Why I Don't Tip

I possess some controversial beliefs and opinions which I prefer to keep to myself for two reasons. I don’t want to be judged, and I don’t want to get into an argument with anyone. Nonetheless, I fiercely stick to these beliefs. Today, I am going to share some of these controversial beliefs with you because I want to overcome my fear of judgement and confrontation. This is not a rant or self-pity or playing the victim. That’s not the point of the story. I am trying to make a much more important point.

This is a three-part point:

1. The problem of street beggars.

2. The problem of uneducated and underemployed people.

3. The problem of educated and unemployed youth.

The quality of education and the educated unemployed population are whole different topics that I’ll discuss some other time but right now, let’s just focus on the first two points.

1. Street beggars:

I have spent a lot of time thinking about the current state of humanity. My heart aches when I see a poor kid on the street. Why? I ask. What can I do to help this kid? What can I do so that there won’t be any poor kids on the street? No matter how many schemes I come up with, they are never good enough to wipe out poverty.

I work in Quality Improvement, so it is my job to perform root cause analysis. Ask why. It has become my second nature to ask why. So I ask – why? Why is this kid on the street? Because he is poor. Why is he poor? Because he was born in poverty. Why was he born in poverty? Because his parents are poor. Why are his parents poor? Because they are uneducated. Why are they uneducated? Because they spent their childhood not attending public schools that provide free education.

You might say, but Ashwini, it is the government’s responsibility to provide education to kids. Let me tell you. I have a cousin who is a teacher in a government school in a village. Every year, she is required by the government to scavenge the neighboring villages for school age kids and persuade them and their parents to attend school. The government pays my cousin’s salary and builds schools from the taxes we pay. We pay education cess on top of the regular income tax. I think I can safely say that the government, the teachers, and the citizens are doing their bit in this whole scenario then who’s the culprit here?

Despite performing all my duties as a citizen, why do I still see poor kids on the street?

The point of the story is, there is no end to this vicious cycle unless we eliminate the root cause of this problem. The root cause is that people reproduce without any restriction in this country. One time, I was walking on a street and a poor family of four approached me. The husband asked me if I can give some money so he could feed his kids. The point is – why did you have kids if you couldn’t provide them food and shelter? This is the crux of the entire problem. You might say that reproduction is a fundamental and biological right of every human being. I respectfully disagree. You don’t have a right to reproduce if your biology is going to be a burden on me.

The only way we can reduce poverty is by limiting reproduction of poor people. Each citizen should be allowed to have kids only when they are financially capable to raise a child. Otherwise, they will ask people like me for money, and their kids will ask my daughter for money, and so on and so forth.

2. Underemployed People:

There are three types of people in the world. Rich, poor and middle class. I am somewhere in the middle. I have experienced a tinge of poverty and a tinge of riches at various points of my life so I think I can relate to all strata of economic populations.

I hear news about how these big corporations like Amazon, Swiggy, BlinkIt exploiting their delivery partners. They pay them peanuts and make huge profits for themselves. I hear about government giving free ration to 80% of the population and flashing it proudly as their accomplishment. Meanwhile, I am expected to tip the delivery guys.

I love Tarantino movies. The opening scene of Reservoir Dogs is focused on the conflict that should we tip the waitresses at restaurants or not? It’s a brilliantly written scene. There is one guy on the table who refuses to tip and the rest of the group shames him, bullies him, but he stands his ground. I’m with that guy.

I pay taxes and I employ services of a maid, a cook, an uber driver, a delivery partner, an electrician, a plumber, and a security guard. I need them and they need me. These people are an integral part of our society and our economy. We all are in a symbiotic relationship. However, they are uneducated. They did not study late nights and early mornings for years to acquire skills and knowledge like me. A delivery guy’s only skills are abilities to drive and read a map. And more often than not, they can’t find my address. You don’t need years of hard work to develop these skills. Just based on these two dubious skills, they can feed their family. That’s the beauty of modern society.

The truth of the matter is, our economy is built to help the weakest link of the society. That’s why even the weakest member of the society can find employment and make minimum wage. The economy is not built to help the middle-class taxpayers. In fact, taxpayers are the most exploited minority of the country. For votes, the government provides free ration, free electricity to the large unemployed, non-tax paying citizens from the money that we pay as taxes. You might say but Ashwini, you also get parks, bridges, and metro. Yes, so does every citizen, regardless of paying taxes. There is absolutely no incentive for taxpayers. On the contrary, taxpayers have to pay a fine in the form of taxes for working harder than the others.

Recently, the Taxpayer’s Association of India protested and filed a case in court that the Government should consult the taxpayers before announcing free stuff to people. I couldn’t agree with them more. For the longest time, I was hesitant to put forth my opinions about this, but it is becoming too much now.