Tipping Series: The Psychology of Tipping with Michael Lynn, Ph.D., Professor of Services Marketing, Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration

Beyond good, bad, and mediocre service, how much we tip and why we tip is rich with psychological implications. Find out what tipping reveals about us as consumers and our need for affirmation and societal status.

Shedding light on the complexities behind tipping is nationally recognized expert Michael Lynn, Ph.D. , Professor of Services Marketing at Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration. A former bartender, busboy, and waiter, Michael Lynn, has also devoted his academic career to the nuances and impact of rewarding and incentivizing good service, a hallmark of hospitality experiences.

Michael Lynn has written over 80 research publications on tipping and has been covered by the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the International Herald Tribune, the Economist, and Forbes as well as by ABC’s 20/20, BET’s Nightly News, and NPR. 

The “Distinguished” podcast is produced by Boston University School of Hospitality Administration. 

Host: Arun Upneja, Dean
Producer: Mara Littman, Executive Director of Strategic Operations and Corporate Relations
Research and Content Creation: Lu Lan
Editing: Isabella Laikin
Sound Engineer: Andrew Hallock

Music: “Airport Lounge" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to the Distinguished Podcast. Today we are diving into a ritual that closes every restaurant bill but opens a world of economic and psychological intrigue tipping. I'm Arunapneja, Dean of the BU School of Hospitality Administration, and with me is a virtuoso of the dipping world, Dr. Mike Lynn from Cornell University School of Hotel Administration. He's not only a top-tier professor and researcher, but also a former bartender and waiter who has transformed his ground level insights into more than 80 pivotal research publications. Michael, it's a pleasure to have you with us to unravel the complexities of tipping, a practice so routine yet so deeply ingrained in the fabric of our culture. Welcome.

SPEAKER_01 0:51

Well, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 0:51

I'm happy to be here. Thank you for inviting me. So before I start, I do want to say that, and I know we discussed this in the past as well, but you were on the faculty at the University of Houston in marketing, and I was a lowly PhD student, hanging out with all other PhD students, and it was very exciting for me to see a social psychologist in the marketing department doing research on tipping. And I was just so excited when you were moving to Cornell Hotel School, came up and I said hello, and I had a conversation with you. So I'm happy to renew my acquaintance after so many years.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

Well, um my pleasure to renew the relationship as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

So let's set the stage for today's discussion. Tipping, is it merely a social obligation, a reward for good service, or something more? So, Michael, we're gonna start with your beginnings of your journey in the heart of the service industry. How did your early experiences shape your research interest, particularly in tipping?

SPEAKER_01 1:56

Well, let me begin by saying I started uh working for tips as my the summer of my freshman year in college. My father had been audited by the IRS and ended up owing them a lot of money. Uh and he told me, look, I had planned on paying for your entire college thing, and I'll still make you know the bulk of the contributions, but I need you to help me out because I got this big hit. Uh, you need to get a job and help support your way through school. So uh what I quickly learned was that tipped work paid better than anything else I was qualified to do. And that summer uh of my freshman year, I got a job at Pizza Hut. I was a cook during the day and a waiter at night. When I went back to Austin, Texas, where I was doing my undergraduate, uh I managed to get a job as a busboy at La Tour restaurant, top of the Wingate Building, super fancy French restaurant. And there I worked my way up to uh back waiter. After about a year, maybe a year and a half, that restaurant closed. I moved to the headliners club where I was a reserver, and and from there I also became a bartender. So I've worked at both downscale, mid-scale, and very upscale restaurants for tips. And and obviously, when your living depends on tips, you care about it. But I didn't actually think of it as a research topic until I started grad school. Um, when I went to Columbus, Ohio for my first year of grad school, I showed up early and got a job as a bartender. Uh once school started, I started a research assistantship that technically precluded me from holding another job. Um, but I wasn't going to get my first paycheck from the research assistantship for another month. So I asked my advisor, Bib Latina, if I could keep the job just for that month so I'd have something to live on. Um, and he said, yes, as long as I used that setting for research. I thought about ways to do research in that context. And that's what got me started thinking about tipping as a research topic. I mean, I was interested in it as a source of income for years before that, but as a research topic, I didn't even think of it until he kind of forced me into it. Uh and I basically uh have continued doing research on that ever since.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

That's fascinating. You know, the other thing, um, those good old days, the tips were all cash. And I know that um that's probably too old, so IRS cannot come back to you on that. But you know, those cash tips mostly were not reported, whereas now the tips are all on credit card and they get reported as income.

