Stop “Working on Your Relationship with Jesus”

I worked at Taco Bell in high school, and while tips are a non factor there, the church crowd were always the rudest, most condescending people you had to deal with.

I just love how some Christians just cop this attitude that runs something like “well, God, the most powerful being in the universe forgives me, so what’s YOUR f*cking problem?”
(“…you mere human and godless heathen to boot”)

*facepalm*

They don’t come out and say that word for word, but their actions speak louder than words on this point.

The single most damaging phenomenon to the witness of Christianity in America today is the collective behavior of the Sunday morning lunch crowd.

Funny, but that’s over-stating things a bit, no?

I know a person who is exactly like this. Selfish to the point of oblivious, exhibits stratospheric levels of arrogance and is always the first person to raise their hand to answer a theological question. This person studies the Bible relentlessly and brags about 2 hour prayer sessions. Yes, brags about praying.
“So” I want to ask, “what has all this kafe-klatching with god done for your character?”

And in another vein, the rowdiest, smokingest, drinkingest, sex-havingest (and, recently, anal-sex-havingest) crowd comes from your neighborhood church’s youth group.

Interestingly, when asked what the ONE most important commandment was, Jesus gave TWO answers: love God, and love your neighbor. As if to say the two are one and the same.

I think all of us desire to be virtuous examples of humanity. I think that most of us understand on a basic biological basis that things like love, compassion, and empathy are really what matter.

I think the professor hits on a very important point. When you try to be a virtuous human because you think you should, you are no longer being virtuous. You are now doing it for selfish reasons.

Give me a virtuous atheist any day. They don’t do it because they think they should to please some deity. They do it solely to be virtuous.

I don’t think tipping is necessarily a good metric. I’m an atheist who doesn’t tip on any day of the week for reasons that have nothing to do with money. I simply find the whole system of tipping incredibly primitive and inappropriate. In what other industry is the costumer, rather than the business, expected to pay the salary of the employees?

Frank wrote:

I don’t think tipping is necessarily a good metric. I’m an atheist who doesn’t tip on any day of the week for reasons that have nothing to do with money. I simply find the whole system of tipping incredibly primitive and inappropriate. In what other industry is the costumer, rather than the business, expected to pay the salary of the employees?

Frank, I understand your position; it is an extremely backward setup, with the effect of making wage policy for millions of people subject to “custom” (and whims).

However, this custom, whether sensible or not, is deeply rooted and pervasive in our culture. I can understand if you want to protest it by opting out, but a relative handful of people not tipping the waitstaff will never correct the matter and induce restaurateurs (and especially restaurant corporations) to pay their waitpeople a proper wage. It will result only in waitpeople getting shafted even worse than they already are.

Regardless of how the system got here, or how screwed up it is, that’s how things work in the United States. (I have no idea how such things are handled elsewhere.) So please reconsider your position on tipping. Thanks.

~David D.G.

A) Dr. Beck and I went to college together. ACU is our mutual alma mater. I knew him. If you want a great interview with a brilliant Christian, Richard is your man.

B) As a waiter myself, I will ask Frank to kindly keep to self-service restaurants with no tipped employees. Let me be clear, Frank, and anyone else with a similar misunderstanding:

If you do not tip, you are a thief. You have stolen a service in exactly the same way you would have if you didn’t pay the plumber or electrician who provides a service. Someone who would have paid me for my service could have been sitting at that table. I have to pay my rent with those tips, man.

Ripping off servers is not the way to change the system. It will only hurt the people who are washing your feet.

‘Nuff said.

Frank, I’m going to borrow from Wil Wheaton’s blog and use his motto: “Don’t be a dick!”

@Scott, nope that is not overstating anything. Ask any waitstaff about Sunday lunch/brunch. Monetary tips can be counted in pennies. Tips consisting of Chick tracts and church literature could fill a -large- recycle bin.

I think religion has become an ugly word, a taboo even. I think this holds especially true of organized religions. Many believers I’ve talked to seem to think that their church has “lost its way”, and they need to “get back to their roots” (i.e. God). It seems like a nice idea, but it’s a shallow sentiment. It’s like saying:

“I don’t have a job; I have a professional relationship with a company that pays me for my services”

or

“I don’t have a family; I have a biological and/or psychological relationship with the persons who raised me”

You can phrase it however you want, but you’re stuck in the same boat. I think Dr. Beck has the right idea. Stop worrying about your “relationship with God” and focus on the real matters at hand.

My thoughts on The Atheist’s question is that the central message of Christ is one of reconciliation and loving our fellow brothers and sisters. That includes respecting their choices regarding religion.

That also includes actively addressing the worldly needs of all: hunger, health care, safety, etc. A lot of the “working on my relationship with Christ” is a form of self-gratification that makes the perfect excuse to avoid actually doing anything.

Short response: self-proclaimed Christian, Little Sister of the Blessed Sepulcher, agnostic, atheist, or otherwise, if you don’t tip you’re a dick.

so at least Mormon Christians could argue that by getting right with God, they are getting right with everyone…

Or to put it another way, by getting right with everyone, they were getting right with god,… which makes more sense to me.
One of the sayings attributed to Jesus is, “if ye have done it to the least of these thy brethren, ye have done it unto me.” So if you served your fellow humans you would be serving god. I don’t believe in god but I think the serving your fellow humans part was good.

From my harrowing memories of the ‘Rapture Ready’ forums, I got the impression that some strains of fundiness emphasis ‘faith’ rather than ‘works’ for a ticket to heaven – even to the extent that doing good works for people is actually a sin, as it’s calling god a liar. Or something…

See also: the Prosperity Gospel…

I think Dr. Beck’s commentary is very obvious. I can’t imagine anyone offering much disagreement with it. Then I read the comments after his article. While some comments were full of thanks and agreement, many of them were very sad. Some seem incapable of being decent people without their “relationship with god,” while others are not interested in being “decent” because, they say, Jesus was not “decent.”

