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This article is part of\u00a0<\/i>Upstream<\/a>,<\/i>\u00a0The Daily Wire\u2019s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories \u2014 from our featured writers to you.<\/i><\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n There are few annoyances worse than when a nice young man flips around a tiny virtual tablet that reads \u201cadd tip\u201d after he did all the work of rotating his body 75 degrees to grab you an $18 beer from a fridge.<\/p>\n It\u2019s true: Tipping culture has gotten out of hand in the United States. I try to tip generously because I used to work as a delivery driver. I know the struggle of trying to scrape together some cash at the mercy of strangers who are tasked with making up the difference between the cost of living and your poverty base wage.<\/p>\n That only applies to actual services, though: waiting, bartending, delivery, etc. There are plenty of cases (such as the stadium beer kiosk) where the expectation of tipping is wrongly bleeding Americans dry.<\/p>\n And don\u2019t get me started on communal tipping. I can\u2019t think of anything more demoralizing than getting a fat tip due to your excellent service, only to be forced to pool it with the rest of your coworkers who didn\u2019t do a thing to earn it.<\/p>\n My disdain for this excess of American culture changed, though, when I recently took a trip to Ireland.<\/p>\n In Ireland, like much of Europe, they don\u2019t do tipping the way we do. You can tack on 5 to 10% for your waiter or bartender if the service is particularly good, but it\u2019s not expected. And a service charge is often already included. You don\u2019t get sideways looks for just paying the tab and leaving like you would stateside.<\/p>\n My initial reaction to this was relief. Finally, some simplicity in this life. The meals may be a bit more expensive because the labor cost is factored into price, but simply being able to pay and go without doing extra math and giving a performance review at the end of the meal would be nice.<\/p>\n Things began to change with each passing day. When we had our first sit-down dinner of the trip, I couldn\u2019t help but notice how inattentive the waitstaff was. No refills of water. Twenty minutes passing by between being seated and having our order taken. Want to get some extra condiments on the side after the food arrives? Good luck.<\/p>\n I thought it may be an anomaly, but then the same experience kept repeating itself every single time we had dinner during the trip. I will say this didn\u2019t extend to bartending service \u2014 I\u2019m talking strictly about sit-down meals here \u2014 but without a single exception, the service was just dreadful, inattentive, and slow.<\/p>\n It was the type of experience that makes one pause and reflect on the bigger picture. I\u2019m not saying that Europe\u2019s poor table service is a direct consequence of a culture that stifles innovation and snuffs out the ambition of the individual for the good of the collective, but it is striking that we don\u2019t have this issue in hyper-capitalist America.<\/p>\n Now, you may be thinking this was my fault somehow. Maybe my Americanness was an affront to the waitstaff\u2019s European sensibilities. I don\u2019t think so. I wasn\u2019t acting visibly foreign, and the staff were very polite and personable in every interaction. I gathered no sense of disdain whatsoever \u2014 only indifference.<\/p>\n My only conclusion can be that these workers did not put an American-level effort in because they didn\u2019t have to. There was no incentive to give me good service, so they didn\u2019t. The system failed.<\/p>\n The experience has certainly changed my perspective on tipping culture. Yes, it remains excessive in certain American contexts. But there\u2019s a wisdom to Chesterton\u2019s fence<\/a>: If something has been around a while, it just might serve a purpose you\u2019ll miss when it\u2019s gone.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n