My own general tipping policy: I always tip with cash, and never, ever leave it on the card. If service is poor: $1 If service is adequate: 10% If service is perfect: 15% If service is exceptional: 25% and up, depending on what made it "above and beyond". My minimum tip was $0, and I got my meal comped and a $50 gift card because the service was so bad. Outback steak house. My maximum tip was $200 on a $30 meal, at an Applebees. I was traveling alone on business. The food was excellent, delivered quick and hot, the water glass stayed filled, the server (a single mom) was friendly and smiling, made eye contact, and chatted with me about her two jobs and how proud she was of her young kids at their school and how they had lost their dad earlier that year. It was Christmas.
Its initially strikes one as extraordinary how the service industry has been able to bend our every day interactions and all of our public policy to its idiosyncrasies and desires over the decades. It controls us, we do not control it. But is it unique? Didn't the oil industry do the same thing with how and where we drive by how and where they are willing to put gas stations and what their attendants were expected to do ? And back in the day, did not Ma Bell drive our habits of phone use and notions of phone service? They also decided what forms of taxation they would tolerate and how to drive those costs elsewhere.
We have a winner. The only thing I would do differently is I would never leave 0 tip. I don't want the waiter to think that I simply forgot. I will leave coin but never 0.
Ahh! but where could I go to get a nice meal of "jimmies" for a fair price? Use to catch my own but civilization has taken away all my old spots. Like your Avatar, makes me hungry.
Crazy huh? Me and my wife were given a $100 gift certificate for a very high end restaurant. The bill actually came to about $103.00. It was some of the best Prime rib I ever ate. I normally go to Golden Corral for prime rib and when I go to Vegas I will splurge for a good expensive meal. I work because I'm retired and I receive 2 retirements plus Social Security and it keeps me busy, supplement's my Medicare and gives me money to spend on a vacation.
The wait staff know if they are getting dinged for bad service. And, there are some jobs that make money almost entirely on tips--fishing boat deck hands, for example.
This person was obviously having a bad day with her boss, or something, and decided she was gonna go out in a blaze of glory. The $50 gift card was to compensate us for the dry cleaning that was necessary after a pitcher of iced tea was dumped on our table. She was seriously angry about something work-related, and was taking it out, loudly, on the customers. She had this awful rude attitude as she approached our table, and after she took our order and brought our drinks, slamming stuff around, and stomping to and fro, speaking loudly, pounding on the computer, I went and found the manager and asked for a different server. When she found out, she came to our table and poured a pitcher of iced tea on the table and stomped out the front door, throwing her apron on the ground, yelling and cursing. It was ugly. The manager had our meals boxed to go, and gave us a $50 gift card. She did not offer any explanation, only a really sincere apology, and an assurance that this was that server's last day of employment there, which I had kinda already guessed.
Im almost always 20%. If service is bad I assess if the restaurant is understaffed. 15% is what I give to bad service but typically never lower except in three instances where the server insisted we never ordered things that we in fact did...as well as one time a waitress told me my pad thai was supposed to be soup served in a tomato broth and that I didnt understand what pad thai was if I thought otherwise. I believe that was the only meal and tip I flat out refused to pay.