SPEAKER_01 5:02

And uh, you want me to comment now?

SPEAKER_00 5:05

You don't have to. Um okay. So let's move, let's go into the dive into. Um you outlined several motives behind why people tip. Can you explain some of the motivations behind this reciprocal relationship?

SPEAKER_01 5:22

You you've already mentioned that people tip to reward good service. Uh that's the most commonly expressed motivation or reason for tipping. If you ask people why do you tip, that's the most common answer. But in restaurant settings, we find that tips correlate with customers' ratings of service only about 0.2. That means 4% of the differences in tips left by different dining parties, 4% can be explained by their ratings of service. Clearly, it is not primarily driven by a desire to reward good service. Uh the least commonly endorsed motivation for tipping is to buy social approval. And yet the data I look at tell me that's the most important reason for tipping. Why do I say that? 70% of the variance in tipping differences in tipping left by different dining parties in a restaurant can be explained by bill size. And that's because of the 15 to 20% tipping norm. Uh bill size defines what the social expectations of the tip would be, and people tend to comply with that. The next biggest set of factors that influence tipping have to do with the social connection that the server makes with the customer. If the server introduces him or herself by name, if they call the customer by his or her name, if they smile at the customer, if they squat down next to the table so they make good eye contact with the customer, all of these are things that increase social connection and they have a pretty substantial impact on tipping. Given, and and why does that matter? When you make a social connection, people care about what you think of them. So given that social expectations are the biggest predictor of tipping, counting for twice as much as everything else combined, and that the extent to which you care about the server's opinion of you because you have a connection with them, that's the next biggest factor. That tells me that mostly restaurant tipping is a matter of buying social approval or at least avoiding disapproval. I mean, there are other motivations. I don't know how much you want me to keep going on this.

SPEAKER_00 7:45

Well, I'm I mean, I think social approval, you said 70% of the variance is by bill size. So can you expand on that a little bit?

SPEAKER_01 7:54

The larger their bill sizes, the larger the dollar tip, right? And we can look at different dining parties in a restaurant, they're gonna leave different dollar and cent tip amounts. I can reduce the differences, the variability, by 70% if I control for bill size. But that means that everything else combined explains the other 30%, right? Bill size is twice as powerful as everything else combined in determining the dollar and cent tip amounts that different dining parties leave.

Rising Tip Percentages: From 10% to 20% to 30% and Beyond

SPEAKER_00 8:36

So so let's then uh so if 70% of the variance is defined by the bill size, then that only leaves the 30%. And even in that 30%, you're saying a majority of that is made by social connection. So by the server, what kind of connection he or she is able to establish with the customer. And then and then you also said 4% is by the service. So if a server connects well with their guests, even if the service is not very good, they're gonna get good tips. Yes. That's right. Okay, so then um let's move to uh tipping percentage. Now, as you've noted, that the tip percentages have been increasing over time. It started, you know, at some point 10% to now 20%. And in many instances, people have now started using the term 20 to 25% of tip. And there is more complexity to this in particularly recent innovations, which is that restaurants have started adding um, you know, I think the most common I've seen 3% kitchen appreciation fee. That's the amount that goes straight into the kitchen. So, but no one is backing down from this 20 to 25 percent. So are we now in a 23 to 28% tip range?

SPEAKER_01 10:00

Well, the non-menu price cost of dining has gone up to 23%, but I'm gonna argue that a 3% kitchen fee is not voluntary and is not a tip. So um, but yeah, I mean, and guess what? People are asking for even larger and larger amounts. It's they're not just asking for 20% nowadays, often they start at 15 and go up to 30. I've even seen on Reddit pictures of receipts that have tippet that that start with a 20% tip suggestion, go up to 50, and then had a 99% tip suggestion from one bar.

