It only helps in that it reinforces the idea that a good job will be rewarded better, and hopefully that idea is passed on to the next customer and eventually it will come back to me.

If some of y'all would eat at real restaurants instead of places like Applebees then you'd be able to recognize what legitimate service is. A server does so much more for your dining experience (again, at a real restaurant) than bringing out a plate of food.

I tip what the service warrants. Nothing more, nothing less. My grandpa used to put a $50 out on the table when we'd dine out. He'd tell the server that it was his/her tip. If they ****ed up, he'd reduce it. It was usually pretty funny but it got good service.

Had he followed the proscribed doctrine of giving God additional percentage he could have avoided this incident yes.
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I've always enjoyed the "ninja waiter" that can refill my drink without interrupting my conversation or me even being aware that the drink was refilled.

Sounds like you were born with a silver spoon. Grad student spending hundreds of dollars on beer per month and eating at real restaurant tipping 30%

I am a pretty good tipper when being served, however if I hate that there are tip jars at every counter. I am not usually throwing money into those kittys.

While in Europe last summer we were unsure of the custom so we asked about tipping. We were told if you got really good service you could leave around 10% but only if you want to. Coming from the good ol USA, I couldn't in good consious not tip, and it was usually more than 10%.

Another odd thing about Europe was they pretty much leave you alone after taking your order and delivering your food. You pretty much have to wave them down to get their attention for drink refills and to get your check. The first couple of times I sat there quite a while waiting for a bill. Here it's all about turnover, there they don't seem to concerned about it.

The other thing I don't like/get about tipping is that I can go into the following three restaurants and get the same level of service and tip different amounts (assuming 20%):

1. I go into a diner and pay $12 for dinner and leave a $2.40 tip.

2. I go into a midscale restaurant and pay $25 for dinner and leave a $5 tip.

3. I go into an upper-end restaurant and pay $75 for dinner and leave a $15 tip.

Now, in the upper-end restaurant I'll usually have the fellow who fills my water glass frequently, but otherwise I don't usually see much difference in service. Why does the waitress at the midscale restaurant get twice as much tip money when there's no difference in the amount of work they do? It seems unfair that the tip is based on the cost of the food.

And I should point out that I've never received a tip in 20+ year of work as an engineer, economic research, and market/demographic researcher. I really think there should be more tipping in these industries for work well done.

There are two types of good servers...one of them are the good chit-chatters as long as they can multi-task well enough to be competent at the REAL purpose of their jobs. I've ran across a few of these in my days.

Shit, if I ran a restaurant...I wouldn't even mind having a few on staff that weren't good at running their own food because there are certain customers that are simply their for the chit chat...

but I'm definitely employing guys like me over a bunch of chatty kathies...which makes guys like me work twice as hard since I have to run all of their ****ing food and get all of their ****ing refills after I run their god damn food.

VERY true.

you can yell at the manager and say the service sucked and the food sucked and then they will remove the auto grat. Legally they can't make you tip.

But **** that pastor and mark down another reason why I hate religion and their stupid followers.

But it's not truly incentive-based pay. It's not consistent enough to qualify. It's still dependent on the consumer which, as evidenced by this thread, can have wildly differing opinions on where that incentive should start and stop. Or even if the incentive itself is warranted. A waiter can give above and beyond service, and the consumer could be 110% satisfied, and still not give a tip for whatever illogical reason. And there's absolutely nothing that could be done in a situation like that. Waiter is SOL, despite doing nothing wrong.

I understand it's a staple in the industry, but other cultures have clearly shown that it's not actually necessary. Sometimes the rewards can outweigh the risk for the waiter, which is obviously why they tolerate it. But it's still a very flawed practice.

I despise being in the middle of a sentence and the server comes over and talks over the top of me. I kind of understand why it happens, but man, that's annoying. Just come over and fill my water and smile. If we want something we'll tell you.

Nah. Auto-grat is a tool to be racist. I hated it. I'd have people ask me all the time..."should I grat them?" "Should I grat them?" They'd grat every black table and they'd leave it off of every white table. It's a ****ing sham. If I owned a restaurant I'd have the staff vote to either have it be mandatory or never have it. It's bullshit.

And I know EVERY server has the choice...so when I get auto-gratted they get the auto grat and with my friends they just robbed themselves of a lot of $$$ because we tip well and the auto grat adds GRATUITY TO THE SUBTOTAL, not to the total in which most everyone tips. (You're supposed to tip 15-20% on the subtotal, not the total with tax)...

so an 18% auto grat is like a 15% tip

what I'd run into is some people who would circle the auto grat to acknowledge they saw it and then tip it up to 20-25% OR some who just didn't see it and then you'd get double tipped which is pretty shady on the servers part