Keep the Change: A Clueless Tipper's Quest to Become the Guru of the Gratuity

An irreverent, pavement-pounding, eye-opening exploration of a neglected part of the American economy: tipping

Tipping is huge in America. Almost everyone leaves at least one tip every day. More than five million American workers depend on them, and we spend $66 billion on tips each year. And everyone recognizes that queasy feeling—in bars and restaurants, barbershops and beauty parlors, hotels and strip clubs, and everywhere else—when the check arrives or the tip jar looms. Omnipresent yet poorly understood, tipping has worked its way into almost every part of daily life.

In Keep the Change, bestselling author Steve Dublanica dives into this unexplored world, in a comical yet serious attempt to turn himself into the Guru of the Gratuity. As intrepid and irreverent as Michael Moore or A. J. Jacobs, Dublanica travels the country to meet shoeshine men, strippers, bartenders, bellhops, bathroom attendants, and many others, all in an effort to overcome his own sweaty palms when faced with those perennial questions: Should I tip? How much? Throughout he explores why tipping has spread; he explains how differences in gender, age, ethnicity, and nationality affect our attitudes; and he reveals just what the cabdriver or deliveryman thinks of us after we’ve left a tip.

Written in the lively style that made Waiter Rant such a hit, Keep the Change is a fun and enlightening quest that will change the way we think—and tip.