Tipping

The standard for tipping a waiter at a restaurant has been greatly inflated in our society and no longer reflects the quality of service received, which has resulted in good waiters not being justly rewarded for good service, while bad waiters walk away with unwarranted amounts of money despite providing poor service. If we are to truly honor the courtesy of tipping, we must drastically change the way we tip waiters and have our tips more accurately reflect the quality of service received.

The standard tip has historically been 15% of the total check. What quality of service, therefore, is deserving of a 15% tip? If a waiter does his/her job by checking in with the customer several times during the night, refills their drinks a few times, and is moderately friendly and sociable, then I believer that waiter deserves a 15% tip. If you do a good job, you get 15% - it's as simple as that.

Now, if a waiter frequently checks in with the customer throughout the night, asking them about their food, frequently filling up their drinks, is genuinely friendly, and so forth, I believe that waiter deserves a better tip because they have exhibited excellent service; and in such a situation they deserve a better tip - 17%, 18%, or 20%. If your waiter is busting his butt and is literally running from one table to another, that individual deserves 25% and the manager ought to be notified of the waiter's truly exceptional service so that the waiter is rewarded by someone multiple people.

Regarding mediocre to poor service: if your waiter just brings your food and drinks, but only comes to your table when you catch his/her attention to fill up your drinks, for example, then that waiter does not deserve a 15% tip! I'm sorry - but that's how it's got to be! If he does a mediocre job, then that waiter should not receive more than a 10% tip. As a customer, you do not have the time or the interest to have a conversation with a mediocre waiter about his quality of service. Your tip is intended to have that conversation for you. So if your waiter does a mediocre job for multiple people on multiple nights and receives 10% tips, he will eventually get the message that he needs to raise his quality of service if he wishes to be considered a good waiter.

If a customer rewards mediocre service with a 15-20% tip, that mediocre waiter will never learn to raise his quality of service. He will continue to provide mediocre service because he knows that he will get tipped the same as if he provided excellent service. Therefore what motivation is there for him to change? And as a customer, you are not being stingy miser if you only tip a mediocre waiter 10%. Furthermore, if you receive awful service, you are not being a jerk by leaving a nickel in your glass! If you receive awful service, then you are doing that terrible waiter a huge favor by leaving a nickel, because you are challenging him to become a better waiter and a better person.

Excellent service deserves excellent tips. Therefore, you are doing excellent waiters a HUGE disservice by tipping bad waiters! There ought to be a reward for providing excellent service, and there should be little to no reward for providing poor service. Though this issue may seem trivial, it reflects much deeper issues of virtue and vice in individuals and society. If virtue is not prized and rewarded, and vice is not discouraged, the ultimate result is moral, intellectual, and social retardation, because virtue and vice are regarded as one and the same, and thus deemed insignificant and irrelevant.