Former Super Bowl Champion Ndamukong Suh knows a lot about sending a message. He did it for over a decade at Nebraska and the NFL as he collected accolade after accolade, including being a Heisman Trophy finalist, Rookie of the Year, 5X All-Pro Team, and 5X Pro Bowl, to just name a few. Ask any quarterback who stood on the opposite line of scrimmage of him, and they will tell you he was really good at sending a message.
Now, he is trying to send a different type of message.
Since leaving football, and even while still playing, Ndamukong Suh was interested in giving advice on money investing and saving. Recently, he shared a very strong opinion on a topic that has gotten a lot of interest among the American public, especially as many industries are moving to more virtual services: Tipping.
The Tipping Issue in the United States
Tipping has been part of American culture for decades, with workers getting tipped or given an extra amount of money for exceptional service. This has particularly been common in the restaurant industry, where many servers are only paid a few dollars per hour but make most of their wage on tips. The general non-written rule was to pay 15% additional on top of the bill for good service and more for excellent service.
For years, this was acceptable and the norm. But now, things are starting to get out of control.
If you’ve gone to a fast-food restaurant lately, you may have noticed that after getting your food handed to you, there is a little option on the pay screen to let you leave a tip of 15%, 20%, or custom amount. If at a coffee shop or subway, this may seem acceptable since you are watching them make your order, but other times, they are literally just grabbing something and handing it to you, begging the question of why they should be getting paid a few dollars to do essentially 30 seconds of work.
There are even some videos of customers walking into a store, grabbing a product, going to a self-checkout, and then being asked to tip. In other words, tipping culture has gone a bit far. And Ndamukong Suh is ready to make his next big hit.
Tipping culture is coming full circle. pic.twitter.com/agTT40VxpQ
— 🅆 (@123_W7) February 20, 2024
Ndamukong Suh’s Message About Tipping Culture
In a long thread on Twitter (X), Suh laid out the current culture of tipping in the U.S. after spending a lot of the past year in the U.K. working with the NFL doing media work for Sky Sports. In his post, he said the following:
“This year I spent a lot more time abroad and got used to not tipping. Got back to the US and had sticker shock every time I had to add +20% to my bill. So I did some research, trying to answer the question–why are we one of the few places in the world with tipping?
Turns out, we got tipping from Europe There was a long history there of rich folks leaving a little extra for lower class service people. In the 1800s, American tourism exploded in Europe. Many travelers thought this was a commendable thing and wanted to bring it back.
Unfortunately, it was quickly turned into a way for businesses to hire the immigrants and new freed slaves that were entering the American labor market. They hired for basically nothing and asked customers to make up the difference.
….The real question is, is tipping a good thing? In a perfect world, probably not. Is it realistic to think it’s going away in the US anytime soon? No. Restaurants are hard business, I know, I own a few. Many people argue that getting rid of tipping will make it even harder for restaurants to make any money at all. Sure a lot of high profile restaurants are removing tipping but they’re already likely to be successful.
My opinion after spending time abroad, is that tipping isn’t the service incentive people think it is. Most folks would rather have a higher steady paycheck than an income which relies on pandering. In a perfect world, people would get paid fairly, restaurants would make money, and we’d all get great service….”
He later posted a video where he explained things deeper and essentially said that the culture of tipping should go away, but the only way to really do that would be for leaders to get together and make new laws.
Talked a little bit about this with @space_kuma the other day. pic.twitter.com/kul9Q0NUR1
— Ndamukong Suh (@NdamukongSuh) February 21, 2024
Get More Coverage on the NFL
For more of the biggest storylines of College Football or the NFL, click here or follow me on X at @BYU_Gameday.