My research focuses on tipping as a technique of labour control. Tipping is a common practice within restaurants and bars in the United States. However, tipping is not just a custom but a legally recognized form of labour remuneration upon which millions of workers rely. The formal policy around tipping varies from state to state within the U.S., and not only are these policies complex but the basic ‘traditional’ wage-relation associated with work becomes blurred.  As work and wages often control and exploit individuals in terms of mobility, stability and security my basic initial question asks, What can the technique of ‘tipping’ with specific emphasis on the Server (waitress) in the restaurant industry, reveal about the generation of social relations of domination, exploitation, and appropriation? The research also asks how this technique is integral to emerging apparatuses of control in contemporary political economy of the capitalist core states. Specifically, the tipped relation as opposed to the wage relation relies on emotional labour and affective relations to mobilize workers in an unstable and insecure profession. The question seeks to connect tipping to other contemporary techniques which produce and maintain precarious work.