Tipping a really confusing custom as someone who comes from a country where tipping isn’t required. I figure this is because in New Zealand, our minimum wage equates to, or at the very least is supposed to be something of a ‘living wage’.

Whilst tipping is largely viewed worldwide as an American practice, the history of tipping can be traced back to a practice adapted from Europeans, whose own history of tipping goes back to at least Tudor England, when overnight guests would leave a small gratuity (or vails) for the house servants.

I did some research into the average hourly wage of someone in the service industry in the US, and was horrified to learn that some wait staff can earn as little as $2.50 per hour. In order to make anywhere near enough money to survive, pay rent, utilities, transport costs and just general expenses associated to existing, a waitress/waiter would need to bus at least 4 tables an hour, expecting to receive at the very least $5 USD per table, giving them an hourly rate of $22.50.

If you truly think about the patronage in a restaurant, dinner service during the week is likely to be between the hours of 7pm-9pm. If a waiter begins work at 5pm, it’s likely that during the quieter hours in the lead up to dinner service, they’ll be lucky to earn $2 in tips.

Google will tell you that the median tip rate in the US is $13/hr, which bumps the average full time wait staffer to $42,120 a year based on a 40 hour week. Still, I consider that a lean income. If you perform a quick analysis based on this income, you’d have $23,065 net to work with. And in reality, when you add dependents, insurance, medical expenses into the mix – it’d be tough to make ends meet.

It also makes me super uncomfortable that the culture of tipping places so much power in the hands of the customer. Again, as I’ve said before in this blog, I don’t believe that people are inherently bad; but if you go searching on the internet for stories of badly behaved patrons, waitresses being sexually harassed or inappropriately propositioned – you’ll find them. I feel in these scenarios, there isn’t a lot that a server can do to defend themselves if they want to be tipped at the end of the ordeal.

So, I want to make sure I tip handsomely where I can. In New Zealand, if I receive exceptional service, I will tip a lot. I once overheard my waitress in our local cafe talking to her colleague about how she was stressed out about how she was going to pay her rent after forking out a huge sum of money for textbooks during her last year of university, so palmed a lazy $50 note into her hand when she came to collect my discarded dishes at the end of the meal. Could I have used that money? Sure. Did it hugely inconvenience me to ‘lose’ the money? No.

Did it make a difference to that young lady? Well, I hope so. I think it’s so important to be kind to others who’re less fortunate, so the idea of tipping incorrectly and as a result causing upset or offence causes me hypertension.

I’m huge on the idea of communities behaving like tribes. If we all work together to support each other, we can all achieve and be successful. I’ve been trying to teach my 11 year old son about being kind and taking care of our wider community, those people that fall outside of our immediate family and friends.

Recently I became acquainted with a wonderful Auckland based filmmaker named Rachel, who runs a Facebook group called ‘Mums Mince’.

Three years ago, Rachel cooked a big pot of her mother’s famous savoury mince and dropped it off at the Auckland City Mission to help feed the homeless.

She made huge efforts to do this once a month, but as a solo working parent found it difficult to keep up with the demand. After putting a call out for support on Facebook to her friends, she began Mums Mince which has grown into a 1,500 strong group of strong, community driven women who inspire each other to help feed those in our city who are a little down on their luck, a little less fortunate and just in need of a hearty meal.

Because we are away from home for an entire month, I contacted Rachel and volunteered to do 2 consecutive Saturdays in February.

My son Ethan and I pored over boiling pots of salted water for several hours last Saturday afternoon, cooking 5kg of pasta in our tiny, not made for cooking in large quantities kitchen. My weekends have been jammed with work, events and birthday celebrations to the point where I feel like for the last 3 weeks adrenaline and coffee has kept me speeding through it all. After picking a tonne of spinach out of my wee vege patch, we mixed up 5 large trays of pasta, packed them into a laundry basket and delivered them to the Missions’ drop in centre in plenty of time for the evening meal at 5pm.

I watched Ethan tentatively as he manoeuvred through the queues that had started to form at the Mission, scores of people waiting for their opportunity to sit and break bread with friends and other strangers for the evening.

