Quote Originally Posted by jockeys View Post
actually, in most states in america, waiters are paid FAR LESS than minimum wage, because they expect to get tips. here in texas, waiters are paid $2.12 an hour. without tips, that's less than half of minimum wage. also, you still get paid 2.12/hour when you aren't waiting tables, eg. doing the expo line, cleaning, rolling silverware, etc. so you have to make even more during the active hours to make up and try to reach minimum wage or above.

so yeah, tips matter. i never tip less than 20% unless the waiter really screws something up. i was a waiter all thru college, and let me tell you, it's a ****ty life living off of people's generosity like that. there was always a fight over who got the foreign people when they came in, becuase everyone knew that foreigners don't tip. i've gotten burned by that, too, and even though it's a stereotype, it held true 99% of the time for me.
That might be true in the states. I'll definately take your word for it. However over here minimum wage is a legal minimum. By law you actually CAN'T pay less than that. So servers always make at LEAST that. I've worked plenty of minimum wage jobs so I don't feel sorry for them at all.

That said I ALWAYS tip unless they weren't good for me and the missus. And when I'm in the states, most people don't even believe that I'm not from the states. So I don't have that problem.