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Join us, feminist coaches Taina Brown and Becky Mollenkamp, for casual (and often deep) conversations about business, current events, politics, pop culture, and more. We’re not perfect activists or allies! These are our real-time, messy thoughts as we make sense of the world around us. If you also want to create a more just and equitable world, please join us on the journey to Messy Liberation.
Becky Mollenkamp: Welcome back, how are you?
Taina Brown: Welcome, welcome. I'm doing all right today, really tired. How are you?
Becky Mollenkamp: I mean, I live in a terminal state of tired. Since I've had a child, so for eight years I've been tired, so I totally relate.
Taina Brown: I don't have a child, but I do have two very old dogs who take turns being sick and ornery.
Becky Mollenkamp: I feel that I've had the dog thing too. And it is also real. But we're going to I don't want to say push through. We're just going to be with our tiredness as we talk today about tipping culture. I was wanting to talk about tipping culture because I knew I was going to be going to a spa. And as I was thinking about that in the week leading up to it, I was like, OK, how much do I have to tip? I know I'm going to have to tip. Like, what's the going rate? And then just thinking about how annoying I find tipping in general. Then I went to the spa. And so I had already suggested the topic. And then I went to the spa and had a really not great experience. And it really affirmed for me that I want to talk about tipping culture because I went to get a facial, which I never do, because I didn't want to deal with getting undressed and just, I don't know, I was like, I want to make this like a really relaxing and easy experience at the spa.
Taina Brown: Yeah, low lift.
Becky Mollenkamp: And it did not turn out that way because this woman who was she had beautiful skin, she was younger than me, she was very nice.
Taina Brown: Until.
Becky Mollenkamp: I mean, she was still nice. She was nice throughout. So I don't ever want to paint the picture. She wasn't nice. And also, I want to be clear, she was doing her job as that job currently exists. But she started from the beginning to the end talking to me about my skincare, which is a lack thereof. So she started out by asking me what I do for my skincare. I'm like, well, nothing. I said I basically just take a shower. And then I put on lotion with SPF. That's literally all it is. I'm not concerned about how my face looks after this. I'm just here to relax. And this seemed like it would be a nice relaxing experience. But she was like, well, you need to be doing at minimum these four things, which I think were like cleansing, toning, moisturizing, and SPF. I remembered because she talked about it enough. And of those I do exactly one, but it's combining two.
Taina Brown: Yeah, so you do two. You're halfway there. If you want it to go there, you're halfway there.
Becky Mollenkamp: So anyway, she just throughout this whole experience was telling me about this. And then, but she kept bringing it back to this, like, you really need to love yourself more. You really need to show yourself more love. And she's like, I think it's great that you don't care about these things, but you really need to be loving on yourself more. And like, so she was playing at this like self love thread the whole time that felt really manipulative and yucky. And I knew the way she was talking, I was going to get a sales pitch at the end to buy products. I didn't go into this expecting to be sold product to have this be a sales pitch. I went in truly thinking as any massage I've ever had, which is just here, come in, I'm gonna massage you, you're gonna relax, and then you're gonna leave. I've never been pitched stuff when I've gone and gotten a massage. Right? So I expected it to be a similar experience, but just with my face. And I will say the procedure itself was really nice. It did exactly what I wanted it to do except that I was bracing the whole time because of how she was talking to me for the sales pitch that was coming at the end.
Taina Brown: Yeah, so you couldn't really relax.
Becky Mollenkamp: Not as much as I would have liked to. And at the end, sure enough, here's all the things. She even ended the service early. I'm going to end the service early so you have time to look at the products.
Taina Brown: No!
Becky Mollenkamp: Right? I don't want you to end early. I don't want to look at the product.
Taina Brown: I want the full experience.
Becky Mollenkamp: I could feel myself coming to like these terms with like, this is gonna happen and I guess I'm gonna buy something. And I know, yes, I have agency to say no, but I could feel just like this heaviness throughout the whole thing of like, well, I guess I gotta buy something at the end, because I'm feeling really judged here.
Taina Brown: The agency slipping through your fingers.
Becky Mollenkamp: Right, and so sure enough, I bought a very expensive $75 SPF that's this big. Anyway, I was so upset. And here comes the tipping part. This is related, by the way, to tipping. So at the end, she then, in front of me, like I don't have, there's not like a, it was her, there was no…
Taina Brown: Yeah, there wasn't like a check out person.
