Restaurant tipping: It shouldn't be automatic

It used to be that a "tip" was a gift: an unsolicited payment — a gratuity — given above and beyond payment due for a service rendered.

That notion has been complicated in recent years in job fields where tipping is common, as employers have lowered salaries and government has levied taxes based on expected amounts of tips. In other words, if you tip less than 15 percent after a restaurant meal, you are cutting the waiter's pay.

To be sure, there's nothing wrong with omitting the tip to send a strong message if your waiter clearly fails to provide adequate service.

But if the waiter does everything right, then 15 percent isn't enough. Again, that's because 15 percent is in effect part of his or her pay, and not a gift above and beyond.

What's important to maintain, however, is the principle that tipping is a way for the diner to express his or her satisfaction or disappointment to the wait help.

Once that principle is lost, we're in Europe, where tips have become "service charges," which are automatically added to your bill. That practice certainly saves the patron from a process that causes anxiety for many Americans.

But what is missing in Europe is any incentive to waiters to provide service above and beyond expectation.

(Incidentally, we use the term "waiter" for both men and women, finding "wait person" unbearably awkward and "server" too demeaning.)

As Advertiser Staff Writer Michael Tsai noted in his article last week, tipping has also become expected by taxi drivers, hotel maids, hair dressers, bell hops and skycaps — the list gets longer by the year.

And we think the same principle applies: Tipping is a gift, but only if it's more than the amount that the employee's employer and the taxman have already anticipated that you'll give.