Just the tip

After the reason why my new neighbors think more fat means better bacon, the new guidelines on tipping are probably the most confusing aspect of my attempts at American acclimatization. As with most things English, tips are a modest affair. In restaurants, you tip 10% if the service is good, and less if it isn't. Maybe I was in the wrong (or right?) pubs, but I'm pretty sure tipping on drinks in a bar was not expected. In fact, I suspect that any English bartender that ever served me, if I had left an extra pound coin on the counter, would have eyed me suspiciously, for fear I was hitting on him, financially. Tipping on taxi rides was polite, but I don't think mandatory, as attested to by the profusely-expressed gratitude of any cabbie that was ever lucky enough to receive even a twenty pence tip from me. "Oh cor blimey guv'nor. Thank you so much sir. You shouldn't have. This'll keep me and the missus in cornish pasties for a fortnight 'n' all!".

American tips are to English tips as the Superbowl is to a Tuesday-night, rain-sodden Championship game -- probably between a northern town beginning with B (Bolton, Blackburn, Burnley, Blackpool, Bradford, Barnsley, etc.), and Coventry City. They are extravagant, ostentatious, verging on crass obscenity to an understated English eye, but epitomizing the very best of freedom, liberty, the capitalist ideal, and trickle-down economics to your average American patriot.

Fortunately for the waiters of San Francisco, my early ignorance-inspired tipping transgressions were spotted and stamped out after only a few months by a friend of mine, who gaped aghast at my signed check after a meal.
   -- "What?", I asked, concerned.
   -- "Your tip", she managed, between frantic breaths.
   -- "What about it?", I replied.
   -- "It's puny! Microscopic! An embarrassment!".
   -- "Well I've never heard it called any of those things before", I protested.
   -- "What would you suggest?".
   -- "15 to 20%", she replied, "but really you should always tip 20%".

As far as I have been able to establish, the only thing a waiter could possibly do to merit a tip less than 19.8% would be to punch you in the face. (Well that, or fail to bring you at least a million glasses of iced water before the conclusion of your appetizers).

Then there is the mathematics of the situation, which for me mires an already new and confusing problem in further complexity. This is like an onside kick in football. "Oh no, the kicker's muffed it. But wait, now they're all diving around on the ground fumbling the ball. And great! That guy is celebrating!". Just when you think you've got everything under control, they bamboozle you with one more nuance -- like "oh, you don't have to tip on the tax and the San Francisco Help Us To Provide Food and Shelter, Life Insurance And Subsidized Segway Parking For Our City's Waiters mandate". (By the way, I like how they cunningly disguised this tax in fancy nomenclature.
   -- "What's this new tax on my bill?".
   -- "Oh that's not a tax, sir. It's a mandate".
   -- "Oh a mandate! Great! I've never tried one of those before. It sounds novel and exciting!".
   -- "Yes sir, the electrically mobile of my colleagues are particularly thrilled about it".
Democrats should try this with tax naming to avert Republican ire. "Oh no, we don't want to increase the Death Tax, Grover. We want to abolish it altogether! And replace it with a new Inheritance Obfuscation"). It pains me to think of the dollars I wasted tipping 20% on taxes and mandates, before I learnt of this wonderful rule.

But even allowing for the "tip relief on the mandate" exemption, tipping is still very expensive in America. I mean, imagine you're out on a date with a girl you are trying to impress. You're punching above your weight in Yelp dollar signs, and so you parry her "lobster souffle" ($42) with the vegetarian pasta ($18), and gamble that she knows nothing about wine with a bold Charles Shaw Chardonnay ($29) selection. Plying her with as much bread as you can early on, you succeed in eliciting those four beautiful words when the dessert menu appears -- "actually, I'm quite stuffed". Result! Dangerously expensive restaurant, you say to yourself, but your mental arithmetic tells you that you escaped with a check of $89 -- not bad, considering the booby traps that lurked on the dessert trolley. But then the bill arrives, and your heart stops, as the true horror of American tipping conventions sets in. 7% taxes plus 4% obfuscations gets you to $99, and you haven't yet discovered the mysteries of the onside kick, so you feel compelled to tip 20% on the $99, not the $89, squandering another precious $2. Still trying to impress your date, you nonchalantly round up to $120, making sure to WRITE AS CONSPICUOUSLY AS POSSIBLE, TO BRING MAXIMAL ATTENTION TO YOUR LARGESSE. But $31 / $89 is a 35% increase in the signaled price. I wonder how many guys have had a surprisingly large bill foisted on them by exorbitantly expensive social conventions, had their credit cards declined due to "insufficient funds", taken out a payday loan on Wonga on their phone to avoid having to ask their date to pay, trapped themselves in a downward spiral of interest rates and debt, and eventually gone bankrupt. Perhaps the reason why the Danes are famed for their social safety net is that you are not expected to tip AT ALL in Denmark. I am pretty much moving to Copenhagen immediately. (And yes, in case you are wondering, this last anecdote very accurately describes my first date with my wife Ali. Without the payday loan ending. And unfortunately she did raise her eyebrows at the two buck chuck).

But while I have acquiesced to American tipping conventions in bars, restaurants and taxis, the last few days have made me realize that there is one last bastion of my English tipping that can never be breached -- even here in Hawaii, about as far away from England as you can get in America. That bastion is tipping in expensive hotels. We are staying in the St. Regis in Kauai right now -- not because we parted with any real money, but because we are finally running down the last SPG points that I amassed during six years of management consulting. And maybe that's part of the problem. If you're wealthy enough to put down $600 per night for an Ocean View King, an extra $118 per day in tips probably doesn't register. For me, that's an infinite percentage increase on my bill. Except, thanks to my tight-fistedness it's not.