Becky Mollenkamp: Yeah. She says, how much would you like to tip? I'm like, I guess I have to tell you now. And I couldn't even select the button, right? She didn't even let me push the button. Like she made me tell her the percentage. So I was like, well, I guess 18%. That was one of the options like 15, 18, 20. And I think there was even one bigger than that. And normally I tip 20 on food. I don't know what I'm supposed to tip on spa experiences. So anyway, I was like 18, which I probably would have done less frankly, if she hadn't personally made me ask. And after she did it, I looked and realized she was charging me on not just the service, but the product. So I tipped her 18% on the $75 product too. So needless to say, I left there feeling really shitty.
Taina Brown: Hold on a second though, because if she asks you how much you wanted to tip. I've worked retail and hospitality and restaurants, and she had full control over what that final number was gonna be. So she could have input a tipping percentage based only on the service and not the product. But she chose to base that percentage off the service and the product.
Becky Mollenkamp: Yup.
Taina Brown: So she's not nice.
Becky Mollenkamp: I then went to Threads to share the story. Big mistake. I said, this person, short of, I felt all this shame manipulation into buying this product. And she had me tip on the product and the service, blah, blah, blah. Thinking, naively, that I would get a lot of people saying like, man, that sucks. There was some of that. But the bulk of what I got back was people talking about how I was playing the victim. It still just boggles my mind. I was playing the victim, stopping such a victim. I could have said, no, you need to learn how to set boundaries. First of all, I never said I was a victim. I said I felt that way. I didn't say she like put a gun to my head and make me do anything. I fully recognized I could do something different. Like I said, I just could feel the agency slipping from my body, but I also fully know I could have made a different choice. And I will also mention I'm white and she was Black. That doesn't matter except that there was this power differential there as well. So Threads came back at me with all of this and I was like, wow, that's not what I expected. And so to me, it really is all caught up in the bigger capitalist problem of why in the hell does she have to run her business as probably an independent esthetician inside of this company? Or why does her company make her run the business in this way? The reason I was there, by the way, was because I had a gift card. I didn't mention that. This was supposed to be a free, wonderful gift to myself. I had a $10 difference in my gift card. I knew I was going to have to pay, but I walked out of there paying like $115 because I had to pay that difference plus the product plus the tip on the service and the product, which, by the way, the tip was on the entire service price, which again, OK, that should be. I expected to pay a tip and I expected to pay the difference. I didn't expect to leave paying $115. So anyway, capitalism sucks, tipping sucks, and I hate that we can't just pay people what we think they should be paid like they do in Europe.
Taina Brown: Yeah, in Europe and other places. And I totally get that. And as someone who has worked in restaurants before and hospitality, I know what it's like to have to rely on tips for your livelihood. When I was a server in a restaurant and a bar manager, I made minimum wage whenever that was like my shift. But if I was scheduled to serve and not manage the bar, then I was making a server's wage, which was like $2.30 an hour. And so you're really relying on people's generosity and their understanding of what it's like to be a server, to make ends meet. And so this never happened to me, but I remember hearing stories from my coworkers about because they didn't make enough tips, like they owed the business money. Because like after you take taxes off $2.30, like it's an like you get a negative paycheck, basically. So you have to pay out the owner of the restaurant. Usually servers also have to pay out like bar staff, like they share their tips with bar staff and with the kitchen staff. And so it's, I agree, capitalism sucks. And it sucks that we can't just like agree that people who work, regardless of the type of work that they do, deserve to be compensated equitably so that they can put a roof over their head and take care of their children and pay their bills. I hear the argument all the time, mostly from older folks who are like, well, why should we pay someone who works at McDonald's $15 an hour or $20 an hour and that's going to hike up the price and whatnot. And I mean, I think at the end of the day, it will probably drive prices up, but only because corporations are greedy. Not necessarily because it's going to cost more to pay those people or to create the products or create the food at McDonald's or Wendy's or wherever. It's because corporations are trying to increase their profit margins and in order to do that They have to pay people as little as possible while simultaneously producing as much as possible so if you ever go into a grocery store or a Target and it used to be where there was 10 cashiers open at a Target, and now you go in and there's like two cashiers open and everything else is self-checkout and there's a reason for that. It's because Target is trying to drive up their profit margin by hiring less employees or scheduling less employees. So that leaves the responsibility on the customer to ring up their own shit, bag their own shit. Now you have to pay for bags, which I get that's a whole climate change thing as well. But like we talked about in a previous episode, three or four corporations are responsible for most of the climate disaster that we're seeing today. So going from plastic bags to paper bags might make a little bit of a difference, but it's not going to make much of a difference. I think when it comes to tipping culture, I decided for myself a long time ago that if I'm not prepared to tip someone at least 20%, then I'm just not going to do the thing. And so I'm not going to go out to eat. I'm not going to get a facial or a massage or anything like that until I'm ready to commit to tipping at least 20%. Now, when it comes to, I think, massages and facials, there is a structure. And there's also a structure if the person owns the business or if they're employed by someone else. So there's all these rules that nobody fucking tells you. You kind of have to figure out on your own.
