The Itching Palm Part 8

ONE STEP FORWARD

When the Hotel Statler, in Buffalo, announced that a guest need not tip its employees in order to get satisfactory service, a sensation was sprung upon hotel managers and the traveling public. Nothing more emphatically shows the abnormal state of mind toward tipping than that such an elementary right should be affirmed and cause surprise in the affirmation.

A SOUND CODE

Following is its Code to employes on the practice of tipping:

"The patron of a hotel goes there because he expects to receive certain things served with celerity, courtesy and cheerfulness.

"The persons who are to fetch and carry him these things will be those whose portion it is to render intimate, personal services to others. Since time immemorial, this cla.s.s of servitors has been of the rank and file.

"Now and then a server is found--a waiter, a bootblack, a barber or a bell boy--who adds a bit of his own personality to his services. Such a one shows a bit more intelligence--initiative--perspicacity--than his fellows. The patron finds his smaller wants antic.i.p.ated, and is pleased. He feels that the servant has given him something extra and unexpected--and he wants to pay something extra for it.

"He tips.

"Of course there are abuses of the tip. A rich bounder wants something more than other hotel guests, and he futilely tries to get it by throwing money about.

"His tips are insults, and his reward Servility instead of service.

"Or--

"An individual wis.h.i.+ng to be thought a 'good fellow' ADMINISTERS tips with the advice to 'buy a house and lot,' etc.

"Or--

"An infrequent traveler, having the time of his life, tips out of sheer goodheartedness.

"These types help to const.i.tute the 'Public.'

"It is the business of a good hotel to cater to the Public. It is the avowed business of the Hotel Statler to please the public better than any other hotel in the world.

"Statler can run a tipless hotel if he wants to.

"But Statler knows that a first-cla.s.s hotel cannot be maintained on a tip-less basis, for the reason that a small but certain per cent. of its guests will tip, in spite of all rules.

"Statler can and does do this: He guarantees to his guests who do not wish to tip, everything--EVERYTHING--in the way of hotel service, courtesy, etc., that the tipper gets.

"Let's make that a bit stronger--guests do NOT have to tip at Hotel Statler to get courteous, polite, attentive service.

"Or, for final emphasis, we say to Statler guests: Please do NOT tip unless you feel like it; but if you DO tip, let your tipping be yielding to a genuine desire--not conforming to an outrageous custom.

"Any Statler employee who is wise and discreet enough to merit tips is wise and discreet enough to render a like service whether he is tipped or not.

"And he is wise and discreet enough to say 'thank you' when he gets his tip.

"In this connection let this be said:

"The man who takes a tip and does not thank the tipper does not feel that he has earned the tip any more than a blackmailer feels that he has earned his blood money.

"Any Statler employee who fails to give Service, or who fails to thank the guest who gives him something, falls short of the Statler Standard. We always thank any guest who reports such a case to us. Statler does not deal summarily with his helpers, any more than he deals perfunctorily with his guests--but the tip-grafters get short shrift here."

FOR THE BENEFIT OF GUESTS

To understand the spirit of management which could issue such instructions to its employees in the face of the opportunity to exploit the public, as most hotels do and so throw the whole cost of wages upon the patron, it is necessary to consider other sections of the Code treating of professional hospitality.

"Hotel Statler is operated primarily for the benefit and convenience of its guests. Without guests there could be no Hotel Statler. These are simple Facts easily understood.

"The Statler is a successful hotel. The Reason is, that every Waiter in this hotel, every Hall-Boy, the Chambermaid, the Clerk, the Chef, the Manager, the Boss Himself, is working all the time to make them FEEL 'at home.'

"Hotel service--that is, Hotel Statler service--means the limit of Courteous, Efficient Attention from Each Particular Employee to Each Particular Guest. This is the kind of service a Guest pays for when he pays us his bill--whether it is for $2.00 or $20.00 per day. It is the kind of Service he is ent.i.tled to, and he NEED NOT and SHOULD NOT pay ANY MORE."

NOT HOSPITALITY

Compare the att.i.tude of management toward guests as revealed in this code with the bristling, belligerent att.i.tude of employees in other first-cla.s.s places where tipping is undisciplined! In the average hotel where the management encourages the tipping for economic reasons the bell-boy will make a scene if you fail to tip him after he carries your suit-case from the lobby to your room. Every other employee has the same spirit--he has to have it if he is to be compensated at all, for the employer puts it squarely up to him to work the guest for his wages.

Apparently this hotel reached the conviction that this was not hospitality.

Then the conviction was reached that a guest "need not and should not pay any more" for hotel service than the rate paid at the desk. From this it was logical to bring the employees to a new conception of service and to stop the piratical practice toward guests who do not tip.

It is particularly significant to note the a.s.sertion that the proprietor can run a tipless hotel if he wants to. That is an interesting declaration. It proves that those managers who exploit the tipping propensity deliberately do so for reasons of greed.

Then the reason for not running a tipless hotel is stated to be that "a small but certain per cent. of its guests will tip in spite of all rules." Here is evidence that the public has its measure of blame for the custom as well as the avarice of managers. This hotel declares that its conception of hospitality is to leave the guest free in his relation toward employees. But note this! _It does not leave the employees free in their att.i.tude toward guests._

UP TO THE EMPLOYER

The foregoing distinction is the crux of the whole tipping problem. If managers will restrain and discipline employees so that they will not run riot in their eagerness to exact toll from patrons the tipping evil will be reduced to a minimum.

THE FIRST STEP

It is not the idea underlying this discussion to consider that a satisfactory disposal of the tipping custom has been made when managers insure equal treatment for those who do not tip in comparison with those who do tip. Nothing short of the complete abolition of the custom can be the goal in a republic. But as a long stride toward the goal, the Code cited above is noteworthy. It const.i.tutes the first immediate step that any hotel may take.

The public would find immense relief in the general adoption of the foregoing idea--that tipping must "be yielding to a genuine desire--not conforming to an outrageous custom." Inasmuch as the vast majority of Americans who tip do so only because they are afraid not to conform to an outrageous custom, this plan, honestly enforced upon employees, will reduce the followers of the custom to the small percentage of the public who tip because of pride or moral obtuseness. A way can be found to handle this element when the majority have been freed.

Once the proof is at hand that tipping can be handled the conclusion is unescapable that the managers who knuckle to the custom are "corrupt and contented." They are on precisely the same moral level as their employees.

THE GUEST'S RIGHTS

In the meantime, the individual patron has the right to and should proceed on the theory that he is ent.i.tled to EVERYTHING in the way of service for the one payment. This is his common law right even if no special laws regulating tipping are in force.

The public is at a great disadvantage in combating the tipping evil when the managers leave the issue to be settled between the patrons and the employees. A bell boy can commit an offense to a patron who does not tip that is perfectly tangible to the patron but difficult to report to the manager. Unless the manager takes a positive hand and instructs his employees in a manner similar to the above Code it is likely that most persons will continue to pay tribute rather than be insulted and neglected.