Well, well, well! Happy Tuesday, and welcome to another edition of the column being called "the best thing to happen to complaining since internet forums," The Gripe Report! As the Czar of the Gripe Report, I’ve decided that today, we’re going to talk about one thing and one thing only: tipping. Have a gripe? Send it in!: matthew.reigle@outkick.com It’s become a hot-button issue these days, and I think we need to look at some of the absolute worst places to pony up a few extra bucks in the name of gratuity. But don’t get it mixed up: I like tipping. I like handing over a couple of extra bucks to someone as a way of saying, "Nicely done, champ." SIGN UP for The Daily OutKick. New Look, Same Attitude. But that’s not what tipping is anymore. It’s just something that has been tacked onto the price of just about everything. And I mean, everything. Coffee Shop When we think of ridiculous tipping, one of the first places that comes to mind is the coffee shop. Now, I don’t believe that being a barista is the easiest thing in the world to do, but I also roll my eyes when I hear a gender studies major act like making a grande Americano is as taxing as pulling crab pots out of the Bering Sea. It isn’t. I’m always torn on tipping here. On the one hand, I order black coffee. That is the easiest thing in the world to prepare. Therefore, I don’t tip, because if they’d let me, I could hop over that counter and pour a cup for myself. However, other drinks are a bit of a process to prepare, so I can kind of see throwing a dollar the barista’s way. But here’s where it gets weird: People will tip for a latte at Starbucks, but no one would ever tip for one at McDonald’s. It needs to be all or nothing, folks: are we tipping for coffee or not? I say that if it’s the little corner spot downtown, then yes, but if the company you’re buying coffee from has shareholders, then no. Valet We talked valeting in a previous Gripe Report, but I still feel like there are flaws in the tipping structure, and I feel like we need some more defined tipping rules. I get why we tip valet drivers and have no problem doing so, but I would like to adjust my tip based on the amount of effort expended. For instance, when I tip a valet, one of two things happens: I either leave a tip with a card at the valet stand, or I have cash in my hand to give the driver. The problem is, I don’t always know how far the driver has to go to get my car when I make this decision. I’ve had it happen where I tip only to realize that the driver has to take about four steps to get behind the wheel of my 2022 Kia Forte. In that case, I think it’s fair to deduct a buck or two. Conversely, I’ve had it happen where I felt like I hadn’t tipped enough because my car was parked so far away that it felt like the driver had to run several counties over to retrieve it. In that case, I feel like he’s entitled to an extra dollar or two. All I want is to be told where my car is, and then I will calculate the tip using the formula I developed. It’s a mysterious formula that always comes out to about $5 because I suck at math. Bathroom I don’t feel like I see these as much as I used to, but ironically, the only time I have seen them was in bathrooms that were far from tip-worthy. One time I remember seeing this was at, of all places, Pocono Raceway during a NASCAR race. I remember that I never saw the guy clean anything, but he had a can on his cart for tips and a dish full of snack-sized candy bars for people leaving the bathroom. Far be it from me to turn down a Twix, but I would have had a hard time living with myself knowing I had eaten some bathroom candy. As I mentioned, it was hard for this guy to keep up with the constant flow of race fans uncorking full bladders' worth of Keystone Light in the urinals, but I’m not sure if he even tried. I love a clean bathroom as much as the next guy, but I don’t think there’s any need to tip. You were hired to clean bathrooms. What are you going to do if I don’t tip? Not clean the bathrooms even more than you’re already not cleaning them? It’s probably a good thing that this is becoming increasingly rare. Concession Stand/Vendors While we’re on the topic of sporting events, you should never have to tip a concession stand worker or vendor, but this is a new phenomenon thanks to technology. A few years ago, I went to the F1 race in Miami and, while I was there, I went to a drink vendor who was stationed behind the grandstands with his wares crammed into several Igloo coolers. I ordered a water which he picked up and handed me. Now, under no circumstances is this tip worthy, but because the race was a cashless event, I tapped my card on his little card reader attached to his phone, which he then handed to me so I could decide how much I wanted to tip. Uh, how about none? Had I known this step was coming, I would’ve just plunged my hand into the icy cooler — which would’ve felt amazing, by the way — and grabbed my own $6 bottle of water (I know; absurd). Haircut Is there a higher-stakes tip than the haircut tip? I always feel sweat collecting on my brow when I tip at the barber shop, because I'm always nervous that if I under-tip, my next haircut could pay the price. Also, I feel like I should be generous to the dude holding a straight razor to my throat. It's not that I'm scared of getting Sweeney Todd-ed (I am scared of that, but it's not just that I'm scared of that), I just get concerned that the next time I walk in, the barber is like, "Hey, it's that chizzler" and sends me on my merry way with a hair cut that makes me look like an Amish kid. How about we just put an end to tipping barbers? If anything, add a little something to the price and just give it to them. Don't make those of us just looking to get a quick trim have this kind of anxiety. Food delivery Kind of in the vein of haircut tips, food delivery tips are pretty high stakes as well. The thing I had about food delivery apps is that they pre-select a tip-starting point for you and then from there it's for you to adjust. I hate how, if they start you way higher than you think is fair for someone to drive you a burrito from a couple of miles away, you're nervous about the going too low with the tip out of fear that no driver will elect to take your order, or worse, do unspeakable things to your meal… or just make several other stops at other people's house or run errands so that by the time they roll up to your place the food is room temperature. They should let you input what you want to tip, and then if it's too low for good service, a message should pop up that's like, "I hope you're cool with a cold cheesesteak," so you can bump it up fifty cents, then it will be like, "It'll be hot, but the driver is going to take their time." I could live with that. Anything is better than the guessing game we currently have. … That's it for this week! Be sure to send in your gripes for a future edition of The Gripe Report!: matthew.reigle@outkick.com