This is a departure from my usual subject matter, but I’m just back from a fantastic holiday in Brisbane, Australia. It was great because of the people I got to share the adventure with. And because Brisbane is such an amazing place. This city delivered lots of surprises. One such surprise was the most amazing transit system. Those Brisbane City Cats & Kitty Cats that zip up & down the meandering Brisbane River are an unbelievable treat. And you can go anywhere in southeast Queensland for 50 cents! Hey, I’m frugal, what can I say! That 50c fare had me smiling every time I tapped onto a bus, train, or river boat! And, for a change, I was not the designated holiday driver. I got to be a real tourist this trip! LOL

There was one other enjoyable thing that I didn’t even realise had any significance ’til I got back home. This was something simple. A thing that added a little extra joy to every dining experience down under. There is no tipping there!

I grew up in a country that only hinted at the occasional requirement for a small, token tip. And even that would require some very exceptional service. And maybe slight inebriation on the part of the tipper! For me, tipping was not the norm way back then. It was a bit of a culture shock when I first came to Canada. But after decades of living here, I am totally conditioned to providing the obligatory tip. Even when the food or service is pretty awful. In Australia, tipping is not the norm. And I think the Aussies might have it right!

For starters, the minimum wage in Oz is over $24 an hour. Servers get paid a reasonable wage, without having to generate some high-energy Hollywood charm to “earn” a decent tip. The Aussie system might be especially appreciated by servers who provide great service on days when the chef is having an off-day. Their paycheque is not negatively impacted by someone else screwing things up! Whilst there, I spoke with some people who have had experience in the service industry in both Canada & down under. While it’s too small a sample group to be of any value to make generalisations, they were unanimous in their preference for the Australian way of doing things. Especially the higher basic wage.

As a consumer, I learned something new about all this too. I had no idea there was so much subliminal stress involved in eating out in North America! I’m calling it subliminal because, day to day, I didn’t even notice it. Until I was subjected to the tip-free process down under. When it comes to paying the bill, you don’t even need to do any math in Oz. There are no tip calculations to consider!
My first meal out in Australia was a bit of a disaster. Not because of the quality of the meal, that was great. But because I was trying to tip a confused server. The machine didn’t prompt me for a tip & I had no idea how to handle that! 😜
I finally managed to get the tip into the machine, but I never mention tipping again for the rest of my stay.

Not having to tip means no there is no weighing up whether service was good or bad. If it was terrible, sure, you might complain. If it was amazing, you might flag the server’s efforts to the manager. But if it falls into that very broad band of acceptability, you just enjoy the parting exchange with another human being. The slightly horrible process of one human being sitting in judgement of another, while the amount of the tip is considered, is eliminated. And how about those times when the service is good, but the food is terrible? Should we reduce the tip? That’s punishing the server for the quality of the food & that wasn’t their responsibility. No fair, eh? In Australia, all that goes away.

The machines don’t arrive with the suggestion that tipping starts at 15% either! Wasn’t 10% a good tip way back when I first came to Canada? In Oz, they just show the final amount that you see on your bill. And this is for a dining in experience. Not having a tip suggested at a take-away (take-out!) counter was even better! And I never found myself having to supress a surge of anger towards any machine having the audacity to suggest that 20% was just a mediocre starting tip! All in all, finishing up the dining experience & paying for a meal is just a slightly nicer & better experience in Australia, compared to here.

While the consumer (me!) certainly benefits from the Aussie system, it feels like the bigger advantage of their non-tipping culture might be for the service staff. For starters, they are paid a decent wage. Canadian minimum wage levels are lower than the Australian rates. Canada doesn’t have any of the super-low hourly rates that apply to servers in some US states, but wages are still lower here than in Australia. Potentially, at the end of every meal, there are some slightly judgemental things that surround the whole tipping culture in North America. It may be subtle & almost insignificant, but they are there nonetheless. With worse potential for abuse are things like the tip-out practice. This requires servers to share their tips with other members of staff. So the chef that did a lousy job preparing the food still gets a cut of the tip from the server who provided great service. Even when the poor quality of the chef’s work triggered a tip reduction. In some places, I’m told the tip-out is calculated on the amount of the table bill. Even when the server gets no tip! So a server who provides great service, but delivers poorly prepared food might get no tip. And they have to pay a tip-out fee to the chef or other staff members who may have done the lousy job that encouraged the customer not to tip. Is this for real? The server could actually be financially penalised for the poor quality of someone else’s work!?! This feels like a really bad system to me. Dining out is supposed to be a pleasant & relaxing experience. Thinking about all this stuff is anything but! I really don’t know how the average server in Canada feels about all this, but I really enjoyed the Aussie experience as a consumer. And Aussie service staff seem to like it too.

I’m not sure if we can change anything for the better up here, but if there are there any Canadian restaurants that are boosting pay & prohibiting tipping, please let me know where. I’d certainly be willing to pay a little more to dine in that kind of environment. Assuming the chef wasn’t screwing up the food every time! LOL

It’ll be back to boring investing type stuff next time but, despite the horrendously long journey & the awful jet lag, I highly recommend a visit to Brisbane. It is a wonderful city, in an amazing country, with really nice people, & great weather. While I would probably try to avoid the heat of the Queensland summer (🥵), it’s definitely a worthwhile bucket-list destination & experience at other times of the year!

If you want to learn more about saving & investing from the ground up, I’d like to suggest that you check out Double Double Your Money, available at your local Amazon store.

Important – this is not investing, tax or legal advice, it is for entertainment & conversation-provoking purposes only. Data may not be accurate. Check the current & historical data carefully at any company’s or provider’s website, particularly where a specific product, stock or fund is mentioned. Opinions are my own & I regularly get things wrong, so do your own due diligence & seek professional advice before investing your money.