Snarfangel: I can't wait for robot waiters.

Yeah, i dont understand why places havent just plopped an ipad screen on the table for when your ready for your refill. Its would be much more convenient and in over 10 years of dining is about alli can gather for what consitutes "good service". I guess im in the minority that doesnt need to get buttered up by some effiminate douche that probably hates all his customers anyways.

Mimic_Octopus: WhyteRaven74: Mimic_Octopus: why should waiters earn a livable wage ?

It's called civility and society. Look them up sometime.

yes, so work as a waiter when young, have some roommates, work on a business plan, get a loan and open your own restaurant, hire kids to do what you did then get your own place and no roommates. Oh wait, most waiters want 25% so they can go binge drink and buy coke after work every day into their 40's.

/worked in over 20 restaurants, still have friends that are drunken coked up servers and cooks.

So everyone who waits tables should open up their own restaurant someday? Something tells me there would be way too many restaurants for the demand.

Transubstantive: poorjon: Just pay the goddamn waitstaff a goddamn decent goddamn wage and get rid of this goddamn stupid awful f*cking debate once and for all. Why do I have to analyze the global economic situation and balance it against getting my food stink-palmed every time I want a goddamn steak? Why can't I just pay people money for food?

The idea behind it is that it encourages good and prompt service. Go to a country that tipping is not the custom and you will see just how little the waitstaff cares about the customer. The Netherlands is especially bad. They simply do not care about the customer. I'm not saying the system is great, but it sure does punish employees who suck.

/perhaps all industries should work on a tipping system

Go to Japan where tipping is not the custom and see the complete opposite. They fall over themselves to provide you with good service. Why? Because a happy customer is a repeat customer and repeat customers mean the restaurant stays open and they keep getting paid. THAT is the system that works. Waitstaff want you to come back and do everything they can to make sure you are satisfied before you leave. Tipping does not work. All it does is encourage restaurants to underpay their employees and forces the customer into making up the difference.

Markoff_Cheney: skullkrusher: Markoff_Cheney: skullkrusher: Markoff_Cheney: skullkrusher: Markoff_Cheney: skullkrusher: Markoff_Cheney:

that's ok, I don't have a penis.

and for the second time in one day
[s3.amazonaws.com image 552x413]

Smeggy Smurf: Tip the chef. They have a marketable skill.

they get paid a livable wage.

ok, that was lie

you are right. they can pay rent and car insurance, but they sure as hell arent making what they are worth to the company in many restaurants.
they should make more, but they make enough to live, so that part is not a lie.
and compared to the paycheck pittance that servers make without tips....

actually, crap, I messed that up. I was commenting on my comment about my lack of a penis. That was a lie

silverjets: Tipping does not work. All it does is encourage restaurants to underpay their employees and forces the customer into making up the difference.

And sometimes the restaurant owners demand a share of the tips. Didn't celebrity chefs Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich have to pay their staff back millions in tips?

Tipping has gone from a courtesy to extortion.

I will pay 25% as soon as pigs fly. Someone in the restarant industry is smoking some seriously powerful crack. I for one still have not bought into the insanity of 20%. Standard tip is 10%. Really farking incredible service will get you 15% (that only happens maybe once a year when I am feeling generous). For 20% the waitress would need to slip under the table and blow me.

this is my first tipping thread, so i'm going to start working on a Standard Tipping Comment that can be pasted into any tipping thread.

when dining at a restaurant, we should consider the wait-person as our own employee. the wait-person is there to serve us, in expectation of getting paid for their service. so when it comes to tipping, there are only two questions to be asked:

1) how much time did this person spend serving me?
2) what would be an appropriate hourly wage for this person, based on their performance?

and to be generous, round up.

so, if a waiter spent 2 minutes getting your drink order, 2 minutes getting your meal order, a total of 5 minutes walking back and forth to the kitchen to bring those orders and return to your table with what you requested, and about a minute saying 'is everything alright?' twice while walking past, that would be 10 minutes that that person worked as your employee, or 1/6 of an hour.

now we must approximate what this unskilled employee's labor should be worth compared to that of other unskilled workers. some wait-people are decent, and not too annoying, and deserve a decent 10-12$ an hour. some are excellent, and deserve at least 20$ an hour. some are even better than that, but in today's job market 20$ an hour is pretty great for a job that requires memorizing a menu and asking people which of today's vegetables they'd like with their dinner.