The onslaught begins as soon as you roll your car up outside the front door. Your eyes cast frantically about for the "self parking" sign, but alas, you can't spy it. A charming valet seems to open all four doors, the boot and the bonnet, before you have even stopped. "Let me take those bags for you, sir" he insists, before we have a chance to grab them. The staff of the St. Regis are far too well-trained to linger too long, I am sure. But there is just a faint, barely-perceptible lingering, as the valet climbs into the car. Seriously (he wrote, defensively), I don't think I could have pulled out my wallet, fished around in the wad of receipts for a couple of dollar bills (or a five dollar bill?!), and slipped it into the valet's hand in the inconspicuous manner to which we English are accustomed, in the brief timespan of this particular linger. But nevertheless, I am now guilt-laden. And presumably, permanently marked by that valet as a non-tipper. Is there a non-tippers blacklist pinned up on the staff noticeboard, I must wonder. If so, I must surely be on the top of the leaderboard.

For after check-in (should I have tipped the receptionist?), we are ushered to our room by another charming man. Normally, obligatory room tours are painfully pointless. "This is the lightswitch, which can result in instant illumination of your room due to electricity. There is your fridge, which keeps things cold. Some guests like to sleep with two pillows; others prefer just one. Etc. Etc.". To be fair, this tour was actually really good. The bathroom window can be made to oscillate between transparent and opaque (a dangerous feature when you are showering next to the window); there are hooks for the sole purpose of hanging leis; and most importantly of all, the weird, wobbly thing in the middle of the writing desk at the foot of the bed turns out to be a TV that rises like a Harrier jumpjet when a button on the remote is pressed. Epic. I feel like James Bond (or at least a version of James Bond that is now inclined to spend most of his Hawaiian vacation watching ESPN in bed). But despite a truly magical room tour, I still cannot bring myself to tip this guy for accompanying us on our 40-second walk to our room. If we had had to navigate a series of hidden elevators to get there, or traversed a piranha-invested lake, then maybe. But our room was on the same floor as reception. No, my resolve was firm.

This time, the linger was longer.
   -- "Is there anything else, sir?", the charming man asks, unblinkingly.
   -- "No, I think we're good. Thanks for showing us the submerged TV".
   -- "You're welcome, sir. [A pause]. Do let me know if there's ever anything I can do to assist you".
   -- "We will, thank you".
The charming man coughs. (He didn't really, but in my head he did). Another pause as he stares me down.
   -- "OK well I'll be on my way then, sir".
   -- "Great. Thanks again!".

A few minutes later, our bags arrive. This one I have less qualms about. Because there were a few minutes between the departure of the charming man and the arrival of our bags, when we were literally doing nothing except waiting for our bags. And our bags have wheels. We just lugged them over from San Francisco to the door of our hotel. I think we could have made it the extra 40 yards to our room.

Soon after the bag carrier dejectedly trudges off to move my name a few notches further up the non-tip leaderboard, there is another knock on the door. It's the butler, naturally. The first female butler I have ever met. Not that I know too many butlers. I was a little surprised that this role existed, and my struggle to imagine what functions she could perform was justified as she outlined the possible services she could furnish us with. "Well I could book stuff for you". Isn't that the concierge's job, I thought. Is there a clandestine battle going on in the St. Regis between the butlers and the concierges for the tips made on restaurant reservations? "Or I could bring you a cup of tea or coffee". Seriously? That task makes your elevator pitch? And again, isn't that room service? Another battle. The butlers are clearly the Vladimir Putin of the St. Regis -- invading everyone else's territory until someone tells them to stop. "Or I could unpack for you". We're here for four nights. We're not moving house. What kind of people stay in this hotel? (Well us, I guess). After the butler finished reciting her incongruous litany of random tasks, she left. Was I supposed to tip her just for announcing herself as the butler? Does the mere idea of a butler merit a gratuity? Or does one tip on a per cup basis upon delivery?

Then there are the (typically charming) pool guys, who must walk you to your sunbeds every day at an uncomfortably slow pace, and then lay out a plethora of towels for you, as if they had just received a doctorate in cloth-based origami. I'm sounding like a total curmudgeon here, and of course I am one. But I don't dislike good service, per se. It's nice that someone parked our car, showed us how to use a fridge, heightened our excitement about the arrival of our bags through the medium of a few minutes' delay, offered to make us a cup of tea, and folded my towel into the shape of a heron. I just don't like the sense of expectation that I should pay for these services. Because I don't need the heron, I don't drink tea, and I would rather park my own car, than pay a few dollars in tips to drop it off, and another few dollars in tips to pick it up again. Also, it costs $30 per night to valet park our car (there is no other option), so shouldn't that cover the valets' tips?

Where will this madness end, America? Will we soon be expected to tip air hostesses? Train drivers? Supermarket checkout assistants? Should I tape an envelope to my compost bin every week for the guys that pick it up? No! Waiters, barbers, bartenders and taxi drivers -- for some reason, you made my cut. Expensive hotel staff, and the security guard in my office building -- I am afraid you did not.

One word of warning though, in case anyone was tempted to emulate my Scroogidity -- yesterday we discovered a small infestation of ants in our room, and today the toilet was broken. Coincidence? Or the result of our position at the top of the leaderboard on the staff noticeboard? I suspect the latter. Those butlers are a dangerous bunch.