Photos: Unsplash 
Recently, I wrote about my short stint as a call centre worker in my varsity years and why this experience left me convinced that no call centre could ever be 100% populated with artificial intelligence bots. This week, I’m reflecting on another varsity work experience as I weigh in on the ethics and economics of tipping.
With the exception of my short-lived call centre detour, my university years were synonymous with late nights waiting tables in various restaurants, from Spur in the local mall to four-star restaurants on lush wine estates. I’ve worked in restaurants where I earned a decent basic wage and tips were regarded as a bonus.
In other restaurants, tips were paid in at the end of the night and divided equally among the entire team on shift, including the kitchen and bar staff.
In the very first restaurant I worked in, I earned no basic wage and a percentage of my tips was kept back to cover my uniform costs and any breakages that might happen at my tables (even if it was the diner, not me, who broke something). On a slow day in that job, it would cost me more in transport to get to work than I would make during a six-hour shift.
One of the easiest ways to spot an ex-waiter is in how they tip: often at least 20%, always with profuse thanks. Those who have had to make a living off the generosity of others tend to pay it forward.
Tipping feels simple on the surface – a token of thanks, a small reward for good service. But it turns out tipping is one of the most confusing, contradictory rituals of modern capitalism, especially in South Africa.
Here, tipping is expected across a dizzying number of low-wage roles: restaurant servers, petrol attendants, car guards, hotel porters and delivery drivers. In many of these cases, it’s not just a “nice-to-have” for the person on the receiving end. It’s the difference between surviving and not.
Should we be tipping at all?
Although tipping might feel like a generous act, it arguably props up an exploitative system. In some cases, restaurant workers are paid below minimum wage on the assumption that customer tips will make up the difference.
In South Africa, employers are meant to pay at least the minimum wage – R28.79 per hour as of 2025 – regardless of how much their staff earn in tips. But “meant to” doesn’t always mean “do”.
So, although the menu says R120 for a burger, that price might not be covering the full cost of preparing and serving it. Depending on how the restaurant pays its staff, part of that cost is, in effect, outsourced to the diner – through their tip.
What happens if we stop tipping?
If everyone in South Africa stopped tipping tomorrow, the system would break. Hard and fast. Petrol attendants would lose an essential part of their income. Car guards (many of whom are unemployed or undocumented), would probably vanish overnight. As for restaurant servers, many would walk away from the industry altogether. A number of industries would face an instant staffing crisis.
Why would everything collapse? Because wages in tip-supported industries have not been structured to stand on their own. This means the system survives only through the daily generosity of people who didn’t design it and can’t control it.
One of the strangest things about tipping culture is that it’s “voluntary”, but not really. You’re not legally required to tip, but there’s a strong moral nudge. And for the most part, people respond. They tip 10% to 15%, sometimes more. But not always, and the inconsistency in earnings made through tips leaves workers guessing, every shift, whether they’ll make enough to buy electricity or send their child to school.
Can we fix the system?
There are alternatives. A few high-end South African restaurants have experimented with service charges or tipping bans, replacing them with a higher menu price and a guarantee of fair wages.
Internationally, some restaurateurs have found that banning tips and raising wages improve team morale, reduce staff turnover and deliver a better dining experience. When chefs and servers feel equally valued (and equally paid), the whole team tends to level up.
The catch is that customers have to accept higher prices upfront, and not everyone’s ready for that, especially when they are used to feeling like they decide what the service is worth.
That feeling – the illusion of control – is powerful. Tipping lets diners reward a smile, a witty remark or just the act of someone remembering their sauce on the side. But it also turns honest work into a performance. Waiters are not just working. They’re hustling for approval, for cash, for a chance to be seen as “worth it”.
Until the economics of service work are restructured, tipping remains a stopgap: a workaround for a broken wage model.
And although it may keep the wheels turning in the short term, it introduces volatility into industries that desperately need stability.
For businesses, the lesson is clear: relying on customer generosity to subsidise labour costs isn’t just ethically questionable, it’s operationally risky. A model that depends on unpredictable income flows for frontline workers undermines morale, erodes consistency and limits long-term growth. DM
This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.