SPEAKER_00 10:46

So do you see any trend or any any anything to say that this would go this trend would back down, or is it only one way straight up?

SPEAKER_01 10:56

Wow, that's a great question. And and I guess I want to answer first by saying I can't predict the future any better than other people can. Okay, so the short answer is I don't know. But there are reasons to believe that the trend will continue. This it's it's a long-standing trend, right? We used to tip 15%. Today the average tip is about 20%. Uh, might it go up? Certainly. Why does that occur? We don't know for sure, but it probably has to do with the fact that tipping is buying positional goods. Some people tip to get status, other people tip to get really good service. Both status and really good service are defined relative to the average, right? Uh, to get really good service, I'm gonna have to give an above-average tip. To get the esteem and status, I have to give an above-average tip. But when I do that, and other people like me with similar motivations give above average tips, we start to get attention and service and and liking to the detriment of other customers who then feel like they have to tip more to avoid loss. And once that happens, the whole more average goes higher. Then I, looking for status, have to tip even more. Right? And so it's that some of what we're trying to buy with tip depends upon giving an above-average tip, exerts this continuous pressure for tip amounts to go up, up, up. That process has operated in the past, and I believe is gonna continue to operate. Having said that, there's got to be a ceiling somewhere, right? I just don't know what that ceiling is or when we're gonna reach it.

SPEAKER_00 13:01

And Mike, you know what is um what is interesting about this process is uh, and I know you talk about uh somewhere in your papers as well, is that tipping is given, the tips are given at the end of the service. So during the service, the server does not know how much you're gonna tip unless you are a regular customer. Right.

SPEAKER_01 13:20

But presumably they think that if they give good service, you'll get a good tip. And if you they give you bad service, you'll leave them a bad tip. So presumably, tipping provides an incentive, even if people don't know what you're gonna give.

SPEAKER_00 13:39

Aaron Powell But at the end of the day, at the beginning, you said the service only accounts for 4%. So I'm sure savvy servers have have already noticed by experience, not by research, but by experience, that you know they can do whatever they want, they're gonna keep getting that you know, 20% coming in most of the time.

Why Consumers Believe They Tip to Reward Service

SPEAKER_01 13:58

Yeah, that's a really interesting. And I tended to assume the same thing until I actually asked servers, how big an effect do you think your service has on tipping? And what I discovered is that roughly half of consumers think it has a moderate to large effect. So half of consumers, or I mean half of servers, accurately say, yeah, it doesn't really have much of an effect. But half of them erroneously believe that it has a bigger effect than it really does. And I've often been, you know, curious as to why that is. It I don't have any research-based answers, but I would speculate that it has to do with one, people are just buying into kind of the traditional idea tip's a reward for service, so it must have an effect. And secondly, I think servers are motivated to believe it has an effect. Because if one keeps the if tipping's not related to service levels, it becomes more charity. And nobody wants to think they're making their living relying on charity. And it also means that servers have more control and people like that feeling of control. So so it turns out, even though tips aren't strongly related to service, at least half of servers think it is. And so it still has an incentive value for them. And uh I think that the reason they believe there's a strong relationship is that they're motivated to have that belief.

SPEAKER_00 15:33

That's that's so interesting. You know, this charity explanation is excellent because, like you said, no one wants to have charity, so they have to believe that what they're doing is causing the tips. But I'm curious uh if you've done similar work or come across similar work on the customer side. I know that your research shows 70% social approval and social connections, but what do consumers believe is accounting for the variation in their tipping percentage?

SPEAKER_01 16:02

Consumers believe that they're tipping to reward service first and foremost. They also believe they're tipping to buy future service, and they believe they're tipping to help servers make a living, right? Most servers in this country make a substandard minimum wage. Consumers, for the most part, are aware of that. They may not know exactly what the hourly, the tipped hourly wage is, but they know it's less than the standard. And those people who are aware of that report having stronger altruistic motivations for tipping and in fact tip more.