Christianity may have many faces, but I find most of them very ugly.

@keddaw

1. Just because your tight-ass company/country doesn’t pay the staff a decent living wage why should the customer, who is already paying for the goods and service provided fork out more to pay for the staff? When you buy a car do you tip the dealer, the test driver, the assembler? No. It’s all included in the price. Tipping should be the exception for exceptional service and should never be expected.

The way I think of it is like this: part of my salary is in the form of a bonus at the company’s discretion based on the company’s performance (last year we got no bonus). How much bonus (if any) any employee gets is allocated by the dept. manager who, since I don’t deal with the public, is my only “customer.”

I look at waiting as a profession where one’s bonus is determined even more directly based on performance. It fosters direct feedback from the customer and probably does a good job of maintaining service levels relatively high. Actually, it’s too bad all jobs can’t be similarly tied to performance.

The price you pay for the meal may cover the food, but not the service. The remainder still remains to be paid, but it just so happens that it’s at your discretion. Otherwise, you’d just see higher prices on the menu and the task of rating waite-persons would fall back on the shoulders of restaurant management.

The chick tract tippers are not only dicks but THIEVES.

Mr. Pink: I don’t tip because society says I have to. All right, if someone deserves a tip, if they really put forth an effort, I’ll give them something a little something extra. But this tipping automatically, it’s for the birds. As far as I’m concerned, they’re just doing their job.

Seconded. That their job pays minimum, or below minimum, wage is not my fault and neither is it my responsibility.

Mr. Pink: I’m very sorry the government taxes their tips, that’s f*cked up. That ain’t my fault. It would seem to me that waitresses are one of the many groups the government f*cks in the ass on a regular basis. Look, if you ask me to sign something that says the government shouldn’t do that, I’ll sign it, put it to a vote, I’ll vote for it, but what I won’t do is play ball. And as for this non-college bullshit I got two words for that: learn to f*ckin’ type, ’cause if you’re expecting me to help out with the rent you’re in for a big f*ckin’ surprise.

Not everyone can type or get a job that allows them to work varied hours like waiting or bar work, but I agree with most of what Mr Pink is saying.

In the great capitalist country the obvious problem is supply and demand, waiting staff are easy to find and replace and the skills required are common, but the number of jobs limited. This pushes the wages down, but surely the better thing to do is save the tips and give them to the poor people who didn’t get the waiting job – they’re much worse off.

@ Polly

“I look at waiting as a profession where one’s bonus is determined even more directly based on performance. It fosters direct feedback from the customer and probably does a good job of maintaining service levels relatively high.”

This is not borne out by experience however. Tipping has very little to do with the actual quality of service.

Here is an overview
http://www.icrsurvey.com/Study.aspx?f=AP_Tipping_0702.html

and here is a link to Michael Lynn’s research. http://cupeople.sanmita.com/pages/wml3/working_papers.htm

I know in my case I leave around 20% because the math is so easy.

So we are discriminating against people who work for low price restaurants by giving them a percentage of the total bill, which is decided by the owner.

Surely, as we are paying for service, we should have a flat fee for a tip regardless if the meal was $20 or $200?

Am I the only one that sees the huge logical flaw in this automatic tipping?

@Seedlet

That their job pays minimum, or below minimum, wage is not my fault and neither is it my responsibility.

I said it, albeit while arguing for the other side.

Over here, service is included in the price. Much easier. Tipping is appreciated but not in any way expected or common.

I used to work in a café, and one day we got a group of three American tourists. They had a few beers and whe it was time to pay, one of them asked me how much it was customary to tip in Iceland. I told him that we don’t really do that. They were surprised, and asked me how much minimum wage was, what the average prices were for groceries, rent, et.c. When they left, each tipped me around twenty bucks (20$ would buy two beers at the time, but beer is friggin expensive here). That was nice.
I then made the mistake of telling my boss, who said I could keep it ‘this time’ and put up a tip jar on the counter. I never saw a dime out of that damn jar.

Like I said, selfishness.

Where, exactly, do you spoiled brats think the money that pays the waitstaff’s wages comes from? You think it appears out of thin friggin’ air? No – it comes from customers. That means that, yes, you simpering child, you ARE responsible for their wages. Saying “well, it’s their fault for working in this job” doesn’t cut it – that’s a steaming load of elitist classist bull and you should be rightfully called out for saying it.

You don’t like having to tip? GET THE LAWS CHANGED so they can’t be underpaid. Over tiome, nobody will expect it anymore.

But until you get off your lasy, selfish ass and do so,

keddaw said…

Am I the only one that sees the huge logical flaw in this automatic tipping?

The flaw is in your reasoning.

If you choose to patronize an establishment where you have a waiter, your minimum obligation is to inform the waiter that you will not be tipping and will not be using his services. Doing otherwise is to lie to him. He’s doing his job under the assumption that you will pay him.

His assumption is reasonable because everyone knows waiters make their living through tips. That’s the nature of the job. Everyone, including you, knows that when you go to a restaurant that uses waiters, you are making the choice to use the waiter. That choice – on your part – obligates you to pay him.

And you do seem to be the only one who doesn’t see that.

The only reasonable option besides tipping is to tell the waiter ahead of time that you won’t be needing his services. That you will be placing the order yourself, getting the food yourself from the kitchen, and cleaning up after you are done.

If you want the waiter to do it and you don’t pay him, you are stealing from him. And, again, you are the only one who doesn’t see that.