of course, lots of waiters aren't worth minimum wage (tho there's no such thing as a waiter that makes less than minimum wage - it's illegal). but let's be generous to the poor wretches.

so, if you have a pretty good, not too annoying wait-person, who would deserve their 12$ an hour in any other retail service job (and that really isn't bad for a retail service job), and that person spent 10 minutes on your table, then they've earned a $2 tip.

if you have an outstanding wait-person, who would be worth $24 an hour (huge for that kind of unskilled job), and they spent 20 minutes (well above average) working with your table, then that person would deserve an $8 tip.

this whole tipping by percentages thing is insane. does the guy who brings me a $40 steak deserve 4x more than the guy who brings me a $10 hamburger? either way, it took 2 minutes of his time. how much do you think 2 minutes of his time should be worth? that's how much you should tip for that service.

Mimic_Octopus: ChuDogg: Pincy: Mimic_Octopus: Cyno01: Considering the value of a dollar and how the actual minimum wage is just about the lowest ever, tip creep is inevitable if waiters are to earn a livable wage.

why should waiters earn a livable wage ? it is kid's work. waiting tables is part time shiat you do while working on a career or other schooling /in between jobs. it is not intended to be, in itself, a career.

You can say this about a lot of jobs. So where do you draw the line? Not everyone can be a professional.

Why dont we tip everyone?

also, no matter how you slice it, manual labor is not worth several hundred dollars per shift.

It's pretty obvious that none of my friends in construction is going to be doing any work for you.

Brytanica1: This thread makes me feel very fortunate. I typically eat out at a sit down restaurant at least once a week, and have never had "bad" service from a server.

I've had mediocre service a few times, mostly due to the place just being incredibly busy, but nothing below that.

But...I treat my server with respect and friendliness.

I eat out at least three times a week . I treat the servers with respect (I've dated a few and I know its a harsh industry) but I've had completely awful service a number of times. And not only I have tipped 0% - I have walked out of a restaurant at least three times due to the failure of management or a server. And a place being incredibly busy is no excuse. Its poor planning on the management of the restaurant.

I'm reminded of a restaurant near a hotel in Vegas. This hotel used to get a major conference at the same time every year and this restaurant would get tons of business from that conference. But year after year it would become swamped and one year actually ran out of beef during lunch one year. That restaurant is now out of business. And it completely deserves to be.

25% tip? not where i live unless its a large party and great service.

DWitchiewoman: I tip around 20% on drinks, I know I don't have to but my bartenders know I'm there to drink so they tend to make sure my drink doesn't run dry. This is important to me when the bar is packed and there's a band playing.

I'm willing to drop some coin on really good food & really good service, but I will take crappy table service out of the tip, and there have been times where I left no tip because the service was that bad. If the waitress tries to biatch about it to the bartender I'm sure he'd say "What the hell did you do? She always tips well."

Can anybody explain to me why waitresses aren't paid by the owner of the establishment?
Can't help you there. i'm thinking greed

There's such a huge mark up on food, I don't really understand why I'm tipping more based on the cost of the food to me.
Profit on food is 40-60% more or less. You aren't tipping on the price of the food. The price is used as a rough guide. My last bill was $24.04 so my last tip should have been 5.00? We left around $10. She was good. Good encompasses a great deal of real estate. She was fast, communicated well, cheerful, funny, and helped guide us around the diners menu. When I'm eating at the Lobster shack the bill comes to $75 or so I'll tip using the same guide but I don't have to put such a "floor" under my amount. ie $5.00 tip is a non-starter anywhere so I put a floor of $7-8 on it and go from there. At 20% of 75 we're at $15 and that's a good start, now we go up from there and depending on what criteria is useful I add to it. At $75 though I generally drop a $100 and think about if the service was stellar and do I need to drop more.
We eat fast. I mean we all worked in restaurants in this family and so we shove the food in. Bonus for the wait staff, they get an extra turn for the table. We also tend to go early when it's not so busy, it's convenient for us and more tips for the staff. ALL these things get figured in one way or another.

The bartender is an artist, a mixologist, a damn multi tasking magician.
Don't forget bouncer and mediator, bill collector and wingman.

