Wow. This is a fun rant. I have worked in the service industry and have been pissed at poor tips, but then I spent several years training bar and wait staff and now I only tip if the service is good. Remember please that we have posters from all over the world and different countries have different laws regarding minimum wage. We also have different expectations, in the UK (outside London) a 10% tip is a normal tip, much more than 15% is extremely rare. I didn't know that in America companies were allowed to pay staff below minimum wage to serve food. In the UK and Canada, minimum wage is minimum wage for every occupation. I am actually surprised that is legal. I am however aware that many countries tax tips and many establishments split tips between all staff including cleaners and kitchen staff. I have always had an issue with why we tip people who serve us food and drink but not everyone else in the service industry. We don't tip in the dry-cleaners. We don't tip the kid in 7-11 who sells us a drink. We tip taxi drivers, but not bus/coach drivers. If I ate in a cafe I would tip, but if I ate in McDonalds I wouldn't. Why, whats the difference? Someone somewhere decided that we tip some people but not others, but lets be honest waiters including their tips are often much better paid than everyone else with a minimum wage job. In short (assuming that the server is making minimum wage) I do not feel that tips are mandatory. I have high expectations for service and yet still I will only tip if I feel the person was at least satisfactory. In addition, I am also among those people that writes letters to companies to praise excellent service and condemn poor service.

I'm a waitress and you NEVER talk about tips because 99 percent of the time other customers can hear you. What a moron.

#95 - thank you for mentioning that! at the restaurant i worked at we had to tip out 5% of our SALES. meaning if i got enough tables of assholes like many of the posters on here, i would have to pay out of my POCKET to people that do bullshit jobs like hostess (no offense to hostesses, i have hostessed myself...but i'm sorry, it's the easiest job in the world and most of them make upwards of $8 an hour anyway compared to the server wage here in wi of $2.33 an hour).

YDI... I pay my waiters in cash whenever I can. Credit cards = taxes.

You're an asshole. I hope you were at least a big enough man to refuse the tip - if he was still nice enough to offer it by that point!!

I always tip in cash because I'm a waiter myself and I know that most waiters don't claim cash tips so they don't get taxed on them. besides having cash is better than a credit card tip IMO. But yeah, PLEASE at least wait until they party leaves completely before you say anything. Or make up a code that you and a few other people understand. I use the phrase "clean plates" for no tip and "nice table" for good tip. If you're gonna talk trash, make sure nobody understands and be smart about it oh god, i'm scared of #184

@134 about the minimum wage issue. I don't know about the rest of the USA but here in colorado, minimum wage for someone who recieves tip on a regular basis has a minimum wage of $2.33 and if at the end of the day, you make less than $7.25 (colorado's standard minimum wage) an hour, your employer must pay you extra until it evens out to 7.25 an hour. Whether or not places actually do that is a different story

Next time it happens, pull a fast one and say it was a different customer and don't show him any receipt or anything, saying it's 'restaurant policy' or some bs like that to play it off. This is a great example of why the wise have learned to "hold their tongues" Better luck next time, champ.

Always wait until the customer is gone before you start bad mouthing...double check and triple check! If he had gotten all offended and raised hell to your boss about it, you could not only have ended up stiffed on your tip, you could have lost your job. I bartend, and thank god I work alone! so I just wait until I get home and bad mouth everyone to my spouse instead! LOL :P

I just saw someone say that min wage is min wage in Canada. That is NOT true. here in Canada Servers DO make a lower min wage than average. Tip Big, we're starving!