Tipping is not optional in the US or Canada; it's expected and if you don't do it, you're a terrible person. Oh, and you're not impressing anyone with your 15 percent tip "karma."

1) If you didn't have a union, you'd almost certainly have shittier wages and working conditions.
2) If you can't afford to tip when you eat out, cook for your own self. There's no excuse for being a cheap-ass piece of shit.

I work in a supermarket and dropped into the opposition one day after shift while still in my uniform. A woman walked up to me and asked me to help her with something (our uniforms are similar) and, since I knew where it was and I'm just generally a nice person, I helped her out. Meanwhile they'd been calling over…

Am I the only one who read this:

So I'd like to flip this around a bit. Is it possible to tip too much? I never thought so. Never worked in food service but over the years I have had many friends who did. A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I took out her two brothers and sister in-law to a nice Japanese/Thai place. Party of Five.

I was out with my brother and a few of his friends. When we were paying, one of his friends coyly said he doesn't tip, almost as if he were doing his best Steve Bucemi/Mr. Pink Reservoir Dogs impression. He paid his bill without tip and began to get up. My brother flipped the hell out on the kid, berating him enough…

In the late 80's in college I worked as a bartender at a bowling alley in Kenosha, WI. There were a fair number of tournaments and league play and the alley was pretty busy on those nights and we ran fast tapping beers and mixing drinks.

Then they should stay in fucking Europe.

I've never worked in the food service industry, but I have gotten a bit of sweet vengeance on a customer before. Working at a gas station, you get customers that complain at and blame you for everything from the price of milk to the size of coffee cups, like the clerk has anything to do with those things. I had a guy…

I've never been a server, but my mom was, when I was very young, so I'm sympathetic to servers. Also because they bring me delicious food, and that is a thing that makes me like them. Serious, horrendous mistakes would have to occur for me to tip less than 20% (or more on holidays).

I gave a tip back to a table years ago. I worked at a small BYOB through high school and would pick up shifts when I was home from college. It was a super tight knit staff, lots of regulars, and pretty decent money. One night I had a table of 7 women come in, with reservations. First, they demanded one of my two…

I was a server for many years after college and found it to be an invaluable experience. Serving the myriad personalities of humanity taught me:

Grow up, dipshits.

In the late '80s and early 90s I worked as a bartender at a very nice hotel. It was the place where money came for lunch and supper, celebrities would stay there while shooting movies, and lots of AMEX Platinums (Ceturion wasn't around yet) went past your face.

Yeh, I went to Mexico for business a few years ago, and one of the guys from my office kept mixing up the exchange rate (embarrassing, since it was right at 10 pesos per dollar at the time — nice and easy to calculate). He accidentally ended up tipping extraordinarily well (like 100% well) for the two weeks we were…

Ladies: don't fuck bad tippers! If you're on a date, try to see what your date left or ask your waiter on the way out. I believe we can breed them out of existence.

I know that asking patrons if there was something wrong with their service in reference to a tip is usually a no-no (and at some restaurants is considered a fire-able offense), but I am a patron who has been asked this and I was SO GLAD that the server said something. I had been dining with a group and for whatever…

Long story short:

Working brunch at overpriced brunch place uptown. Horrible clientele - full of either rich Upper East Siders, tourists, or god forbid, European tourists. Got a table full of the latter - French. I'm sorry, but when it comes to tipping and general Not Being a Douche, the French get an F-. They come in…

Can we like, get you a raise or something? BCO does something to my spirits. Everyone at work today is squabbling. Tension can be cut with a knife. I'm over here snickering... and wanting to be waited on by a tough ass drag queen.