> For myself, I overtip, almost always. If I get particularly bad service I will have to force myself to leave as low as a 15% tip.

This would probably be what Leen would do if I weren't such a mean guy. But I don't understand the sense in paying even one penny for bad service. I tip 20% for the average, more than 20% for spectacular, and a big fat ZERO for unsatisfactory.

Case in point: recently Leen and I were eating at a Cracker Barrel with a bunch of her friends. Normally, I've found Cracker Barrel to be a wonderful chain with regard to service, but this time we were seated, and it was over 30 minutes before anybody came to take our order. We were starving and not at all happy, but it's possible that it was an oversight. Leen proved how hungry she was by uncharacteristically taking the initiative herself to flag down the seating person and report the problem. She went to find whoever was supposed to attend us, and he came by and apologized and said he'd be right with us.

TWENTY MORE MINUTES PASSED before he reappeared to take our order. Now we've passed beyond any reasonable doubt that the problem was an understandable oversight. It wasn't even that busy a night. We could have been almost out of there and on the road home (we had a long drive ahead of us that night), but our orders hadn't even been taken.

But when it came time to pay and leave, I was the only person sitting at the table that thought the restaurant's sub-minimum wage was more than enough to cover the "service" that idiot waiter offered. Everybody else was dutifully calculating the tip according to the standard percentage, and it just boggled my mind. Why?? If the food itself had been as unsatisfactory as the service, I'm sure efforts would have been taken to remove the food from the bill. So why quietly accept and pay for the unsatisfactory service?

I totally agree with Dave's post (the one Calvin linked to) about how a system of mandatory tipping is wrong in an idealistic sense. In an ideal world, restaurants would pay the serving people their full salary, preferably as much as they currently make with tips, not minimum wage. But there's one thing I love about tipping, and that's that I have direct control over an incentive to be given great service. On average, I get spectacularly better service at sit-down restaurants compared to fast food joints, customer service desks at department stores, lobbies at cheap hotels, the DMV, you name it. Take tips away, and I'm sure the average level of service at restaurants would decline, though certainly some serving people would still offer great service, just as there are particular individuals that work at all those other places that are great, too.

But leave the standard tip for shoddy, incompetent, and practically negligent service, what's the point? The last advantage (for the consumer) for the tipping system is just gone. When tips are given just for wearing the uniform, where's the incentive to offer, well, even *adequate* service?

> Being a waitress myself I know that an extra dollar or two from me- which is really not that much- will brighten the server's day a good deal.

I've never worked as a serving person, but I've seen some, such as yourself, say this, and it's something I'm well aware of. For all the grouching I just did above, I still generally tip high for adequate or better service. I imagine that extra dollar or two, despite not being much, brightens the server's evening about as much as mine is brightened when my Coke is refilled before I'm done with it and want more, perhaps even before I figure anybody could have *noticed* my Coke is running low. It's such a small thing, a silly thing even, to place such value in what I guess actually amounts to being treated like royalty in certain ways, but the combination of great service and great tips gives everybody what they want: the server gets the cash, which, more than simply money, is an encouraging indication that his or her efforts are appreciated; and I get to eat good food without lifting a finger to prepare and obtain it, which is what I'm doing at a restaurant in the first place.

> Especially since now I work in a restaurant where the customers who repeatedly don't tip properly are asked not to come back. :-}

That's fascinating to me. What kind of restaurant is this, and how does the restaurant approach someone like this? The kinds of places I eat, I'm out of there before anybody even knows what I've tipped, but that sounds like it's something more upscale than the places I go to. I would hope the restaurant wouldn't do this if the customer has a legitimate complaint, though.