To tip or not to tip... or should it be banned?

[EC]

From the BBC, and it is a long article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22846846

A New York restaurant has banned tipping to spare customers the bother, while some restaurants in other US cities have already replaced the gratuity with a fixed optional service charge. So is the discretionary tip falling out of favour in the land where it's king?

A young man and woman are sitting in a restaurant in New York, enjoying their second date.

The man pays the waiter the bill and heads to the bathroom while the woman gathers her things.

"How much did he tip?" she asks the waiter. He tells her.

When the man comes back to the table, there is an angry exchange and she says she doesn't want to see him again.

A tip of 8.5% brought that romance to a premature end.

This story, told years later by the waiter that night, Steve Dublanica, reflects both how seriously Americans take tipping and how loaded with social meaning it has become.

The size of tips has increased and the list of those who expect them is growing also, in recent years joined by staff in takeaways.

Meanwhile, tip jars have proliferated to such an extent you may be confronted by one where you receive your sandwich and another one a few feet away where you pay for it.

It's a custom that's become second nature for most Americans, although there's still a sharp intake of breath when they see three or four hotel staff involved in taking their luggage from the boot of the car and up to the room.

But it's worse for visitors - whom to tip and how much can be a source of debate, confusion and often anxiety at doing the wrong thing or appearing to be ungenerous.

Tip the barman but not the shop assistant, reward the hairdresser but not if he or she owns the salon. Give the hotel luggage guy a dollar or two but not the receptionist. And don't under-tip.

One British tourist says she and her friends were followed out of a Manhattan restaurant by an angry waiter unhappy with a 10-15% tip.

"The waiter gave us the tip back and told us it wasn't good enough, that as tourists we didn't understand that we had to give more in New York," says Janine Windust.

"One of my friends, a New Yorker, told him it was discretionary and not to be so rude, but the three Brits couldn't be bothered to argue and left him the full 20%.

More at link.

[PzLdr]

Since the "Lady" was  concerned enough with the gentleman's spending habits to publicly argue with him about them, and to apparently refuse any more dates, he should have shared her concern, and stuck her with her half of the bill [tip optional]. 

[andy58-in-nh]

The formal term for tip is "gratuity" - which comes from the old French word gratuité, by way of the Latin gratuitus, meaning "voluntary".

And that's the very point of it: a tip is a voluntary payment, made in exchange for service.

No service, no tip. The better the service, the larger the gratuity, as determined voluntarily by the customer.

Where such payments are either banned or mandated, the incentive for a service provider to provide superior service is diminshed.

Personally, I leave 15% as a standard amount for an acceptable level of service (somewhere in the middle of the quality bell curve). I will leave 20% for superior service, and 10% or less for an inferior customer experience.

On occasion, I have left more than 20%, and as little as 1 cent. As leaving nothing might be misinterpreted as an oversight, I have found that the remittance of a single penny in the event of truly abysmal service makes the point with unmistakable clarity.

[Rapunzel]

I normally leave 20% unless I receive bad service...