Service with a SMILE

Service with a SMILE
Why is tipping such a big deal in the United States? A question I am usually asked by non Americans. To be honest, I often ask this question myself. I can hear thousands and thousands of groans and curse words right now but honestly if you were paid a decent wage you wouldn’t have the somewhat stressful situation where you are being overly nice to someone in order to get a decent tip, someone you might not even talk to on the street!! I do not mind tipping for good service, but tipping just because is a little annoying to me. It felt good when I went abroad and did not feel pressured to tip. Even so, I carried the trauma with me thinking every time we paid for a meal we would be pressured to tip. There have been quite a few incidents where the service was terrible even having my waiter waste water on my shoes and not even apologize for it. He put the tip on the receipt without even asking me and what turned into a reasonable priced meal ended up jumping to a number I will not name. In order to change this? Yeah, I would have to say infront of everyone, can you take the receipt back and lower the tip… Way to put me on the spot. If waiters make most of their salary off tipping then there needs to be a revision in how waiters make their money. I am quite sure the billion dollar company that is employing them can do a better job in distributing salaries.