Becky Mollenkamp: Right, where's the freaking guide for that, right? I eventually somewhere in my late 20s, I think, learned about the difference between what you would tip an owner of a salon versus somebody who's renting a chair in a salon. No one ever told me. I don't know. For the longest time, I was tipping the owner of the salon I went to because that's who did my hair, the same that I would have tipped anyone else. And she never mentioned, you don't need to do that. Of course, because she's making more money. And I get it. And also it feels unethical. And I do think there's a big difference between an esthetician who's making a certain amount of money. I know she's not being paid minimum wage. If she is, that's deeply problematic when they're charging that much money for a facial. I cannot believe an esthetician or massage therapist are making minimum wage or less than minimum wage like a server. So that to me feels like a very different scenario where is it 20 % no matter what? I was a server as well. I was a cocktail waitress. I made two, some three, two something dollars an hour, whatever, and relied fully on tips and made great money with tips. I respect and tip very well servers that are doing that work, that are bringing me the food, that are hustling to make their living. I get it. And I always tip 20% plus for that scenario because I know they're making $2 an hour. They're not even making minimum wage. I'm responsible for helping getting them to minimum wage. I also think that's problematic, but I'm not, I don't blame the server in that scenario. I blame capitalism. But that to me is very different than somebody who's making $60 an hour or whatever they make as massage therapists. And I do believe it's somewhere in that range.
Taina Brown: Yeah, it's higher. It's higher for sure.
Becky Mollenkamp: And now I'm tipping them 20 % as well. That feels very different to me, right? And where's the line? And then by the way, the McDonald's worker, they make minimum wage. I don't think that's enough. And yet now you go to McDonald's or Panera or any other place and they're asking you to tip. When they're not bringing you food, they're not checking in on you. They're not refreshing your drinks. They're not making $2 an hour. They're making minimum wage. Minimum wage isn't high enough. But also am I now supposed to be tipping 20 % to somebody who's doing exactly what that job description is, but nothing like there's no customer service. There's no additional. The lines have become so incredibly blurred and it all falls back on the consumer to try and figure it out. We are left now trying to figure out how much does this person deserve to be paid for their job. That's not my fucking job as the consumer. That's the employer's job, but the employer isn't doing it and no government is forcing them to. And so once again, just like we talked about with the environment, it's all falling back on me and I'm being made to feel like I'm solely responsible now for how much this person's being paid. I'm responsible and feeling guilty about having done enough. They're asking me right in front of me. I go to Panera, the person who doesn't do anything but just type in the order, asks me for a tip. And it's like, I have to now say no in front of them. That stuff makes people feel shitty. And it ultimately makes me not even want to go anywhere, like you said, but not because I'm not prepared to tip but because I don't think it's right. And it's really my anger isn't with the individuals, it's with these corporations that are doing this to us. It's bullshit.
Taina Brown: It is and I think what really gets me about it is that if you like, because I remember this from my server days, like if people leave a cash tip, like you don't necessarily have to. I mean, you should claim that on your taxes. I'm not advocating that you shouldn't claim that on your taxes.
Becky Mollenkamp: And I certainly claimed every bit of my tips on my taxes, Mr. IRS, if you're listening to this.
