Generous Tipping Experiment

October 2007 

The following story is how the idea came about for the Generous Tipping Experiment.

It surprised me yesterday when I felt like God was leading (not telling…I didn’t hear a voice) to tip the young woman giving me a haircut $100 for the $10 haircut. I struggled with the urge…thinking perhaps I had enhaled too much of the talcom powder she used at the end of the haircut. But as I walked up to the counter and handed her my debit card, I knew it was going to happen.

So I added the $100 tip and handed the receipt back to her. I watched her face as she paused to enter the total amount of the haircut into the visa machine. What happended next? Nothing. She didn’t make any facial expression. She simply said thank you and I walked out the door.

My 12 year old son, Chris, was with me during the haircut and we had been discussing earlier (arguing really) over his apparant lack of contentment. As we walked out the shop, I told him that I had just tipped $100 for the haircut. He told me I was lying, knowing that I tend to be a frugal person. Then when he saw I was serious, he asked me why. I told him I didn’t really know I just felt like I was supposed to do it.

As we were getting into the car, the manager of the shop ran out the front door, my receipt in his hand, with the women who had cut my hair on his heels. They were talking excitedly in a language I didn’t understand. He then asked me in broken English did I mean to tip her $100. After I said yes, both he and my stylist broke out into big grins….and Chris was right by my side witnessing the whole commotion. The young women kept saying over and over again, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

On the way home, Chris and I had a great conversation about why God led me to this random act of generosity. We talked about the feeling of joy we both experienced because of it. Later, we talked about how the young stylist might use the $100. And the first thing Chris did when we got home was to excitedly tell my wife Jennifer about it.

The story doesn’t end here though. Later that night, our family went to eat at IHOP as I had a hankering for some blueberry pancakes. As we ate, Chris kept watching the young man waiting on us. Finally, he said, “Let’s tip him $100 daddy. Look at his shoes.” I didn’t think his shoes were all that bad (they just had flour on them) and my “reason alarm” was ringing loudly that we were getting carried away. But as we discussed it among our family, we decided to tip $50 for a dinner that cost us barely over $19.

So I addded the $50 tip to the visa bill and handed it to the cashier. I told him we were on a tipping spree and to please make sure our waiter got it. Before we had walked out the door, two other waiters had crowded around the manager and the excitement had begun. Chris stood out in the parking lot, refusing to get into the car until he saw our waiter get the tip. We stood there looking through the window of IHOP as the waiter started sort of jumping up and down and smiling, all over $50!

It was Chris’ reaction to these two incidents that helped me understand why God led me to do it. I live in a constant fear that I am failing as a father. I struggle with guilt that I am raising my children to be discontent and enslaved by the deceitfulness of wealth. And these hands on, random acts of generosity impacted my young son in a powerful way, speaking more loudly than all of my past adminitions on generosity. And the great thing is I didn’t have to take him into the inner city or to a foreign country to teach him this; it all happened within 5 miles of where we live.