The waitress is just carrying plates, regardless of what's on the plates, she is still just carrying plates.
Um, no. there's far more to it than initially appears. I tended for nearly twenty years. Towards the end I gave waitering a shot. While as a bartender I took orders and served food, it was nothing like waitering. Dealing with multiple tables with multiple customers and one miserable cook, a lousy pantryman, a dishwasher from hell and the most entitled busboy in the world. The cook and I came to blows with the Exec Chef standing there laughing. I had the reach and the speed. He only had a stubby knife. USA 1 - Guatemala 0
Don't begrudge a wait person a tip. The thief of an owner is skimming the cash payments, his partners are skimming him on the booze and the waitress is trying to hold it all together.
I have seen waitresses refuse a tip, and not graciously either.
Come to think of it, you should - hell everyone should work in a restaurant for at least a summer.

I despise tipping. It's a outdated practice and should be eliminated in first world societies. It's embarrassing to the worker as well as the customer.

As to the article, I wish it covered the issue of tipping based on before or after tax is added to the bill. Until three years ago I always tipped based on the grand total. I don't do that any more.

Marcintosh: Don't forget bouncer and mediator, bill collector and wingman.

ah, see, the difference is that most of us aren't talking about tipping at strip clubs. whole different set of rules and considerations there.

Bathia_Mapes: the801: of course, lots of waiters aren't worth minimum wage (tho there's no such thing as a waiter that makes less than minimum wage - it's illegal). but let's be generous to the poor wretches.

Really?

Then explain why some states allow the employer to pay their waiters/waitresses only $2.13 per hour & expect them to make up the rest in tips?

it's so sad that so many people believe this. wait-people are always lying about it to get extra sympathy tips.

the answer is that they do make the rest up in tips. if they don't, the employer has to compensate them up to minimum wage. it's impossible to make less than minimum wage as a tipped employee.

"If the employee's tips combined with the employer's direct wages of at least $2.13 per hour do not equal the federal minimum hourly wage, the employer must make up the difference. Many states, however, require higher direct wage amounts for tipped employees."
- Link - US Department of Labor.

any wait staff who tells you different will say anything to get that next bump of overpriced coke from the dishwasher.

We should just get rid of tipping altogether. Food has the same overall margin as merchandise in stores before the overhead gets tacked on. Give the waitstaff the same wage as a retail employee, they deal with the same b.s. and most company policies don't allow them to accept tips.

Here is the correct amount to tip, 1 dollar per person per hour. You know why? Because if a food carrier can handle 10 people at a time then they get $10 an hour + whatever pittance the restaurant owner gives them. That is a perfectly adequate wage for unskilled labor.

The whole tipping culture just lets restaurant owners exploit their food carriers and avoid taxes. It needs to be done away with. If 3/4 of the sit down resturaunts close down because of it so be it. There is no shortage of places to eat in england and germany where there is no tipping culture and the service is fine there except at the paki places.

But, it's not like the server is walking out with a less than minimum wage check if they're crappy at tips. The restaurant must pay the server at least minimum wage for the hours worked if their tips don't equate to the same or more. They are getting paid, one way or another, the same as the kid at McDonald's or the greeter at Wal*Mart, they're not being especially screwed by the system.

Marcintosh:

Thanks for your reply. You make some good points. I still don't get why a waitress/waiter should get tipped more if I order a steak or she/he has to carry a cheeseburger on the plate. It seems like it should depend more on the number of people at the table/length of time it takes to serve the meal, not the price of the food on the plate.

I still tip well, but it does piss me off to be expected to tip more based on the menu choice. I do it anyway & just secretly hate the stupid thing. Mamma raised me to tip well for good service, I can't shake my good manners even when it does piss me off. I got issues.

As someone who works for tips, (Pizza Delivery) I'll give better tips than many around my area. For good service, I can go anywhere from 18-30% depending on the price of the meal itself. For mediocre service I won't exceed 20, and for bad/no service it'll go down from there.

Now for me delivering pizzas, I am a tipped employee who has split pay.

Essentially, while I'm out on a run, I'm making $3.63/hr. In the store, I make $7.25 (Maryland minimum wage). Even with what the store pays me for mileage, on a slow night a long delivery with no tip is a net loss for me due to the split pay. If you're someone who orders pizza, tip them please. Even if it's just 3 or 4 dollars. I never expect to be tipped a percentage of the order (Though for larger orders I do generally have better tips) because whether you order 1 pizza or 4, there's no difference in effort on my part. 5 dollars is good, more is great. But please just 3 dollars and I'll happily take your order every time.

