Saint, let’s get back to it. As happens every few years, the tipping controversy returns. Now it is propitious that some restaurants in Barcelona have started to implement a ticket specifying the amount of what you have eaten there and, in addition, three tip suggestions. At RAC1 they were the first to talk about it, at the end of last year. They mentioned the LaBarra restaurant, which just below the amount of what was consumed there, offers three tip options: none (0%), 5% and 10%. Each one is accompanied by the automated calculation of the total, with the addition included.
But the months have passed, the controversy has grown and now more media are talking about it. Is it legal to be presented with these aggressive tickets? Even Facua has put a spoonful in it. In Cuatro, the general secretary of this organization explains that it is not illegal because they do not impose the tip, but there is some malice in this suggestion that tries to take advantage of the good faith of the customer so that he is the one to round up the you are miserable that restaurants pay their workers. Inevitably there are already those who say that what they want is to impose the “American style of tipping”, where you are obliged to leave 15% of the amount of the bill.
It all starts with a bad translation, whether interested or not, of the word tip, which in the American case should be translated by service, as they did in France half a century ago. Whether we understand it or not, in the United States and Canada, the customer pays for the service that the waiter provides. It is not only legal but also mandatory and, therefore, it is not a tip, which is always voluntary. They are their laws and, if we are not able to understand them, when we go there it is better to never set foot in any restaurant and always go with a KitKat in your pocket. However, the ones here are not theirs and it is a shame that they try to make us pass off as a tip what it is not.
