Should I tip my food delivery person?

Is it wrong not to tip a food service provider?

A reader from California who we’re calling Martha emailed to express frustration over knowing when it is appropriate to tip food service workers.

“I have no trouble tipping a waiter or waitress for service in a restaurant, basing the tip amount on the quality of service,” she wrote. “Yesterday, in fact, we gave a 30 percent tip to a waitress who went above and beyond to make our meal satisfying.”

But Martha asks about tipping people “who are simply doing their job, before they have even done anything.” She focuses on the example of food delivery drivers and offering a tip when she pays when ordering her meal.

Martha’s friends tell her she “must” give big tips because food delivery drivers don’t get paid well.

“Isn’t that their issue with their employer?” Martha asked. “I don’t tip Fed Ex or postal employees for delivering packages. Why am I expected to tip drivers delivering groceries or hot food?

“How about when I pick up a meal to-go?” she continued. “I am not asked to tip at fast food restaurants but if I order ahead for food to go from the local burger shop, when I walk in to pick it up, I am asked to tip.”

While Martha is not obligated to tip her food deliverers, it is customary to do so for the service they provide. The deliverers are typically not highly paid and they do not receive any delivery surcharge tacked onto a bill.

Yes, they could take up their low pay with their employer, but any increases would likely be passed on to Martha and others in the form of higher food prices. It’s up to Martha, however, if and how much she wants to tip a delivery driver. Ostensibly she’s paying for the effort the driver made to do a good and timely job of getting Martha her food so she wouldn’t have to leave her house to go get it.

Picking up a burger or a muffin at a local establishment strikes me as a bit different. While there’s been more of a push to encourage tips on checkout screens, if the effort is a clerk essentially putting an item in a bag and handing it to a customer who walks in, it seems perfectly reasonable for Martha to balk at leaving a tip if she doesn’t want to.

The sometimes not-so-subtle pressure to leave a tip has seemed to pick up with the advent of paying online and screens asking for tips. If Martha doesn’t want to tip, she doesn’t have to, unless she is with a large party and automatic gratuity is added to the bill.

The reason for tipping, however, is to compensate servers or deliverers for work in an industry that still sees tipping as making up a sizable portion of their income. Unless, tipping becomes a thing of the past, Martha and the rest of us will be left to calculate how generous we want to be to someone who provides us a service.

The right thing is to calculate how good the service was or, in the case of food delivery people, how convenient and timely their delivery efforts were and base any tip on that.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com.

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin.

(c) 2025 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Must you honor a deathbed request if it no longer feels appreciated?

 Are you obligated to fulfill a promise to someone even if doing so might feel unappreciated?

A reader we're calling Renza emailed recently to ask for advice. When Renza's aunt was dying she asked Renza to promise her that she would call her uncle, her aunt's husband, at least once a month. Renza promised that she would.

"I was never really close to my uncle," wrote Renza. "There were a few times when he was really inappropriate and I told him off while my aunt was still alive." Nevertheless, Renza called her uncle faithfully for the first two years after her aunt's death. For the first eight months or so, he would pick up the phone and they would talk for about an hour. For the past year, however, Renza reported that he never picks up the phone and that she has not spoken to him. 

"I promised my aunt I would call every month," wrote Renza, "but is it harassment on my part if I keep calling him if he doesn't pick up the phone or return calls?" Renza asked if she should keep calling him.

It was generous of Renza to agree to her aunt's request. Her attempt to honor her commitment to call her uncle monthly has been impressive, even if he has shown little outward appreciation for her calls. 

As long as Renza's uncle doesn't ask her to stop calling, I don't believe she is harassing him by trying to call him. She is simply honoring her aunt's request. 

Honoring a commitment made to someone who is dying can be challenging, particularly if you never fully felt comfortable with the request being made. About 15 years ago, I wrote about an incident where the children of a dying woman promised their mother they would not have a wake for her since she didn't want one. But after meeting with resistance from other family members who really wanted her to have a wake, they agreed to do so. In that column 15 years ago, I mentioned other instances where those who made promises found it challenging to honor those promises or simply didn't want to. 

I wrote at the time that "a promise is a promise. If you make one, the right thing is to make every effort to honor it, whether the person is on a deathbed or still living. There are, however, times when circumstances prevent you from honoring a deathbed promise as you wish you could or, obviously, discussing the issue with the deceased." 

In Renza's case, there's nothing really preventing her from making the monthly call to her uncle, even if those calls go unanswered. My suggestion would be that she continue to honor her aunt's request unless her uncle asks her to stop.

Renza has no idea if her uncle listens to any voicemails she might leave. She doesn't know if simply getting the call provides him some solace even if he doesn't talk to Renza. But her promise was to her aunt and as long as she can continue to fulfill that promise, doing so would be the right thing. Rather than worry about being a bother, perhaps Renza might try to feel good about herself for honoring her commitment to do something that gave her aunt some piece as she was dying. 

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com.

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin.

(c) 2025 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.