Thoughts on tipping

So how do you feel about tipping?

Not cows.

We’re talking additional money for services rendered.

You know … that line on the credit card receipt or that jar on the counter or that money left on the restaurant table or bar.

While all tippees love tips, tippers do not share universal agreement regarding this practice.

People have personal reasons for tipping.

Some leave tips because it makes them feel good or to acknowledge good service. Or maybe even a very large tip to reward exceptional service.

Some people leave tips because they know the job doesn’t pay well.

Some people don’t know an appropriate tip. Some people just don’t tip.

Personally, I don’t understand why the amount of an expected tip is determined by the price of a meal.

Seafood Oscar doesn’t require any more trips to the kitchen than the mac and cheese.

A buck for 10 seconds to fill a beer glass seems high when compared to countless retail clerks who stand on their feet all day long. Or the guy who delivers my newspaper every day at 3 a.m.

But I digress.

No doubt we’ve all had tipping discussions with our family and friends.

Why this week in this space?

I recently talked with a guy who’d hired a professional guide to take him to the highest spot in Montana, Granite Peak in the Beartooth Mountains.

Four day trip, technical climbing, setting ropes, bivouac camping. The total package. Basically putting his life in someone else’s hands.

“Epic” is how he described the experience, but, being his first personally guided trip, he thought a $100 tip was adequate for a trip costing nearly 20 times as much.

Guides—rafting, fishing, skiing, backcountry adventure and others—sometimes get no tips on day trips, even multi-day trips.

Because they didn’t do the job? Or the trip wasn’t fun? Not likely.

Despite “You can tip over the raft but you can’t over tip your raft guide” signs, many people don’t know how to reward a guide for a lifetime of memories.

The answer is simple, just discretely ask someone in the office what is an appropriate tip for your adventure, then make your own decision.

Jerry Smalley’s Fishful Thinking appears weekly in the Hungry Horse News.