspirations. And while my amigos behind the bar say tourism, particularly from America, is putting a hand on the tipping scales, many locals resist the erosion of their traditions.
I remember paying for a lunch with my colleague Rivero in my early days of working in Granada, a few decades ago. He glanced at the bill, took most of the tip I was about to leave and handed it back to me, tutting his disapproval.
I considered this a rather impertinent intervention, but he tempered his rudeness by explaining he was sparing me the shame of being seen as a “guiri”, the derogatory Spanish term for a foreigner who stands out as ignorant of local culture.
I was not entitled to rewrite the rules of Spanish dining by fostering unrealistic expectations, Rivero said: “You spoil things for the people who live here, and also for yourself.”
A final entertaining curiosity is that the quantum of tipping varies with the price of the dishes you’ve selected, not on the work involved in serving you.
While it might require slightly more attention to balance, I don’t believe it’s significantly harder to carry a half lobster piled with caviar to your table than to deliver a simple green salad, but the tip certainly thinks so.
Same goes for wine. A British solicitor friend recounts a Manhattan waiter’s attempted humiliation in front of some US attorneys who had successfully argued a commercial case for him in a New York courtroom.
He had taken the group to a fancy wine bar to share a quick bottle of celebratory champagne, a steal at $350. Presented with the bill, he peeled off seven $50 notes, then added an eighth.
“Does sir intend that as a gratuity?” the waiter inquired, one eyebrow arched.
“Why yes,” my friend said, feeling generous.
“I see,” said the waiter. “It’s just that a gentleman would leave 20 per cent.”
In a flash my friend snatched the top note off the pile, stuffed it into his pocket and stood up.
“Then I’m clearly no gentleman,” he smiled, and strode out of the bar.
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The concept of paying someone a little bit extra for doing their job is one of life’s oddities that has long intrigued me (I’ve had a lot of time on my hands over the years). But with this one I know precisely when my curiosity began.