SPEAKER_00 16:42

So Right. So, you know, um, and I've and I've, you know, a lot of people have growing up, you know, have weighted have weighted tables or going through college to pay their expenses. So to some extent, and I've spoken to many young people who were young adults who are in their working lives who express that sympathy, say, oh, this person is probably going through college, and you know, I need to um tip to make sure that they have um a good, make it make a decent living and they're able to pay for the living expenses. I have also spoken to many restaurant owners who say that many of the servers are making 60, 70, and in some cases even in six figures, just waiting tables. So um when you talked about the substandard wage, that's the you know lower than the minimum wage that is federally allowed, and in some states it's allowed. But waiters are servers are making, you know, in many cases, substantially more than the minimum wage.

Servers Often Earn More Per Hour Than Their Managers

SPEAKER_01 17:41

Oh, absolutely. When you had asked me earlier about my history with tipping, I told you I took tipped work because it paid more than any other job I was qualified to do at the time. In fact, I remember making more per hour than my manager did. I mean, I was only part-time, so my total income was less than his, but on an hourly basis, I was making a lot more than my manager. It made me wonder kind of why people would go to school to become hospitality managers when the pay was so little and you could get an entry-level job that paid more. Um, and by the way, my my experience is it's just anecdotal, but I helped the New York City Hospitality Alliance do a compensation survey in New York City a few years ago. Servers were making with tips roughly a$30 an hour. Cooks and hostesses were making roughly$12 to$15 an hour. Why? I mean, clearly tipping pays a premium above and beyond what people could otherwise get in many cases.

Upselling, Bill Size, and Why Owners Want Servers to Earn Big Tips

Service Charges vs. Higher Menu Prices: Both Cause Backlash

SPEAKER_00 18:53

Um yeah, I think you know, the other um aspect I'm very curious about is, and I spoke to a restaurant from Chicago, and one of uh one of the things, the reason why um, you know, the the restaurant owners want the waiters to make more tips is because they kind of instinctively know that the tip size is related to, like you said, is related to the total bill size. And waiters know that too, the restaurant owners know that too. And so they so the the waiters upsell and you know increase the bill size, which impacts, which help which is helpful to the restaurant owners, which helps the waiters make more as well. Um let's move to this um this experiment that was done a few years ago, and and some people still do that, which is restaurant does include a 20% gratuity and say, we've already included that, but then there is a backlash from the guests. So can you talk a little bit about the pros and cons of preemptively adding the service search?

The Proliferation of Tipping: iPad Tip Screens and Tip Fatigue

SPEAKER_01 20:03

Um first off, if a restaurant uh pays a higher minimum wage or eliminates tipping, they've got to pay higher wages. They don't make enough profit to eat those extra costs. They'll have to be passed on to the consumer either as service charges or higher menu prices. Service charges are universally hated in this country. Restaurants that replace tipping with service charges, their online ratings go down. And that's true regardless of the price tier of the restaurant. Upscale, mid-scale, downscale restaurants, you institute a service charge, your customers are going to be angry. And it's fairly straightforward why that occurs. A service charge is a mandatory tip, and people in this country don't like to be told that they have to do something, especially when everywhere else it's voluntary. The other option is to replace tipping with higher menu prices. Uh, and although conceptually people are okay with that, the fact is that causes sticker shock, and people start to think the restaurant is too expensive. You might think they would take into account, yeah, the menu prices are higher, but I don't have to tip. In fact, research tells us that's not the case. People tend to minimize tipping as part of the restaurant expense, and they focus on menu prices. A restaurant with no tipping and 15% higher menu prices will be perceived as more expensive than a restaurant with the lower menu prices, but 15 to 20% tips expected. Um, and what we've Find is restaurants that eliminate tipping and replace it with higher menu prices. Mid to downscale restaurants, their online ratings go down. Upscale restaurants don't show that decline. Presumably because they have wealthier clientele who are less price sensitive, less affected by that sticker shock.