Hey- tipping thread! Just went out tonight to a local spot, and the waiter kicked serious ass. Dude knew every item on the menu, could accurately describe the texture and flavor of each dish, knew the wine pairing for it all- guy knew hit shiat, and knew it well. For awesome service like that, I'll kick in 25% with no thought of it, and it was a pricey meal to begin with.

Now, the biatch from a few years back that challenged me to a fight out in the parking lot after I gave her a much-deserved $1 tip for unbelievably terrible service? Fark you. I wasn't about to do anything, but my wife was ready to beat your ass...

If you add a mandatory tip to the bill, I will subtract it and leave a penny out of sheer contariness.

If the food and service is good, then yes, I'll likely leave a 15-20% tip... Or on one memorable bar event, I think we left a 50% tip on a $1000 bar bill, but we ran her ass off...

But then again, I'm Canadian, so I don't expect the waitresses to be slaves, unlike the States...

I know I'm gonna be the bastard here, but I'm gonna say it anyway.

For service that is SUPPOSED to come with the dinner, 0% tip? Don't like that? Get a better job. I'm not coughing up an extra 25% just because you brought a glass of water. Tell you what? Let ME go get the water for myself and save your poor feet some walking. Deal?

For services above and beyond the call, 10%.

For fighting off invading ogres, ninjas, or HK bots while I try to dine in peace, 25%

Money's tight all around. Only a twit would pay more than what they should HAVE to.

the801: of course, lots of waiters aren't worth minimum wage (tho there's no such thing as a waiter that makes less than minimum wage - it's illegal). but let's be generous to the poor wretches.

I think you may be wrong there. I believe in a lot of states there are exceptions to the minimum wage for service type industries where tips are expected.

RembrandtQEinstein: The whole tipping culture just lets restaurant owners exploit their food carriers and avoid taxes.

THIS

"Nowadays, 15 percent isn't an average tip - it's a way of registering displeasure with the service."

What such a pussy looks like:


IMO, if a server is being a moron or a dick, they should be lucky I don't want to speak with the manager and ask for a discount on my bill, let alone leave a tip to reward them for their dcikery. What sort of a pissant is going to give a server extra money whether they do a good job or not?

Boomhauer: One of my favorite places to eat when I'm visiting our home office in Columbus, Ohio, is a place called the Northstar Cafe. Great food and service, and service is included in the price. What a concept! The credit card receipt doesn't even have a place to write a tip. It's nice.

I used to eat there all the time when I lived in C-bus. Excellent veggie burgers - the difference to me was always that they didn't try to fool you into thinking that it was meat, but embraced the veggie-ness of the ingredients in the patty. They also serve RC cola, which is a nice change of pace.

If I were paid hourly as a server (we'll say $10 an hour for argument's sake), I'd make a ton less than I do now. I usually make about $550 a week working 30 to 35 hours. If I work those same hours at $10 each, that's $200 less a week, and over $10000 less in a year (not factoring in vacation - I haven't had more than three consecutive days off in five years). I make about $28000 a year, and I live in the third richest county in the country (median household income $104000 in 2011). If my tips were taken away tomorrow and I was told I'd be paid $10 an hour flat, I'd either have to drop out of school and find a second job or move back in with my dad. And yes, I pay taxes. Lots of them. On time.

I'm very good at what I do, and I enjoy it. I'm not the type to show up altered by substances, and I don't have the spine to flirt with my Attractive Female Coworkers instead of making sure you've got enough ketchup and beer. You take away tipping, you take away my incentive to work harder than the guy who doesn't notice you've been slurping on Diet Coke-flavored ice for the last ten minutes because he's too busy checking Facebook on his phone.

I'm okay with the current "standard" of 18% or so, because I'm able to budget around my lifestyle pretty well. I wouldn't mind more, but please don't tell me I should be okay with making $10000 less a year than I do.

Gough: Mimic_Octopus: ChuDogg: Pincy: Mimic_Octopus: Cyno01: Considering the value of a dollar and how the actual minimum wage is just about the lowest ever, tip creep is inevitable if waiters are to earn a livable wage.

why should waiters earn a livable wage ? it is kid's work. waiting tables is part time shiat you do while working on a career or other schooling /in between jobs. it is not intended to be, in itself, a career.

You can say this about a lot of jobs. So where do you draw the line? Not everyone can be a professional.

