We’ve all been there. You’re standing at the cash register after ordering an iced oat latte when suddenly the barista flips the iPad towards you, and you’re faced with tipping options. Now you’re at the big moment when you have to decide quickly what your own tipping etiquette is. Personally? I’m someone that tries to give a tip any time I can! The easiest way I do it (for example at a coffee shop as that’s probably my strongest example) is to use the tips I earn and give them that. It feels like a passing-it-forward kind of idea.
I understand not everyone is a tipper. Many argue that if people make minimum wage then they should be fine. Yet it’s often proven that it’s called minimum wage for a reason and people nowadays are barely making enough to cover their groceries. Some say It’s just a latte! Why do I have to tip? Short answer: you don’t have to. If you’re this person I don’t care, and I don’t want to hear it. Sometimes I agree with not tipping (apparently some self checkouts are now providing a tipping option), but in other situations I feel as though it is simply nice.
When I’m not writing for The Cascade, I am working at a local liquor store, and surprisingly, I make tips. Whenever I tell people this it is almost always met with shock, because let’s face it, why the hell am I making tips at my kind of job? I started my job just after the pandemic hit in 2020 and for a couple of years a lot of people didn’t like being handed back dirty change, so they would throw a couple cents into the little glass jar by my till. Steadily, my tips have decreased due to people being fine handling physical money again, and it’s now mainly regulars that throw in a buck or two. The winter holidays are great times for tips at my workplace! Sorry you’re working Christmas Eve! Take a $5 bill! You’ll never catch me complaining, especially when that money goes towards my weekly latte budget. On summer closing shifts people feel bad I can’t go enjoy the lake or have a beer on a patio and will tip, but once again me getting tips goes back to the customer just feeling like being slightly kind enough to throw some bread in the jar.
There are unspoken rules at my workplace: anything $10 or above we split between the two cashiers. If we get a tip from carry out service the tip only goes to the carrier, and on Christmas Eve everyone working splits all the tips. There has also been a debate on tipping in my workplace. A few regulars have asked us when we are getting a tipping option on our card machine as some of them still avoid cash. We’ve asked managers about this, and it’s not like we came up with the idea ourselves. There have been customers demanding it! Yet, it was shut down by the higher-ups as it made them uncomfortable. They stated that if they went to a liquor store and saw a tipping option they would feel mad, so they wouldn’t want that in their store. My coworker raised a great question to their response: Why do you even care? She made a great point. The higher-ups wouldn’t see the reaction to the tipping option, and they wouldn’t be receiving the money anyway. So at a staff meeting we were all told no tipping option on the machines… end of discussion.
I wouldn’t expect anyone to tip me at my job, but I think I do more at my job than people realize. I don’t just scan items and take your money. In the end it’s sweet when we get a tip, and it makes me think about all those that I’m giving a tip to and all the work they do that I (the customer) am just not seeing. Once again it just cycles back to being kind in my eyes. I encourage that next time you go to your local establishment to pay in cash and happily say keep the change!
Eva Davey is a UFV student majoring in English Literature and minoring in Media Communications. She is a fan of poetry, oat milk lattes, and the final girl trope. Currently, her worst enemy is the Good Reads app.
