How much do you tip?

[Prloko]

I live in Germany now and much prefer the style of tipping here. Servers are servers by trade, get paid a fair salary and basically only take 'round up' tips, a euro or two as a thank you, not nearly a quarter of the billed amount as some sort of unwritten line item charge. I do hate american style tipping. I find it a strange exercise in social shaming to force the direct support of the waitstaff onto the patron. The waitstaff here fall more consistently into the 'adequate' category (in US service terms) with much less 'bad service' or 'exceptional service' experiences than I have gotten in the states. They tend to just do thier jobs, which at the end of the day is all I really want. The few times I get really exceptional service I know it's because the person is generally just a nice person and it isn't an act to elicit a higher tip.

I mentioned something earlier in this thread to the same effect and was hounded by tip defenders. It shows that tips are NOT a necessary evil and instead of villianizing customers who only want to not have to cook their own meal, the industry should receive the brunt of the blame.

This is coming from the child of a career waitress; If you don't like depending on tips, get another line of work. When the restaurants can't seem to find enough staff willing to work for nothing, they'll get the message and will start paying a better salary and perhaps even benefits on their own. Stop blaming customers, they are the reason restaurants are in business, they don't exist to line your pockets.

I do agree with waiters on one thing, it is completely unfair that they receive less than minimum wage, especially when a large part of their job is doing tasks unrelated to waiting (cleaning silverware, filling salt shakers, general cleaning etc). In my opinion, once a waiter is performing tasks related to general restaurant upkeep, that time should be paid AT LEAST minimum wage.