Recently, I watched one of the late night shows do a segment on tipping culture. I have noticed that since the pandemic, tipping seems to have changed a lot.

The main place most of us tip is when we go out to eat. Tipping waitstaff or delivery drivers, however, has recently morphed in tipping on takeout that you pick up yourself, or tipping on counter service.

Beyond that, we tip service providers. I’ve always tipped the person who cuts and styles my hair, the cleaning staff at a hotel and anyone who carries a bag for me, whether it’s a grocery bag or a suitcase.

It seems to me that tipping used to have more strict rules.

When I was planning our wedding, I consulted Emily Post’s rules of etiquette to make sure that everyone involved was tipped appropriately, or not. Apparently, there are times when tipping is, and might even be considered offensive.

I was always under the impression that if you hired a professional who owned their own business that tipping was not necessary.

Last year, when I did such a thing, the contract ended with a line about adding a gratuity. I was a little bit stunned because, frankly, for the price I was paying, I didn’t think a gratuity was necessary.

However, after consulting with a friend who owns a similar business and provides a similar service, I was surprised to find out that adding that gratuity is now pretty a pretty standard practice, although she personally did not take offense if someone declined to add one.

“But why don’t you just charge what you want to be paid for a service,” I asked. “Why make someone feel like they need to add another 15 or 20 percent?”

Hilariously, she told me that if she charged that amount, people thought she was too expensive, but if she merely suggested adding a tip, they would usually tip beyond the additional amount she might have charged. People are so strange.

A little while later, I was out to lunch with another friend. We regularly have lunch and take turns, one of us getting the bill and one of us getting the tip.

One week, when I put the tip down, my friend said I gave them too much for the service we got. I almost always tip at least 15%, but knowing that food service folks rely on tips, I usually try to get closer to 20%.

Also, if it’s a restaurant I frequent regularly, I don’t want the staff to think I’m stiffing them.

Finally, if I don’t have the exact change on me, I will usually err on the side of generosity, rather than shorting someone.

On this occasion, I didn’t have change, and it wasn’t worth the time to quibble over a few cents, so I left “too much.”

The server had made a small mistake, but it didn’t ruin the meal and could just as much have been a mix-up in the kitchen as her mistake. I decided not to ask her to fix it, because I didn’t want to wait longer for my meal.

Should I have tipped her less? I didn’t think so.

Then, we get to the kids with summer jobs.

The ones working at every ice cream stand, summer camp, swimming pool, etc. Most of them are working for minimum wage. Even though they’re kids with summer jobs, many of them have grown-up expenses like car insurance, cellphone payments, or saving for school.

I know, I was that kid, and I have three of those kids. So far, two of my kids have worked in jobs that had the occasion to offer tips. One was a collective bucket that was emptied at the end of every shift and divided evenly between all workers. It could mean an additional $20 to $35 a shift. With three or four shifts a week, that almost became another paycheck.

One of them gets tips based on the job and the generosity of patrons.

He’s had days where he’s come home empty-handed, and days when he’s walked home with a week’s worth of pay in his pocket.

Any time I see kids working and a bucket out for tips, you can bet I’m putting into it. Any time I see a kid doing their job well, and the opportunity to tip presents itself, you can bet I’m going to shell out.

Not everyone is in a position to be a big tipper, or ever a tipper at all. Unfortunately, some of our hardest workers are also our most underpaid workers, and they may rely on tips to survive, or they may be relying on tips to help them progress to the next level.

Tipping can be a tricky business, and some businesses rely on it to pay their workers.

It’s not a perfect system by any means, and the more layers of “should I tip or not” I have tried to dig through, the more confused I’ve become.

At the end of the day, I’d rather end up over tipping the wrong person than shortchanging a person who needed it.

Liz Pinkey’s column appears on Saturdays in the Times News