Tipping Waiters

I got to thinking about this issue last week. A tip is something people give as a bonus for good service. So, when you don't get good service, are you obligated to give a tip? Monique and I went out the other night to one of our favorite restaurants. I won't mention it here, but if you know us, its a pricier Mexican place. We usually get fine service. It's funny cause, really, what is good service? We all seem to know when its good, but is it always that great? We get to the place, sit down and we already know what we want. Usually, we make it as easy as possible for a waiter to get things right. Even with that, he did a few things wrong. First, I really don't appreciate it when someone takes an order and doesn't even write it down. Maybe it's cool when your one "good relations" with the waiter, but all other times, please take the minute to write down what I'm going to tell you. So, he didn't write down what I wanted and of course, I didn't get what I asked for. Since I've been on weight watchers, I have a habit of ordering everything without cheese. When I get my burrito, suprise, he forgot to tell the cook that I didn't want cheese. Now you might be thinking, wait a minute, is it really the waiters fault, couldn't the cook have messed up? My answer is no, it is the waiters fault. Even if the cook had messed up, it should be the waiters job to make sure we got the right thing, correct? Shouldn' they be taking care of us? Isn't that the whole idea? Cause I'll tip the girl who sits us if we are only supposed to tip on people that talk to us and smile. At this point of being serived, I was like, alright, I'll let this slip. I was able to pick the cheese off the top. Next, we don't get one "come back" to see if we need anything. Both of our waters and salsa levels had run dry, and we needed refills. Our waiter did have the time to chat with his friends at the booth next to us, so I though that was nice of him. I figured, if he wants to chat with his friends, thats fine, but if your not working, don't expect to get paid. This was my logic in not giving this guy more than his fair share of a tip. I guess I had reached a point that night where I said, if you don't want to earn it, you don't have to. For a consumer like me, it makes the whole experiece of going to that place less pleasurable to me. Normally, I give great tips cause I make my living off tips. Sometimes giving up to 17-20% if I feel they really worked well to serve us. But I guess not that night. So, my question is, am I correct to think that if a waiter does not work to earn a tip, he shouldn't get one? It seems to fit best with what I belive anyway...