Why dont we tip everyone?

also, no matter how you slice it, manual labor is not worth several hundred dollars per shift.

It's pretty obvious that none of my friends in construction is going to be doing any work for you.

i bet your friends are classified as skilled labor rather than manual labor.

n_carrvoigt: If I were paid hourly as a server (we'll say $10 an hour for argument's sake), I'd make a ton less than I do now. I usually make about $550 a week working 30 to 35 hours. If I work those same hours at $10 each, that's $200 less a week, and over $10000 less in a year (not factoring in vacation - I haven't had more than three consecutive days off in five years). I make about $28000 a year, and I live in the third richest county in the country (median household income $104000 in 2011). If my tips were taken away tomorrow and I was told I'd be paid $10 an hour flat, I'd either have to drop out of school and find a second job or move back in with my dad. And yes, I pay taxes. Lots of them. On time.

I'm very good at what I do, and I enjoy it. I'm not the type to show up altered by substances, and I don't have the spine to flirt with my Attractive Female Coworkers instead of making sure you've got enough ketchup and beer. You take away tipping, you take away my incentive to work harder than the guy who doesn't notice you've been slurping on Diet Coke-flavored ice for the last ten minutes because he's too busy checking Facebook on his phone.

I'm okay with the current "standard" of 18% or so, because I'm able to budget around my lifestyle pretty well. I wouldn't mind more, but please don't tell me I should be okay with making $10000 less a year than I do.

But see, you're just saying the thing servers don't want to say aloud: "We want you to tip more because we're greedy", not because you're needy, not because you're starving and don't make minimum wage. That's ok, that's healthy, but let's be honest about what tip culture is: waiters wanting to earn more than they could if their wages were standardized. Again, there's nothing wrong with that, but I've never understood why more servers aren't honest about it.

McTruckin: 3) With shiatty service leave 10%. Tell a manager. Good server/bartenders want these people gone as much as you do. Any good owner or manager shouldn't tolerate poor service. Go back and get poor service do not return.

You shouldn't leave any tip for shiatty service. Good servers/bartenders don't mind because they don't give shiatty service and no tip makes the bad servers/bartenders quit sooner.

gadian: n_carrvoigt: If I were paid hourly as a server (we'll say $10 an hour for argument's sake), I'd make a ton less than I do now. I usually make about $550 a week working 30 to 35 hours. If I work those same hours at $10 each, that's $200 less a week, and over $10000 less in a year (not factoring in vacation - I haven't had more than three consecutive days off in five years). I make about $28000 a year, and I live in the third richest county in the country (median household income $104000 in 2011). If my tips were taken away tomorrow and I was told I'd be paid $10 an hour flat, I'd either have to drop out of school and find a second job or move back in with my dad. And yes, I pay taxes. Lots of them. On time.

I'm very good at what I do, and I enjoy it. I'm not the type to show up altered by substances, and I don't have the spine to flirt with my Attractive Female Coworkers instead of making sure you've got enough ketchup and beer. You take away tipping, you take away my incentive to work harder than the guy who doesn't notice you've been slurping on Diet Coke-flavored ice for the last ten minutes because he's too busy checking Facebook on his phone.

I'm okay with the current "standard" of 18% or so, because I'm able to budget around my lifestyle pretty well. I wouldn't mind more, but please don't tell me I should be okay with making $10000 less a year than I do.

But see, you're just saying the thing servers don't want to say aloud: "We want you to tip more because we're greedy", not because you're needy, not because you're starving and don't make minimum wage. That's ok, that's healthy, but let's be honest about what tip culture is: waiters wanting to earn more than they could if their wages were standardized. Again, there's nothing wrong with that, but I've never understood why more servers aren't honest about it.

It's not greed. I earn my keep. Tipping make foodservice the rare business where an employee can make a direct and immediate impact on their earnings. If you go on Fark at work and your boss doesn't find out, you're getting the same paycheck. If you beat your deadlines at work, you're getting the same paycheck. If I go on Fark at work, my tables notice their glasses are empty. If I bust my ass at work, I'll make extra grocery money (which is good, because I'm a culinary arts student and my dinner is basically my homework).

You standardize my wage, and I don't get that immediate critique of my performance or the incentive to go the extra mile. If I get a bad tip, I stop for a second and think about the service I provided, see what I could've done better, and fix it for my next table. If I get an unusually good tip, it puts a spring in my step for the rest of the evening, and my other tables get service that reflects my particularly good mood.