I could see a barrage of emotions swim across his face as he walked through the Missions’ doors, and as much as I had tried to prepare Ethan for some of the things he would see, it became clear that the reality of homelessness in our community began to hit him like a tonne of bricks.

We didn’t make much of a fuss, walking into the kitchen area and placing our donations on the benches for volunteers to retrieve; as we left, there was a cacophony of very grateful ‘thank yous’ echoing through the dining hall, out into the street where we’d parked in a loading zone.

My son asked a lot of questions on the way home, about why certain things in the centre appeared the way they did, why people there looked a certain dishelved way; I met his curiosity with measured answers, imploring him to tell me why he thought these types of small acts of kindness were important in a city and even moreso a society, where the idea of community has become less and less important.

I intend to carry on this work with Rachel and beyond when I get back from the US and have even been lucky enough to connect with some wonderful people who are excited by the idea of mucking in to help.

On that note? Here’s some advice on when it’s appropriate and expected to add gratituity to your bill in the US and some indicators on what would be an appropriate and unmiserly tip!

Hawaii

Tipping is even more crucial in Hawaii, where the cost of living is higher than the average US state. Because of this, Hawaii has joined a growing number of areas that will add an immediate 18% tip and include this in your bill, however I’ve included some suggestions below on what to tip:

• Maid service/Housekeeping – A friend told me recently while vacationing in NY that she would leave a $3 USD tip per day for her maid, which resulted in housekeepers fighting over who was going to turn over her room! As a general rule, $1-2 USD (leave on dresser) is appropriate, however the better you tip, the better service you can expect to get!
• Bellboy – $1-2 USD per bag
• Taxi – $1-2 USD or 15% of overall fare
• Wait Staff – 15-20% of overall pre-tax meal costs
• Bar Staff – 10-15% of overall cost of drink/order pre-tax or $1 per drink
• Tour Guide – As you depart from the tour, reward a good tour guide by tipping 10-20 percent of the cost of the tours’ ticket.
• Doorman – when he hails you a taxi, tip him $1-2 USD
• Hotel Concierge – It’s the concierge’s job to assist guests, so technically its not a requirement that you tip , but if you get great service, tipping anywhere between $5-20 is reasonable.

Los Angeles

California’s labour statute spells out exactly who cannot receive any tips: Neither the restaurant’s owners nor its agents are permitted to take tips. Agents of the owner include managers and supervisors; essentially, those who supervise other employees, or have the authority to hire or fire employees. Even if they wait on a table, or help deliver dishes, owners and their agents cannot receive any tips.

For wait staff, barbers, attendants and tour guides in California, your tip can be calculated as follows, based on a percentage of your total bill of service:

• 10% – not totally happy with the service given
• 15% – service was acceptable, not exceptional
• 20% – outstanding service.

In most communities, 15-20% gratuity of the overall bill(s) is an acceptable standard. This is highly subjective however and will vary from state to state.

Nebraska

When you receive tips as part of your compensation, an employees legal rights under wage and hour laws become a bit more complicated. The rules about what counts as a tip, how much the employer must pay you, and whether you have to contribute to a tip pool (among other things) all depend on the laws of the state.

The basic rule of tips, under federal law and state law, is that they belong to the employee, not the employer. Employers may not require employees to hand over their tips unless one of these exceptions applies:

Nebraskan State law allows the employer to take a tip credit. Nebraska’s minimum wage is currently $8 an hour (for 2015). Because the state minimum wage is higher than the federal minimum wage of $7.25, employers must pay employees $8 an hour; this means employers may pay tipped employees an hourly wage as low as $2.13 and may take a tip credit of up to $5.87, as long as the employee makes enough in tips to bring his or her wages up to $8 an hour. If not, the employer must make up the difference.

What I’ve learned so far about gratuity is that it could potentially mean the difference between a person being able to eat, get to work or even pay their rent check. And with the words of Rihanna’s grandmother ringing in my ears, I bid you good luck and ask you to be kind when tipping!

Charli x