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How to Quit Being a Bad Tipper
A guide to navigating the sometimes-confusing rules of tipping, including when to do it and how much to give
I’m not proud to say that I’ve never been great at tipping.
I’m not stingy, exactly; I do fine in situations where tipping is baked into the payment process, like signing a restaurant bill or adding gratuity to a delivery order I place on my phone. But put me in one of the less obvious scenarios — a furniture delivery person, a plumber, a hotel concierge, the person ringing up a takeout order — and more often than not, I’ll be covertly typing “tipping etiquette” into my phone with one hand while fumbling around for cash with the other.
It turns out I’m not alone in my confusion. “I think it’s always been complicated for people,” says consumer-behavior researcher Michael McCall, a professor of hospitality business at Michigan State University who studies tipping.
In one-off or irregular situations, there are so many unknowns: who to tip, when to tip, how much to give, how to get the money from you to the other person. And while few of us will ever be so suave as to cooly palm off a crisp bill in a handshake, we can all follow a few strategies that will make us better equipped to know when and how…