You get a performance review and a raise/bonus/whatever every once in a while. I get one every half hour.

PyroStock: McTruckin: 3) With shiatty service leave 10%. Tell a manager. Good server/bartenders want these people gone as much as you do. Any good owner or manager shouldn't tolerate poor service. Go back and get poor service do not return.

You shouldn't leave any tip for shiatty service. Good servers/bartenders don't mind because they don't give shiatty service and no tip makes the bad servers/bartenders quit sooner.

Depends on the place, really. Some places pool the tips and split them at the end of the night, in which case you *are* punishing the good staff too. (In fact, you're probably punishing them disproportionately, because chances are the bad staff pocket all the tips they can rather than letting them make it to the pool, if they can get away with it.)

However, I'd imagine that this is an incentive for the good servers to make life a living hell for the bad ones, until they leave.

gweilo8888: PyroStock: McTruckin: 3) With shiatty service leave 10%. Tell a manager. Good server/bartenders want these people gone as much as you do. Any good owner or manager shouldn't tolerate poor service. Go back and get poor service do not return.

You shouldn't leave any tip for shiatty service. Good servers/bartenders don't mind because they don't give shiatty service and no tip makes the bad servers/bartenders quit sooner.

Depends on the place, really. Some places pool the tips and split them at the end of the night, in which case you *are* punishing the good staff too. (In fact, you're probably punishing them disproportionately, because chances are the bad staff pocket all the tips they can rather than letting them make it to the pool, if they can get away with it.)

By the same token, you are reward the bad staff by tipping the good servers/bartenders when places pool the tips.

However, I'd imagine that this is an incentive for the good servers to make life a living hell for the bad ones, until they leave.

Exactly.

I thought the tips were all pooled in a jar, and then divided equally between all employees at the end of day.

But you're actually tipping a specific waiter?

I never tip.

It`s not up to me to make some judgement call on service and arbitrarily boost the wages of a person I have not hired myself. The owner of the business wants servers? They can pay them and add the money on to the prices i see advertised even if it is a flat percentage. Hidden costs are illegal in other businesses, why not food? I want to go to the serving hatch myself and bring my own plates to the table. If the food is good, a server does not enhance my meal by enough to make it worth money to me, mostly they detract from my enjoyment of my meal. If I have £10 I won`t order the £8 meal and pay £2 to have it taken from just there to just here, I`ll order the £10 meal and say "I`d rather not have service please if it is extra to the cost of the meal".

I`ve extended the good server/bad server tip/no tip decision to "Is a server worth an extra X% on top of my bill?"

The answer is no. I do not accept the concept that I *have* to have a server at extra cost to my meal.

I'm short on cash. Can I just have shiat on a shingle instead?

Don't like tipping waiters? Don't eat out. Simple.

skullkrusher: Markoff_Cheney: ive worked a ton in the service industry and 20% is still mandatory for me unless the server is absolutely awful.
in which case i tip more just to try to make their day better. i know its not my job to do so, but you would have no idea how much it can turn someones day around to get an excessive tip when they know they gave shiat service.
but i have never faulted people or got angry over a 10 to 15% tip, thats just some peoples standards.
its getting stiffed completely that incites rage.

/insert racist service industry joke here, possibly about 'canadians'

Canadians are really bad tippers. Especially the black OLD ones.

When my folks or in-laws "treated" my family for a meal, I always needed to "forget" my cell phone or shades so I can go back to the table and augment the embarrassingly small tip they left.

PyroStock: By the same token, you are reward the bad staff by tipping the good servers/bartenders when places pool the tips.

Yes, that's true--but me, I'd rather reward when things go well than punish when they don't, if it's an either-or situation.

James F. Campbell: Don't like tipping waiters? Don't eat out. Simple.

Exactly.

Real simple answer.


Next time you eat someplace where they have a mandatory minimum tip above 15% placed on the bill and the manager refuses to remove it and you are NOT happy with the service received.
Make the waiter wash your car or do pushups until you are satisfied with their service.

One habit I have with tipping is that when I eat someplace cheap, such that a 15% tip would be about $3, I will usually give the server five bucks.

Other than that, it's 15% for service in the adequate-to-good range, more for exceptional service, and less for crappy service.