Columnist
Hell, Jean-Paul Sartre observed, is other people. Although I’m no philosopher, I would dare to suggest a slight amendment to his famous aphorism: Hell is waiting on other people.
I’m talking about customer service jobs. Like many Americans, I spent much of my striving youth at the mercy of my countrymen as they indulged their daily consumerist frenzies. I’ve stocked groceries for a major supermarket chain, operated rides at a famous theme park and sold home electronics for one of the nation’s largest retailers. For every kind customer, there seemed to be five cruel, crazy or sadistic ones. I once devoted at least an hour to a persnickety customer, detailing the virtues of my employer’s console televisions. She finally chose one, but then she refused to hand over her credit card unless I divulged the exact nature of my relationship with Jesus. At the end of long days like that one, I wanted nothing so much as to soak my feet and be left alone.
My stints in customer service convinced me that giving orders somehow just brings out the worst in people. It also gave me a great appreciation for those obliged to take those orders and respond promptly with a smile. One of the ways I’ve continued to show this appreciation is by tipping as generously as I can.
I don’t know if Sartre thought much about customer service, but I do know that he was French. France, I’ve learned, is not a place where tipping – at least in restaurants – is commonplace. Many dining establishments there include a service charge that makes tipping unnecessary.
Recently, Thomas Keller, one of the best-known chefs in the United States, announced that tips would no longer be accepted at Per Se, his restaurant in New York. Instead he will add a service charge. It’s not the first time Keller has taken a cue from the French. He made his rep with French-inspired cuisine at The French Laundry, his restaurant in Napa Valley, Calif.
He opened Per Se to widespread acclaim in the spring of 2004. It’s the kind of place where gentlemen are required to wear jackets. The chef’s tasting menu, which may feature such dishes as black sea bass stuffed with watercress and “bacon and eggs” made from braised pigs’ heads and poached quail eggs, runs about $175. If you intend to sample its delights, you’d better plan ahead: Reservations are taken up to two months in advance.
I’m more likely to choose a kid-friendly restaurant that hands out crayons along with its paper menus. I don’t know if policies like Keller’s will trickle down to the kinds of places I favor, but the possibility has launched a flurry of opinions on the internet and in print media. Some observers denounced the change and suggested tips are needed to motivate wait staff to work harder.
In one essay calling for the elimination of tipping, a chef took issue with that argument. He contended that service in pricier places seldom equals that found in McDonald’s, where tipping has never been allowed. I’ve rarely found that to be the case. In most McDonald’s I’ve visited in recent years, the shake machine is usually malfunctioning and the cashiers are smile-impaired. My wife and I have been inclined to wonder if tipping would help improve the quality of service at such places.
I don’t mean to suggest that all burger clerks are insolent or that the service at all restaurants is exemplary. Restaurant owners may have sound economic reasons for eliminating gratuities, but such changes are not likely to improve the speed with which busboys fill water glasses.
What’s more, the quality of customer service is declining everywhere, not just in restaurants. If I had a nickel for each time a checkout clerk did nothing but grunt as he swiped my purchases across a scanner, I’d be able to afford the tasting menu at Per Se.
The rise in rudeness stems more from a general deterioration of courtesy than lazy workers taking tips for granted. Tipping helps remind everyone – customers and clerks included – of our responsibility to be attentive to one another. That, of course, is just one of our duties as human beings.
“Man is condemned to be free,” Sartre said, “because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.” Or was that Ronald McDonald?