I hate tipping culture.
When I was young and a waitress in college, I noticed horrible racism from waiters who treated minorities badly due to tipping stereotypes.
Please just get rid of it for living wages.
Please just get rid of it for living wages.
http://www.ebony.com/news-views/are-black-people-really-bad-...
http://freakonomics.com/2008/03/20/the-racial-tipping-point/
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=132924...
http://scholarship.sha.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?artic... (This one is a survey of the research literature on this)
Summary: there are racial differences in tipping in the US. They persist even after controlling for socioeconomic status. Servers (both white and black) treat expected poor tippers worse than expected good tippers. No one is sure why there is this difference.
I suspect quality of service has a lot more to do with cultural factors unrelated to tipping.
To be fair, it really varies so much between regions and even towns. Restaurants are usually ok, but regular shops in big cities... eh.
America has the problem where calling a waiter over is rude, so you have to wait for them to come over to your area. I can't count the number of times I've been waiting 15-20 minutes just to start my order, and this is often in restaurants that are fully staffed and barely busy. I don't encounter this elsewhere.
The idea that you are entitled to excellent service because you are paying is pernicious. If you want excellent service, treat people excellently.
Literally the only thing you are paying for is service (the services of cooking and waiting on you), otherwise you'd be eating at home.
If being polite to people is working extra hard, that might be the cause of the bad service you receive.
Even if it were true cultural expectations would be the major deciding factor of how employees act.
Perhaps your idea of “good service” is coloured by your own culture. For example in the USA it is rude to summon a waiter while everywhere else it is rude for the waiter to intrude.
There are also different signals such as ROTW putting cutlery together to signify “I am finished” and crossed to signify “still eating”, or whether to place your napkin yourself or have the waiter help you. Then there are different habits such as paying staff a proper wage and not relying on a hangover from slavery to support waitstaff.
Spain has a tipping culuture and the service is mediocre; service is sometimes chaotic (eg food arrives before drinks) and slow, eg asking for bill, paying bill, getting the change takes a long time.
France has a no-tip culture; service is correct, friendly and efficient, despite the stereotype of Parisian serving staff.
My theory is that quality of service isn't related to the tip, but is related to the cultural acceptability of shit service.
As someone who has waited tables as a kid, I know why they did all those things in the US more often. People often tip more on alcohol and you can also get your table turned over more quickly during your shift. In the UK there's no incentive to get more alcohol to tables nor to turn over the table.
Now, I'm not going to explain myself or reply any further, as I'm getting DV.