Similarities And Differences Between Two Essays

The two essays that I have chosen are "This One's for the Birds" by Paul Finkelman and "The Case Against Tipping" by Michael Lewis. These two essays in particular have some things in common, but they do have some significant differences between the two. In this paper I will try to compare and contrast these two essays and hopefully bring something to the reader's attention that wasn't there at first.

In the first essay, "The Case Against Tipping", the author, Michael Lewis talks about whether it is right to tip or not. Tipping has become a customary. A lot of people tip because they are being served the way they should be served. But tipping is not a law either. So why do we tip? We tip because we get good service and if we don't, we don't bother to tip at all. The author mentions that there are two problems with tipping. One is that the more caution you have in the matter, the more unpleasant it is. Secondly, the less caution you have in the matter, the more useless it is.

What Michael is also trying to convey is that, if you fail to tip the person that is serving you, you may be directing and even considerably affecting that person's level of income. Whether we tip or not, we affect the person's income in some way. Even if the person who is serving you is doing a good job at it or not, that person is expecting you to give them a tip anyway. They expect us to tip them simply for doing what they've already been paid to do. In this essay, the author gave a significant example why under tipping is somewhat a problem. For example, "A friend of the authors who under tipped a cabdriver was knocked over by the driver a few seconds she stepped out of the cab because she under tipped the cabdriver." As a result of it she suffered a fracture in her right leg and the driver claimed it was an accident.

Michael Lewis also mentions that tipping has become a usual thing. People have made tipping somewhat a tradition or a routine. But how long is this so called "tradition" is going to last? In the essay, Michael is also trying to state that a tip is no longer a tip really; it is more like a tax. This statement is somewhat true. That is why people do not like to tip because they feel like they are paying more than what they are already paying. Some people are generous and they give a big amount of tip therefore, the person that is serving does not complain. Michael Lewis stresses this subject because what if the person gave a small amount of tip? What does the person that was serving you is going to do?

Similar to the first essay, the author in the second essay writes about whether Doug Mientkiewicz, the first baseman for the Red Sox, should return the game