IS MANDATORY GRATUITY LEGAL EXTORTION?

Hey UN•THERAPIST,

We need to UN•THERAPIZE something that has become almost impossible to avoid: TIPPING.

You sit down at a restaurant. You order your food. You eat. You pay your bill.

Then comes the screen: 18%? 20%? 25%?

And suddenly, what used to feel like an optional thank-you feels like a pop quiz you didn't study for.

So here's the question…

When did tipping go from something you WANTED to give…to something you feel like you HAVE to give?

We understand that restaurant workers deserve to be compensated fairly. We understand that servers work hard. We understand that tips can make a major difference in someone's income.

But here's where the conversation gets interesting…
📌 If gratuity is automatically added to your bill, is it still a tip?
📌 If the restaurant requires it, should we call it a service charge instead?
📌 Why are customers being asked to make up the difference when wages don't reflect the cost of the service?
📌 If a service is exceptional, shouldn't the customer get to decide how much they want to give?
📌 And when the tipping screen starts at 20%, are we being encouraged to be generous—or pressured to be?

Then there's the other side…

What happens when someone receives poor service but still feels obligated to tip?

Is tipping about rewarding excellent service?

Is it simply part of the cost of dining out?

Or has tipping culture become so normalized that we've stopped questioning it?

And let's talk about the elephant in the dining room…

Are we actually tipping because we WANT to, or because we don't want to look cheap?

Because there's a difference between intentional generosity and social pressure.

So where do you stand?

Tip because you want to?
Tip because you have to?
Or don't tip at all?

Join us for another session of UN•THERAPY as we UN•THERAPIZE tipping culture, mandatory gratuity, restaurant wages, customer expectations, service charges, and the question of whether tipping has officially gone too far.

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