SPEAKER_00 22:23

Okay, so then I want to move a pivot to the tipping in general in our society. And we have seen a proliferation of occasions in which to tip. And of course, you know, all of us have seen those memes where you go to a vending machine and there is a tip line there. Okay, how much do you want to are you know go to a self-service place and the cashier turns the iPad over and like you said, 15%, 20%, 25%. So anytime we pay digitally, so you know, this we earlier we talked about the cash tips versus um now it's all being on the credit cards. So anytime we pay digitally, the expectation to add a tip is presented to the customer, which increases the cost of everything we purchase. So considering the cultural significance of tipping and it's so ingrained in all of us, um, where do you see the general landscape of tipping with this expectation of tipping everywhere? Uh is there at some point going to be an equilibrium? I mean, do you feel that there is a backlash to tipping?

Carry-Out Tipping: Only 40% of People Actually Tip

Quick Service, Baristas, and Convenience Stores: Majority Don't Tip

SPEAKER_01 23:33

Well, first off, we know from surveys, 70% of consumers today think that tipping has got out of hand and they're very unhappy with the practice. Does that spell the doom of tipping in the long run? I doubt it. Uh, it's very difficult to get rid of tipping. Um to get rid of tipping in restaurants, for example, you've got to either replace it with service charges, which people hate, or higher menu prices, which many people dislike. Um will will it preclude will is there a limit to the spread of tipping norms to other occupations and and will it continue to be expected in standard retail places? Again, it's hard to predict the future, but my guess is that it will not spread. And at some point, though even places that are currently asking for it will probably stop. Let me I let me just point something out to readers. Today it's very common we we get these requests for tipping, for example, restaurant carryout. Almost every restaurant, if you order carry out, there's going to be a line for you to leave a tip. And you may assume, since every restaurant is asking, this must be the new norm. But there is no God of tipping. Tipping doesn't come from above, it evolves out of the behavior of consumers. So what we really need to know is are people tipping? And just because they're asking for tips doesn't mean people are giving them. Surveys tell us that only about 40% of consumers routinely leave a tip for restaurant carry out. 60% of people are not tipping, it's not normative, and you shouldn't feel that much social pressure to leave a tip yourself. And if that's true of restaurant carryout, what we know is even fewer people tip in quick service or uh convenience store tipping is even lower than that. So, yes, you're being asked for tips. The people who are asking will be upset if you don't give them a tip. But if you fail to tip, you will not be alone. In fact, the vast majority of customers don't tip. So if they're mad at you, it's not just you, they're mad at everybody. And that kind of diminishes the social pressure you should feel. Um, I do think that the current technology is contributing to people's the boldness with which people are asking, and it's making it a little bit more effective. We've had counter tipping for a long time, but it was in the form of a tip jar. The thing is that tip jars, it's easy to see people put money in them, and even if you don't observe the actual tip itself, you can see whether the tip jar is full or not. You know whether other people are tipping. And in these kind of traditional counter-service settings, most people weren't tipping. Those tip jars, they may have had some tip in them, but they weren't full. And so customers knew, yeah, they'd like a tip, but most people aren't doing it. It's no big deal if I don't. The new tablets hide that information from us, and that causes us to assume other people must be tipping and we feel more pressure. So the technology increases pressure and increases our tendency to tip. But that doesn't mean it's causing the majority of people to tip. And in fact, in these new contexts, the majority of people still are not tipping. Tipping norms haven't expanded as much as the press would have you believe.

SPEAKER_00 27:29

Aaron Powell, I think that's a very, very good point that people listening should take home on this issue that 60% are not tipping for carry-outs. That does leave a very significant number, 40 percent, that are tipping for carry-out.

SPEAKER_01 27:44

Um So quick service, you said there is not much tipping happening in um I think about 30% of people say they will, you know, on a semi-regular basis, tip for quick service. Trevor Burrus, Jr.: 30 percent.

SPEAKER_00 27:58

And then convenience store is even less. Um I think to a to a certain extent, it's these new cafes where you have to stand in line to go and order your food, and then either you pick up or someone just delivers it to your table. That's where the cashiers turn the iPad over. And again, 15%, 20%, 2010.

How Eliminating Tipping Would Affect Service Quality

SPEAKER_01 28:21

Even coffee shops and baristas are an example of what you're just describing. Even there, less than 50% of people will leave a tip. Uh so it's not the majority.

