Review Of Steve Dublanica's 'Keep The Change'

In the nonfiction book “Keep the Change: A Clueless Tipper’s Quest to Become the Guru of the Gratuity” by Steve Dublanica, he uncovers the hidden truths within tipping in establishments. Dublanica talks about his investigation of tipping in jobs like restaurant servers, casino dealers, exotic dancers, taxi drivers, etc. He ends up discovering some secrets about tipping along with some ugly truths, but in the end he finds out that tipping is necessary and that tips are all about relationships. While some may argue that tips are not necessary or that tips aren’t about relationships, I agree that with Dublanica that tips are a necessity for workers and that relationships are the base for tips. Dublanica’s main arguments revolve around tips being

Dublanica learned that in many jobs, the workers were discriminated. He found this happening mostly with bathroom attendants as most of them are illegal immigrants. He states that in 2004 it was discovered that many attendants weren't paid any wages and were forced to rely on tips alone (Keep the Change). He also cited Ofer Azar, a Israeli economist, whose paper, “The Social Norm of Tipping: A Review” stated that a server’s appearance and attentiveness didn’t effect the tip significantly while other factors did. Studies have been conducted to see if people really are discriminated for their race. Michael Lynn and Wayne State University professor, Zachary Brewster conducted a study to see between an African American server and white server which one made more money. In the end, they found that African American servers were paid less from both white and African American customers compared to the white servers. They also discovered that despite the African American server’s better service, the white server was still paid more. Not only that, author of the Times Magazine article “Worst Restaurant Customers Use Religion, Racism as Excuses for Not Tipping” Brad Tuttle reported that some customers refuse to tip servers because of appearance, sexuality, or religion. Some of these responses from the customers are very hurtful and are degrade the server, and it hurts the server even more when they aren’t tipped. Despite, Dublanica’s citation of Azar’s paper stating that a server’s appearance doesn’t effect the tip seems to not be true as customers use the appearance to determine the tip. There was even a study conducted by researchers Nicolas Guéguen and Céline Jacob, where with 272 restaurant customers they found that male customers tipped waitresses wearing red more than waitresses who weren’t wearing red. Although race, sexuality, and appearance won’t affect the relationship between the employee