Automatic Gratuity This...

This week’s Rant is coming to you live and direct from Key West via Miami - and that’s where we’ll start.

So, this past week, I really got to witness what “entitlement” does to individuals.

Now, to begin, I’ve often heard from Creative Directors that many young talent in our business have a sense of entitlement. They don’t want to role up their sleeves, do grunt work and start at the bottom of the food chain. I’ve even heard horror stories about some juniors over the last 2-3 years who think that working on a piece of POS or collateral material is beneath them. For those not in the ad biz, let me put it this way: it’s like someone that’s been hired at Tim Horton’s sucking their teeth and giving a ton of attitude about having to clean tables. Yeah, it sucks, but it’s gotta be done. Fortunately for me, I haven’t had that experience. Every intern or junior that’s worked for me has worked their asses off.

But I didn’t put pen to paper (or rather, fingers to keyboard) to discuss advertising. This week, I saw this same sense of entitlement displayed in the service industry. What I speak of are the restaurants and bars in Miami that include an 18% gratuity “for my convenience” on their bills.

First of all, “for my convenience”? Do they think I’m a moron that can’t calculate a tip? Even if I was, every frickin’ phone has a calculator on it nowadays. So, let’s be honest, it’s not for “my” convenience. It’s for their’s. And it should be phrased more like, “For our greed, we stuck you with an 18% gratuity.” And here’s the other thing. Do you think they add that 18% before or after taxes? After, of course: it means they get more money. Not just for the food and beverages - I’m now tipping the government for screwing me with a 14% tax (or whatever the fuck it is) on the aforementioned food and beverages.

Second, how dare they assume that their service merits an 18% tip. Think about that for a moment: 18 fucking percent! On some of the tabs I saw this week, I’d half expect a happy ending with my coffee. Unbelievable!

Which brings me back around to what a guaranteed gratuity does to service. They don’t need to try hard. They don’t have to be polite. They don’t have to ask how your food is. They don’t have to refill your wine glass. They don’t have to clear away your plates until they damned well feel like it. They can ignore you when you raise your hand. And they can take a goddamned eternity to bring you the bill that they have to gall to shove an 18% tip up your ass.

And to me, that’s a real shock. I mean, I’ve travelled quite a bit. I’ve always had great service in the U.S. in particular. And yes, I’ve heard of places putting a 15% tip on groups 8 or larger. But almost every bill here in Miami, from pool bars to restaurants ding with a gratuity for which, in every case, they did not deserve.

Oh, and one more thing. In many of these cases, they “hide” the fact that they’ve automatically added the tip in mice type on the menu or bill. So, a lot of suckers end up adding an extra 15-20% on top.

Luckily for me, I like to read the small print.

And that’s my brain fart for Friday, January 27, 2012.