SPEAKER_00 28:33

Aaron Powell Okay. I think that's that's a very good point that people listening should note. Okay, so let me ask you um you also suggested that upscale restaurants might change the current tipping model. With tip being a significant part of the service income, how might changes in tipping practices affect the quality of service? And what do you think should happen with the with the tipping models?

The Pay Disparity Between Front and Back of House

An Elegant Solution: Eliminate the Tip Credit and Share Tips Broadly

SPEAKER_01 28:59

Wow. Um how might elimination of tipping affect service levels? Look, the research I've done suggests that servers do provide personalized service in the hopes of getting better tips, right? If I replace tipping with service charges, they're still going to be motivated to sell and to turn tables quickly because the larger the bills, the larger the sales they have at the end of the evening, the larger the service charges they'll take home, right? So service charges and tipping both motivate sales-oriented behavior. But service charges don't motivate quality of service and personalization of service in the same way that tips do. If we eliminate tipping, I think you are taking away some of the motivation servers have to provide customized personalized service. Um can that be made up through other mechanisms of monitoring and rewarding? Of course. Good service is good in Europe and they don't tip nearly as much there as they do here, right? Um, really upscale restaurants could have managers uh monitor the behavior of their employees. And if you want to keep your job, you're gonna have to provide the kind of customized, personalized service that we expect. You can hire mystery diners uh and monitor the behavior of your servers. And and so I don't think tipping's the only mechanism for motivating good service, but it is a mechanism. What do I think should be done with tipping? First off, I guess let me say one of the problems with tipping is that it pays so much to front of house that it creates a pay disparity that makes cooperation between front and back of house more difficult. And you would think a restaurateur could simply choose to pay their back of house more, but to do that, they have to raise menu prices, which raises the base on which customers are tipping, so tips go up, and in fact, tips probably go up more than the front back of house's pay went up, and you're increasing, not reducing, the pay disparity. I think the easiest solution to this is to let back of house share in tip pools and to require servers to share part of their tips more broadly. Under current federal law, if you don't take a tip credit, you can do that. If you do take a tip credit, you can't. You can only require servers to share tips with other traditionally tipped workers like bartenders or bus boys. So I think that we should. That's only going to boost their already high incomes, but then what you do is you make them share their tips more broadly with other people in the restaurant. And I think, by the way, that's fair because those other people are influencing the dining experience and ultimately the tipping behavior of customers. I did a study with a restaurant magician in New York City and found that when he performed a magic trick at a table, not only did he get a tip, but the server who waited on that table got a bigger tip also. Even though the server had nothing to do with that magic performance, right? It's tips depend upon the overall experience. And other people, people other than the server are contributing to that experience. Why shouldn't they? It only seems fair that they share in some of the financial benefit of doing that. So I would eliminate the tip credit. It will require uh higher prices, um and at least initially, right? Uh, but then I would also use it as an opportunity to share the tips more broadly, which should decrease future pressure to keep raising prices and and and wages over time, should be reduced because those wages are being supplemented with the tips. But look, given that, you know, it's easy to come up with solutions like that, but I can also think of problems. If we raise menu prices, of course, that's going to price some people out of the market. That will be a short-term cost and pain to restaurants, but it's also, you know, a disservice to customers. What many people don't realize is they think tipping is a way that restaurants get customers to subsidize their labor cost. Yes and no. The labor savings get passed on in the form of lower prices. So what real tipping really does is it gets wealthy, price, insensitive customers to subsidize the dining behavior of poorer, more price-sensitive customers. And you eliminate tipping, you're going to reduce this subsidy to poor people. And is that fair and reasonable? That's more questionable. Look, it I'm going on and on, but this is just a complicated issue. There are no easy answers.

Real-World Example: How Tacocracy Implements Tip Pooling

Fun Questions: Hobbies — Reading and Flintnapping

SPEAKER_00 35:02

But I really like uh the elegant solution you've proposed. And I interviewed um uh the president of our taco, who is a Shah alum, Anthony Valletta. And they have exactly the solution that you have uh proposed, which is they pay minimum wage, at least the minimum wage to everyone, and the tip pool is shared by everyone back at the house, front of the house, except in states where back at bath house sharing is not yet legal. Okay, so I think uh that was an outstanding answer. And as we wind down, um let's lighten the mood with some quick off-the-cuff questions to learn more about you beyond the world of academia. So you're ready to go? I'll try. When you're not deep in research or teaching, what's your favorite way to unwind?

