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Tip Cups
When did this phenomenon begin? I suspect at Starbucks, the company that you are fully aware that I love and admire. But since its inception, a glass jar perched upon the service counter, has grown to an absurd level. At Starbucks I sorta get the gist. The coffee barista (that's the green capped bohemian cappuccino maker to you and me) whips up a lovely latte, espresso or a simple pour of joe to your liking. Excuse the fact that the sugar, milk and other cafe accouterments are left to your own devices. There is at least a familiarity to this process which is much like going to a bar, excusing the fact you won't have to traipse through the bartenders service tray to plop a maraschino cherry into your own Tom Collins. Naturally a tip is left for the barkeep, but I suggest that at Starbucks or your favorite coffee house, you shouldn't expect your barista to butter, nay, even slice your bagel. But for what little this service worker does to make that mocha frappaccino customized to your liking, even though each drink is made exactly the same method, a gratuity is requested with a prominently displayed cup by the cash register.
Now suddenly you see these quirkily dressed up tip cups on most every counter from doughnut shops, ice cream parlors, delis and even pizza joints. It seems that every food worker these days has their hand out for a little something extra. I mean really! Does the guy who grabs me four glazed, two sprinkled and a handful of munchkins expect extra earnings for that miraculous feat? If I slip him a folded greenback will he give me a little something extra too? Such as little cardboard dividers 'tween the frosted and the powdered so that my plains or cinnamon dusted don't get molested by a chocolate smear? No, I don't get that little luxury, what I get is a melange of tightly packed donuts that somehow all become the same flavor -- cornucopia. And for this I should put a buck into a plastic cup decorated with magic-marker inscribed appeals come Muscular Dystrophy Association with added kiddy cartoon thank you stickers? Ironically these tip cups seem to be replacing the charity donation jars that have been perched by the cash registers for years. I might feel better about this whole process if they donate their tips to the March of Dimes, but the only dimes involved here go into the pocket of a gal whose primary talent is to decipher small, medium and large styrofoam cups.
Frankly it makes me a little uncomfortable when I receive change back from my hoagie purchase and I don't drop it into the cup. Worse yet, have you ever got thirteen cents back from the Blimpie man after creating your turkey with shredded lettuce sandwich and been too embarrassed to leave such a petty amount of change? What's appropriate? My conclusion when I'm feeling generous about tipping the pepperoni placer at my local pizza establishment is -- anything but quarters. Whatever I've got in my hands and pockets, less the quarters, is left for them so that the pizza guy could keep the extra dough (pun intended) and NOT put his kids through college, (much like himself) so that Junior can get a job swirling custard next door at Carvel and make his fortune collecting voluminous thirteen cent tips. In the interim, I collect all the quarters that I have been saving by being a cheapskate, and use them under the legs of the off-balance table of which I am customarily seated at my favorite bistro to protect my meal from sliding onto the waiters shoes. This way the next time I come frequent this restaurant, perhaps I won't be seated at a rocky table. Thus the waiter won't have to scoop up his coin stacked tip from under the table leg which sits upon the unsightly crumbed floor where my children store their "extra" frech fries. Sometimes though, when the service is exceptional, like when the tartar sauce doesn't tip over in the basket and cover my kid's fish sticks in a gooey mess, I casually lean under the tipsy table and replace those twenty-five cent pieces with some folded up dollar bills. But I gotta wonder, as the waiter bends down and gathers his tip from under the table legs, if he wishes he never left his job at the Krispy Kreme where he just had to tip over his tip cup to collect his tips.