Tip Karma and The Disappearance of Any Semblance of Privacy in Our Lives Today

I have never been accused of being a great tipper. I’m right around average in restaurants and hair salons, and never has it brought me joy to throw my money down voluntarily. I don’t know if it’s heritage (Moses is my savior) or learned, but I just have never “lived to tip.” The joy my money might bring a waitress or busser simply hasn’t crossed my mind. For most of my life, I’ve preferred to keep my hard-earned dollars close at hand.

All this is changing.

For the first time, I’m working in a tip-based environment, one where my making an okay living depends on people realizing that my actual job doesn’t pay me jack shit; that in fact, the brunt of the responsibility is on them, the people actually receiving the service (rather than the company who technically employs me). I’ve received all manner of tips: small, medium, large, and truly exceptional. I’ve been loving the big ones, as you might imagine; but I’ll take all the rest without complaint, from shitty to average. But WHEN A MISCREANT DECIDES NOT TO TIP ME AT ALLLLLL . . . well that’s when I get mad. That’s when I get hopping mad and in fact furious and come back home steaming and sit in front of my computer and decided to GOOGLE THE RAT BASTARD.

Yes, folks, your privacy has disappeared; it has vaporized. I got this dude’s full name before he even got served; all my managers, owners, and fellow co-workers could have had it too. His name was just out on a computer screen for the full eight hours I was there. And when someone doesn’t tip, well, you do stand there and stare hatefully at his name for some long minutes. You just do.

And in this day and age, it’s a small feat indeed to type the perp’s name into my search box and come up with not just his Facebook page (I haven’t friended him yet . . . yet) but his fucking profession and the address of his work. My man is a DOCTOR. Does that just not beat all?? Overpaid, smug, weird, non-tipping-ass doctor. Really, I don’t know what to do: write him a letter? Tape something up on the front door of his practice to the effect of: “YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS ABOUT YOUR DOCTOR: HE IS A NO TIPPING TRIFLING MISCREANT and HE MAY NOT CARE THAT MUCH ABOUT YOU.” It would feel good: to let the world know.

What’s my point? Other than that I’m angry?

1. You cannot get away with anything in this world anymore. It’s too easy to track you. Technology is way, way too good. Did you know that Babe Ruth had a gigantic appetite for not just hot dogs, but women? It was kept out of the press by the journalists of the time, emerging only after his death. Nowadays text messages, phone calls, credit cards, and all manner of GPS and tape recorders have conspired to trap Tiger Woods’ dumb ass. My question to him is, with so much on the line, why’d he think he could get away with it in the first place? And isn’t his wife fine enough for him? I’m sorry, but she’s damn near perfect (looking). He was living in a delusional otherworld. And so was this doctor, when he dissed me and thought he’d heard the last of my loud ass.

2. I need to work on my tipping. Obviously this jackass of an MD was sent here for a reason: he’s teaching me that there IS someone at the receiving end of all my boring, average, Jewish tips. I need to loosen up and share the fat of my wallet when there is fat. What goes around comes around, kid: I need to be more generous.

Updates to follow on the saga of this doctor. I’m mad right now, so maybe when my head clears somewhat, I’ll see that vengenance should probably not follow. Some sort of mischief is in order, though, I sense. Don’t you?