Taina Brown: Yes, so did I, so did I. But we know that that doesn't happen sometimes. But if it's added to the debit or credit exchange, it does automatically get taxed. And so that, I think, takes away some of the agency for me on behalf of the employee. Because it's like, if this isn't already embedded into my structured pay, then why should I have to pay taxes on it? That's a question that we can kind of grapple with philosophically. I get your frustration. I have decided for myself that tipping is a way that I can provide mutual support to folks who don't earn. What they should be earning to live lives that are flourishing and that are thriving. And I think the biggest frustration for me out of all of it is how capitalism hits us against each other, how it makes us the villain. Because then if we don't tip, regardless of whatever service you're getting, whether it's food or some kind of hospitality service. If you don't tip, then you're the villain. But who's the actual villain? There's so many ways that the way that capitalism functions, it just creates these divisive me vs. you, us vs. them. It others people so much. And there's no ethical consumption under capitalism. There's no way to be completely ethical because capitalism is built on the exploitation of labor. So how do we, the question for me is always like, how do we engage in labor practices or in capitalistic ventures like owning a business, both of us as business owners, both of us as consumers, how do we engage in consumption without furthering that exploitation without furthering that harm in a way that represents not the current system that we operate in, but the system that we want to operate in, the system that we hope will someday be what it is that, be what we want it to be. I think it's a case-by-case situation. I remember when you shared the story with me about your salon visit, I was hella mad. First of all, on a salon service, I think the general rule is 10 to 15% of a tip. And the fact that when you go to a salon, whether you're getting your hair done, whether you're getting a facial, a massage, a foot rub, whatever the fuck, the whole point of those experiences is relaxation. The whole point is for the customer, the consumer, to be at peace, to be completely relaxed, because you want them to leave feeling good about the experience. That situation, the reason that I was so angry about it was, yes, the whole tipping fiasco and the pressure to purchase other things, but also, who the fuck is running this business in a way that they're making their employees create this kind of user experience? Because I've been to spas where no one ever pressured me to buy anything, and it was the best experience. And then I've been to spas where people did pressure, like I've had a facial before where they pressured me to like purchase something and I was like, I'm never going back there.
Becky Mollenkamp: Well, I certainly won't go back. AndI've had many manicures and pedicures, never been pressured to buy a thing. And I've had many massages, never pressured to buy anything. But the people on Threads treated me like I was some moron. They're like, this is how it goes, that you should have known. You should just know that's what's going to happen. And I'm like, I didn't know. And I'm like, if they're going to do that, if part of their business model is, hey, we're going to pressure you to buy products or we expect or hope that you will buy products, then communicate that on your website or from the start of the visit or something, because it felt so bait and switch-y is what it felt like. I wasn't ready for this. And that's what I think felt so difficult and why I could feel the energy just draining from my body. Because I was just like, this is not what I thought it was going to be. And now I don't know how to handle this. And I'm not prepared. They've got me in this vulnerable, weak state now. They've got me where I'm feeling relaxed. I'm not feeling the way I need to feel personally to feel like I can say no and feel okay about walking out one -on -one with that, like, because it feels confrontational. And yeah, I get that's my own baggage. So again, I'm not blaming her specifically, but I'm blaming the system of like, think, tell me upfront. Just tell me upfront. Don't be gross about it.
Taina Brown: Yeah, so I think this then is really like, yes, it's about the tipping, but it's also about how to ethically run a business, right? Like, if you are, if you're going to run a business, first of all, most like, from what I know about salon owners, whether it's hair or some other kind of service, like your bread and butter is the service, not the products that you're selling. So if you are pushing so hard on the products that you're selling, you're wasting your energy there. What you need to be focusing on is how to create an excellent service experience for your customers. So that right there seems like a mismatch business model based on what they're actually providing or what they're doing. But then the other thing, too, is like, If we're talking about being ethical business owners that aren't perpetuating these capitalistic norms that create these systems where different people or communities are harmed then an ethical business practice is one that is built on consent. And you did not consent to that experience because it was never made clear to you that, yes, you're coming in for this service, but we also want to sell you a product. We're not just selling this service. If you felt like you couldn't say no without it being a confrontation, that's the definition of anti-consent.
Becky Mollenkamp: Exactly. And I do think the consent piece and that expectation around tipping is so important. Like we all know. I feel like we all understand what servers make and that tipping is a vital part of their life. The way tipping is becoming more insidious though, and showing up in places where you don't expect it or where people are actually making more money. And again, all of the issues around how people are being paid, but it just becomes, it feels less consensual and it feels more sleazy and it's becoming more commonplace. But then I think it also, to me, it also hurts the servers because when people who are making minimum wage or much more than that are now asking for tips, it starts to dilute your understanding of what tipping means. And those servers who are making $2 an hour, if people become so incredibly frustrated with tipping, and I know a lot of people who feel this way, they may start to say, I'm just not tipping. Like, fuck all of it. And then that harms those people who actually truly, fully depend on it. And I get that the McDonald's worker is only making minimum wage and minimum wage is not enough, and we need to fix that. But I think it is still different than when you're making not even minimum wage. You're making $2 an hour. So I don't know. Again, it's messy. This is all messy.
