I eat at a lot of restaurants, stay at a lot of hotels, spend time at a lot of airport terminals, and do a lot of things that put me in touch with individuals, such as taxicab drivers, waiters, shoe-shine people, hotel attendants and others who provide personal services.

When someone provides excellent service, I believe he or she should be financially rewarded over and above the cost of the service itself. We call this “tipping;” and I often tip generously — frequently well above the 15 percent “rule of thumb — because I believe we should encourage those who provide personal services to excel at what they do. Excellent service can make all the difference in the world between an enjoyable experience and a lousy one. Someone who works with dispatch can either help me catch my flight or cause me to miss it. So, high quality in personal service is very important to me. Nevertheless, there are a couple of things about this tipping stuff that annoy me.

I don’t like the implication that I should be tipping when nothing beyond the usual has been provided. For example, I dislike going to a quick food joint and seeing a jar located right in front of the cash register with a sign on the jar that reads “tips.” If my consumption is limited to buying a sandwich and paying the bill, there is no additional service involved in that transaction. So, why should I be expected to give a tip for no additional service? This “tip jar” creates the expectation that I am supposed to provide a “reward” to the cash register attendant for performing a “service” — ringing up the sale — that is part of the price of the product that I have just purchased. And, if I don’t provide a tip or put my loose change in the jar, I am sometimes made to feel as if I am a cheapskate.

What really rings my bell are establishments that automatically include the tip or “service charge” on the bill. Recently, I ordered room service at a well-known hotel chain and right there on the bill was a 21 percent “gratuity.” As if that might not be enough, there was also a line on the bill that invited me to provide an “additional gratuity.” When I asked the guy from room service why there was a mandatory “gratuity,” he said it was because some customers sometimes refuse to voluntarily leave a tip.

Mandate a tip because the customer might not voluntary provide one? Isn’t this how the government works? If we don’t like the service, we are taxed anyway. It seems to me that if we don’t like the service sufficiently to leave a tip, it is wrong for the restaurant to levy a tip nonetheless. If they are going to do that, then they may as well raise the price of the meal to include the cost of the tip. Some might say that this charge is not a “tip,” but a delivery fee for bringing the meal to my room. I can’t imagine that there is more labor involved in delivering the meal to my room than there would be in setting up the table for me in the restaurant, bringing the meal to my table, refilling my glass of water, and checking periodically to see how I am doing. All of these services would be provided, with no restaurant-imposed gratuity, were I actually dining in the restaurant.

All of this tipping for services that were not provided is consistent with the give-me-something-for-nothing culture in which we live, with the phenomenon of able-bodied men standing at street intersections with signs that proclaim their willingness to “work for food,” when in fact there is rarely any interest in actually working. When a culture begins to devalue hard work and menial labor — as ours has — and emphasizes “diversity” instead of individual merit, a “tips” for doing nothing is a natural product of such a culture.

Ward Connerly is President of the American Civil Rights Institute, a former member of the Board of Regents of the University of California, and a 2005 recipient of the Bradley Prize for his defense of the American ideals of freedom, liberty and equality. His e-mail address is: feedback@acri.org.