There may not be anywhere in the world that the well-travelled Brit feels more like an innocent abroad than in a coffee shop on Sunset Boulevard in LA. It wasn’t the dizzying choice between a lavender breeze latte and a Tahitian vanilla latte, or the option of a 20-hour cold brew coffee. All I wanted, in fact, was a muffin.
The sales assistant put the muffin in a bag, handed it over with practised indifference, and then turned round the digital payment screen to face me. I was presented with three options. I could leave a tip of 18 per cent, 25 per cent or 30 per cent. What? Is this a joke? You want me to leave a gratuity for your outstanding service in putting a muffin in a paper bag? I haven’t even eaten it yet. This was the moment I realised that tipping culture in the US had, to borrow a famous Hollywood term, truly jumped the shark.
Yes, there is also a (much smaller) box which indicates “No Tip”, but who’s going to turn their penny-pinching nature into a public event? Such is the tyranny of tipping in America, where the entire economy of the labour market has been offloaded on to the personal guilt of the customer. It is the opposite of a social contract. We do not pay proper living wages to our staff, so we have left it to you to make up the difference.