SPEAKER_01 35:50

It's either reading or flintnapping. Flintnapping is making stone arrowheads, knives, and things like that. Those are my two hobbies.

SPEAKER_00 35:58

Aaron Powell, I was gonna say the first one is relaxing, but the second one a little stressful for people to hear. But here is a fun one.

SPEAKER_01 36:05

Oh no, it's it there's nothing that's better for relieving stress than bashing a rock and breaking it, right? Okay. And that's what flitnapping is. I mean, you're breaking it in a controlled way, but it's banging on a rock and breaking it, and that's quite stress-relieving.

SPEAKER_00 36:23

I think I'm gonna try that. So we move on. Um imagine you're stranded on a desert island. Which three foods would you want to have with you?

SPEAKER_01 36:33

Is there a refrigerator, a freezer? Because ice cream would be one unless there's no freezer, right? Let's pretend there is no freezer.

SPEAKER_00 36:41

Oh, there is no freezer. No electricity. No electricity. Oh my god. Okay, I've really constricted your choices here.

SPEAKER_01 36:48

Yeah, I'm trying to think, okay, what kind of foods don't require refrigeration?

SPEAKER_00 36:53

I think we might have to relax on the refrigerator part at least. Um look, I like red meat.

SPEAKER_01 37:00

Okay. And so red meat. Um blueberries I eat a lot of. I guess I'd want blueberries. And, you know, if I if I could have it, cheesecake.

SPEAKER_00 37:13

Cheesecake. Okay. Well, research has clearly shown the negatives of red meat, but clearly shown the benefits of blueberries. And I'm even going to leave ice cream behind since I like ice cream as well. Okay, so I've got a few more quick questions. Uh, since you are the guru of tipping, what percentage do you tip when you eat in a fine dining restaurant?

SPEAKER_01 37:36

I tip between 15 and 20%. Usually, I actually, because I get this question a lot, kept a record. And it tends to average right at 18%. Now that was several years ago. Today it would probably be closer to 20%. But I don't go excessively high.

SPEAKER_00 37:57

What percentage do you tip when you go into a Starbucks or a self-service cafe?

SPEAKER_01 38:03

Nothing.

SPEAKER_00 38:04

Okay. So you're part of that 60% who are not tipping.

SPEAKER_01 38:07

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 38:08

What about housekeeping in a hotel when you check out or daily?

SPEAKER_01 38:13

It depends on two things. One, I have to remember to do it, and two, I have to have the cash on hand to do it. But I try to make sure I have cash and I try to remember, and I leave about$3 per day to the housekeeping staff.

SPEAKER_00 38:28

Regardless of the level of the hotel, so you can go into the Ritz-Karlton or uh Well, I don't stay at Ritz-Carlton. Okay.

Closing Remarks & Credits

SPEAKER_01 38:36

In fact, like I'm one of the few Hook Cornell Hotel School faculty members who's never stayed at a four seasons, never stayed at a Ritz-Karlton. I just so, but mid and lower scale hotels, yes. I try to leave$3 a day.

SPEAKER_00 38:52

$3 a day in cash. Excellent. Michael, it has been a pleasure diving into these complex issues with you. Thank you for sharing your insights and sparking what I'm sure will be many conversations among our listeners.

SPEAKER_01 39:07

Well, thank you for inviting me.

SPEAKER_00 39:09

I've enjoyed the conversation. And thank you all for listening today to our distinguished podcast. If you like what you're hearing, be sure to follow up and give us a five-star rating. If you want to join the conversation and share your thoughts and suggestions, email me at shaden at bu.edu. That's shawdean at bu.edu. Special thanks to the team who produced this podcast, Mara Littman, Andy Halleck, and the entire team at BU School of Hospitality Administration. To keep up with the Distinguished Podcast, be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. You can also learn more about our undergraduate and graduate programs at BU School of Hospitality by visiting bu.edu slash hospitality. Have a wonderful day and thank you for listening.