Taina Brown: It is messy. It is messy.
Becky Mollenkamp: And I don't want to sound like a Karen because I want to be clear. I do tip, and I tip generously in most scenarios. But I am reaching a place where more and more where it does not where it feels like a cash grab that wasn't something that we all agree to as a society, like in these weird places, more and more I'm like, I get pissed and sometimes I don't because I just am like, this is, it's too much. If I'm helping to pay your employees, you're gonna continue to lean on that more and more. Like me saying, yeah, I'll participate in that system. I get that it helps that employee and I do wanna help them. And I feel like it gives more and more permission to the business owners to continue to push that onto us as consumers instead of taking on that responsibility. It's messy. It's messy. There is no easy answer, but anyway, okay. We're reaching the end of our time to talk about tipping because one, my child, speaking of messy, is coming in because I got to get him to camp. And we're going to talk. We have one answer or one question that we're going to answer today that comes from Cayla Merrill, who said we could use her name, who we both love and we are in communities with. And she asked, what makes a business or a person, for that matter, feminist? This could be a really giant question, but I think for me, it feels like a pretty easy answer. I don't know what you're going to say, because for me, it is like, I just say, because I'm an intersectional feminist. To me, a feminist is somebody who cares about equity for all people, who cares about all humans being able to survive and thrive. Ultimately, that's what my answer is. What's your answer?
Taina Brown: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I co -sign that, to use a millennial term. And I would also add that an intersectional feminist also is concerned with investigating how power and privilege create systems where some people can thrive and some people can't. And so it's about equity, but it's also about getting to the root of what creates equity and what creates inequity. And so I feel like without that understanding of what the root issues are, we're kind of just on a hamster wheel, just trying to create change without having any real direction or without a real specific target. So that's what I would add on to that. I think how that plays out day to day is a lot more complicated and nuanced, right? Which is why we are having these messy conversations about the day to day life of being an intersectional feminist. But I think that's the overall vision.
Becky Mollenkamp: I just want to bring that your answer I love because it brings right back to the tipping piece, which is the easy answer is equity. But then what does that look like in execution? Like if I'm not investigating the systemic parts of it, then equity looks like, I'm just going to give more money to these people who make less money as servers or whatever. And then it's my responsibility to create that equity. And I think it's really important to consider the systemic issues because that is, to me, not really ultimately the truly intersectional feminist approach. I think that that's a wonderful humanist kind of approach of like, I care about humanity and I wanna make things right or try to help people. But the intersectional feminist approach to the tipping problem to me then says, and what you're saying is let's look at the systemic issues of play, which are capitalism and then the government support of these capitalist structures and the lack of government interference, no intrusion.
Taina Brown: Regulation.
Becky Mollenkamp: Thank you. The government stepping in and saying, we're going to enforce you to pay people living wages so that it doesn't fall on the consumers to create that equity. The equity should be coming through other places in these systems.
Taina Brown: And I think it's both-and. I think that interrogation of capitalist structures and how that affects labor practices and employee wages is a bigger conversation that we can obviously have because there's also the whole thing of corporations getting tax breaks and being deregulated and all of that that creates that inequity in the first place. So there's definitely a lot of layers to this. And so, but I think, what you and I can both agree on is that it's both-and. And so we have to, every day as we're living out our lives, figure out what both-and mean for us and how we engage with that both-and conversation depending on the context.
Becky Mollenkamp: That could have been a name for the show to both-and, but we're going with messy liberation because also all of this is messy. There's just no easy answers, but to me, the feminist piece of it is the interest in the willingness to get messy to explore these things to look for that both-and instead of just the easy answer and the easy way out. So when you think about running your business to speak to that piece of it, not just the personal piece, but the business piece is like being willing to say, I'm going to do that interrogation within my own business and to look for the both and and the messy parts of this. So thank you for another great episode. This one felt very messy and conversational and…
Taina Brown: Personal.
Becky Mollenkamp: Well, I don't know. I am such a person of like, my conditioning is like, I need a three-act structure for things that I create. I love the resolution. I want to like, let's go on the hero's journey.
Taina Brown: There's no resolution here.
Becky Mollenkamp: But I love that. I love that this is forcing me to step outside of that and just be okay with we don't have the all the answers. I'm not going to leave you with the five easy tips or whatever and all that bullshit.
Taina Brown: Absolutely not.
Becky Mollenkamp: So thanks for talking about it with me.
Taina Brown: Yeah, you're so welcome. Until next time.