You go to a high end restaurant, pay your bill, and see a “service charge” already added. Yet when you ask, the waiter tells you they don’t actually receive it.
So the customer is left in a bizarre situation: you’ve already paid a compulsory service charge, and then you’re effectively pressured again to tip the staff directly to ensure they are rewarded.
In reality, it becomes a kind of double charge for service, one that goes to the business, and another the customer feels forced to add for the people actually serving them.
Gordon Laughlin,
Westmoorings
