Tipping
 

I'd like to have an intelligent discussion on the act of tipping. In my opinion, tipping in the US has completely gotten out of control. I recently read an article that the new standard now is 25%. WHAT? In most cases lately, restaurants are paying their serving staff minimum wage, if not more. Why would I tip you for doing your job? I work in computers. It's not like I have a tip jar on my desk and expect people to toss some bucks in after I fixed their computer. It's insane. And there are unwritten rules about how much to tip a person. Like you wouldn't give a delivery person a 20% tip, but you would in a restaurant. Why? The driver seems to be doing more work by driving to your house, usually in bad weather, to only get what, 2 bucks? And then you have doormen at hotels, cab drivers, concierge. What do you tip them? I find it interesting too that the US is basically the only country that does this. It just seems crazy to me. I think the country needs to come up with standard, with at every restaurant a 10-12% tip is included in the total bill. And if you feel your server did exceptional work, you can give a little more. And that's it! It's chaos I tell you!

20% for good server
10% for a lousy one
0% never

Where are you hearing that in most cases restaurants are paying their waiters and waitresses minimum wage? That's not an accurate statement.

I tip waiters/waitresses 20% unless the service was bad. If they go above and beyond, then I might give a little more. I only go less if the service was actually bad.

I don't add to the tip cups in Dunkin Donuts, Starbucks, etc, though.

How is it inaccurate? Were you are, places may not be doing so, but I know where I am, some are. Not all of course, but some.

I don't think tipping should be mandatory or automatically included, simply because the tip should always reflect the level of service received (though I do understand the reasoning behind adding it in with parties of 8 or more). I certainly won't add to it, if I'm already forced to pay a tip even when service is bad.

For restaurants in general, I will start at 15% for the tip. The waitstaff's performance during the course of my meal determines if I drop down to 10% or go up to 20%. In very rare cases of extremely bad service, I won't leave a tip at all and will usually boycott that particular location from that point forward. Not the entire company, just that one location.

I'm the same as OV when it comes to tip jars, though I will usually tip the bartender on multiple occasions throughout a given evening. It really depends on the service level there.

I also will not tip pizza delivery people, since every single pizza place around me now charges extra for delivery services (which should cover the costs to get the pie to me). As for doormen, general delivery people, etc., I have so little interaction with those professions that I don't have any set rules about tips. Most of the time I don't tip, for the same reason MegaPrime33 mentioned about them doing their jobs.

I hate those surcharges.
I've worked full service gas stations before. The owner charged 50cents more per gallon for full service. Everyone assumed that was our tip worked in. It wasn't. We never saw a dime of that money.

The same happens to pizza places. That surcharge for many of them, they never see. I've switched to carry out only because of it.

Forced tippings bother me, but overall I'm about the same based on service.
As for bars. I tip normally about a dollar per drink if I'm not running a tab. If I am running a tab, I tip 15-20% on it. If it's a new bar, it depends on the service, but chances are if service is bad I won't be back. The bars I use now I guess I'm considered a regular at(first name basis with all employees). So they usually always get 20%.

Something else to keep in mind though.
Not all waitresses/waiters or even commission start at minimum wage.
Some start at much lower with tips expected to make up the difference. I don't know which places do that anymore still. But it used to be about 3.25-5.25 as the baseline with tips making up the difference to usually much higher. I'm not sure if they've since changed how that works legally though. Before, because it's a tips/service based industry though, they could get away with it.

RadioShack with their commission based pay is at 5.25 too. Whether you have the foot traffic to meet the goals to get commission or not. (The goals are set by high point sales like holidays, and average normal foot traffic never meets that. So essentially, the majority only get paid 5.25 an hour. Two months of that, and I quit that job in a heartbeat. 60 hour weeks, and only 20 hours of that were minimum wage. The overtime.)

I used to not tip for a few years. I was poor and my ex was robbing my money. Nowdays, I realized that not being compromised with some partner actually makes me a wealthy man. So I tip generously.

However, the highest I've ever tipped was at this mexican restaurant. This w#0re was complaining about happy hour hours, and decided not to pay, and to give the server a bad time. The server is such a kind nice mexican girl who does her best to treat the customers with respect. A couple of years ago I befriended the managers of a very popular mexican restaurant at my hometown, and they told me that college students would sometimes go there and eat the damn chips for free, and that because they were mexican, the customers felt entitled to a sense of grandeour over them. %uck them.
But anyways, she didn't leave a tip and got dinner for free. I left them a $50 dollar tip. She refused, and I threatened her not to ever go there again (I go there every Sunday).
So she accepted, I made her day, and...that's it. Always be good to the servers, no matter where you go. UNLESS you receive crappy service. It's their job to be kind to customers. If they are not kind just leave a 15% tip and never go there again.

But that's my take.

Go to a Red Lobster any night of the week and I guarantee you'll see some hood rich family complaining to no end about some minor detail to get their meal comped.