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I'm an average tipper - so sue me. I subscribe to the 15% school of tipping and that's for a good meal and attentive service. If the service is no good, I give them 10% and hope they get the hint. If the food is no good - I tell them to take it back and serve it to the chef. On those rare occasions that I get truly outstanding service, I might bump my tip to 17%. I also tend to be more generous if a check is under $15, in which case I might leave the waiter $3. But the thing I can't stand is when I go out to dinner with a friend, get mediocre service from an indifferent waiter and edible food that's a shade above a TV dinner, and my buddy forks over a 25% tip. Where do these people come from anyway?
I asked a friend who is a waiter in a high end restaurant what a good tip was and she said 30%. My immediate reaction was class envy. I thought she was pulling my leg - but she told me that a lot of people see tips as an opportunity to flaunt their money and they were by far her favorite customers - because they also tend to order the $200 dollar wine bottle.
For 25% or 30%, I want my shoes shined and a shoulder rub. And a server better have recommended the best $20 bottle of wine to get anywhere near 20%. If I began to tell you what I think about a 30% tip, I'd have to violate the noise ordinance on this site plus a few other linguistic restrictions. I mean look, I do my job, bust my butt, make customers happy, crack jokes, and nobody ever opens up there wallet to give me a 10 spot for my efforts. In 28 years, it's never happened once.
The whole notion of tipping seems like another American scam to me. Go to Japan and try to tip and they'll be insulted because it's their job. In fact, there isn't a single country on this planet where people tip anywhere near what we consider average tipping. People are all up in arms about the cost of Health care in this country, but if you ask me, our tipping habits points to a much bigger national problem and I want Obama to do something about it. We tip about twice as much as you do abroad - if you have to tip at all. To see how ridiculous this is, go to Magellans and have a laugh.
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