Talk Back: To Tipperary or to tip a machine

May 03, 2023

Weird stuff can happen just about anywhere, but if you’re a die-hard fan of the offbeat, the bizarre and the wacko, there's really only one place you need to hang out. The local grocery store. It's like being in the middle of the annual Perseid meteor shower. The one every August when avid skywatchers gather to spend hours on end scanning the nighttime skies because nothing beats seeing hundreds of pieces of space debris pull a crash and burn in the atmosphere.

At 3 o’clock in the morning.

Being in the checkout lane is a lot like that. Take what happened just the other day. There we were, standing behind a lady who had 10 carts filled to overflowing and whose total came to somewhere north of six figures. Finally, it was our turn. Onto the conveyor belt went our purchase. A small salad. And a carton of milk. The cashier didn't know what to make of it. Is that all?, she finally asked. Apparently, she didn't notice the official Bill Engvall Fan Club T-shirts we were wearing. Nope, we said. We’ve still got 10,000 invisible items in the cart to unload.

Here's your sign.

Now we know what you’re thinking. We could have avoided all of it by using the self-checkout instead. Fat chance. The former POTUS was right. Nah gah dah. In fact, one national retailer — we aren't naming names, but it's the opposite of highs — has lost our business for good after making all lanes at its Adrian store do-it-yourself only. And if that little switcheroo doesn't frost your cookies, try this one on for size. There's a good chance those machines that sent the cashiers to the unemployment line will demand something extra of shoppers for their swipe and beep routine.

A tip.

It sounds crazy, but it's really happening in a whole slew of places. Everything from airports to bakeries and coffee shops to sports stadiums. Bad enough they force you to become a de facto employee who works for free — last time we checked that was called indentured servitude if not something worse — but now they’re adding a 25% to 30% gratuity in hopes you won't notice the "no tip" option and just automatically tack it on to your credit card tab without even thinking about it.

And who can blame them? In case you hadn't noticed, it's not easy being a machine these days. Between inflation woes and putting up with cranky old curmudgeons like us, that $2.13 an hour minimum wage they make simply doesn't cut it anymore. After all, machines have mortgages to pay. Just like the rest of us. And lots of hungry little baby machines at home to feed. Raise a fuss over a meager 25% extra?

Only the most heartless cad would do that.

We jest, of course. Frankly, this whole tip thing has gotten completely out of whack. What used to be a thank you for exceptional service somehow morphed into an entitlement and has now reached the height of insanity by including the tip in the total of the bill you get when dining out, including one Taylor eatery's attempt to strongarm patrons into coughing up a 99% gratuity — something the waitress later tried to pass off as only a joke. There's only one little problem.

Nobody was laughing.

We’ve got nothing against tipping. When it's earned. But 99% is beyond the pale. As for those uppity machines, if they want a tip from us, we’ll give ’em one all right.

Because nothing beats the crash they make when they go over.

Talk Back with Doug Spade and Mike Clement is heard every Saturday morning from 9 a.m. to noon Eastern Time atwww.dougspade.com.