Friends of mine who have been wait staff have unanimously concluded that tips appear random to them. There's no pattern of behavior they can interpret from patrons or which patrons want, other than simple competence.

If someone does poorly, I give them a baseline tip. Probably 10%, but still 15% if I'm in a good mood anyhow.

If they do well, they'll get 20%, up to 30% for really, really good service.

But the guy next to me might go from 0% to 10% for awful to great service.

There's just no way to know what a tip means.

Neither of these things happen.

You are saying tips aren't based on quality of the service?

Can you provide a citation? Because all data points to tipping in no way being connected to the service you provide.

The best way to receive a tip (based on research)? Be female. Be blonde. Have large breasts.

So lets dispense with this nonsense that tipping incentivizes service workers. Its a thinly veiled, widespread (successful) attempt at wage theft.

http://www.tippingresearch.com/most_recent_tipping_papers.ht...

http://freakonomics.com/podcast/should-tipping-be-banned-a-n...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/17/abolish-tipping_n_5...

Have you ever eaten out in your life? How many times have you left a 20 percent tip for a waiter who forgot to put in your order, brought the wrong food, was mean to you, etc.

Always. If I have an issue with the service, I take it up with management.

I don't short change someone's wages because of a perceived or actual deficiency. What am I? Some sort of monster? Just because the rest of society is cheap and short changes service workers because they can get away with it (until labor law gets fixed), that does not make it right.

And if you say, "I can't afford to tip 20 percent all the time", well then my friend, you can't afford to be eating out. Why do you think its more costly to eat out in Europe than the US? Because staff are paid a living wage there.

The point of tipping is to prevent the employer from having to pay a fair wage. Someone who works in such industries depend on tips for their livelihoods. Not performing at 100% resulting in a significant drop in earnings isn't really fair.

Given the typical audience on here, a reasonable comparison would be for employers to be docking wages based on time spent not working. Given how many of us visit this site at work, that could be a substantial drop in wages.

Then again, you might be making so much money that it doesn't impact you. Servers aren't. They might just be having a bad day. Their mistakes on serving you will have less of an impact on your life than your not tipping them.

Most of them are human beings trying to survive. Most of them are not making enough to do more than that.

So, I've tipped 20 percent to mediocre waitstaff plenty.

I also have this bleeding heart issue where I feel like maybe I was there on their bad day and I tip well because I've had those days :)

These are all descriptions of under adequate service and this server should be reprimanded, potentially fired if this keeps up.

Examples of under adequacy removed; You and the parent seem to have similar outlooks. As soon as a server meets the bar for adequate service, the customer is obliged to tip 10-20% based entirely on what they can sustainibly afford.

Rarely does one go higher than 20%, for the truly grand experience.

So when he says that this doesn't happen it's a claim that is well supported by research.