[bigmonkey]

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I have never tipped in a restaurant, but I don't live in the USA. People should be paid fully by their employers and not have to hope or even beg for charity from the people they are serving, who are given a fixed estimate to pay beforehand.

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In the United States people are gived a fixed estimate, 15-20% on top of the cost of the meal. Why is that so hard to understand?

If you have never tipped in an American restaurant you are an ethnocentric douche bag who doesn't deserve to travel overseas.

Again, sorry if I'm a little jaded but during SXSW, Austin is filled with European hipsters who continually screw my servers to the point that I end buying tons of alcohol to compensate for all the douche bags

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I've never been to an American restaurant. If I did I would probably be one of those who don't tip of their own volition, but begrudgingly pay the service charge you heave on top as standard. Then I will probably never come back.

Have you ever thought about whether it might be you who are screwing your own servers by not paying them what you think they deserve to be paid?

Also, I thought that when I go to a restaurant I am paying for the service in the costs of the meals themselves. I assumed I'm paying for ingredients, trained professionals (depending on the restaurant I suppose) to prepare them, people to serve them to me, use of plates, cutlery etc, bathroom facilities, and other whatnot. If I'm supposed to tip at all, why aren't I supposed to tip the kitchen staff too? Why do people have salaries in life at all, if they can be paid by voluntary contributions depending on the generosity of consumers and the consumer's subjective value for the service being provided? I don't understand the seemingly completely arbitrary convention of tipping certain people. You tip taxi drivers, but not bus drivers, waiters but not chefs. It makes no sense.

Even if the response is: "well that's why we have a service charge on everything you order, which goes to the waiters/waitresses", why couldn't you have just over-charged in the first place and not told me what you pay the staff? Why do I need to be told that they are being paid x% of my bill? Again, why not include in my bill a detailed report of exactly how much of my money is your profit, and how much of it goes towards paying every one of your outgoings?

In my opinion the only reason this thing exists is because it's something the industry can get away with. Once the convention has stuck, people (usually stupid people) feel guilty about "stiffing" these staff money which they shouldn't be paid in the first place. I'm not completely against tipping. I would tip anyone who I thought had done an exceptional job regardless of what job it is they have done. I can't really conceive of what it means for a waiter to have done an exceptional job, since it's quite simple really. And I have been in some very good restaurants. I appreciate that at the higher end of the market the staff are reasonably well-trained. But then their employers should just be paying them more than the average waiters at worse establishments. These top-quality restaurants already charge exponentially more than their less fashionable counterparts, so my best guess would be that they pay their staff more.