“And I believe strongly that you get what you paid for in this world. You pay very little for crappy service, I pay a bit more and tend to get great service.”
So did you make an intellectual decision that 20% gets you the maximum value you can possibly get or are you not following your own advice and getting even better service for 25%, or 30%, or 35%, etc... Get my drift? You made the decision that 20% is the breaking point between your desire for good service and what you would be willing to pay for that good service.
I made the decision that I will not get one bit more better service at 10% than I would at 15% a long time ago and to date I believe I am right and you are wrong.
I made the intellectual decision to be the kind of guy that improves the day of the service industry people I deal with periodically. So I’m nice to them, I don’t look down on them, and when tips are involved I tip well. Today I went to lunch and tipped over 25%, it was a $35 bill and I paid 45, I generally aim for a nice convenient number to pay, not a hard percentage. Service was good, and the food was good, and in spite of the fact that the place was very crowded everything that should be fast was fast and everything that should be slow was slow. See I walk in being nice and I get good service.
You made the decision to be a cheapskate and have an adversarial relationship with the staff. Everything else you’ve said is just excuse mongering for you being the kind of customer everybody in the service industry dreads. you’re partially right in that it really doesn’t matter how much YOU tip, because you think they’re out to rip you off and spit in your food. When you walk in with that kind of attitude everybody that’s worked in food service for more than 6 months can smell it, and they will give you crappy service because they don’t want to be around unpleasant people that act like they’re the enemy. No amount that you tip afterwards will fix that. But if you decided to be more generous in both attitude AND money, and walked in more friendly you’d get better service.
And if you actually had worked food service like you said you would know that, you would know the smell of a PITA cheapskate customer and you would know that you reek of that. You are the customer you hated most. Congratulations.