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People do tip in Australia, it's just not expected. Tipping a genuine act of generosity to reciprocate exceptional service.

The correlation between service quality and tipping is an interesting one, why does anyone do a good job in any role without some kind of incremental reward for effort. Do office workers always revert to 'just enough to not get fired' or are they playing a longer game for promotions and bonuses?

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What is this "exceptional service" people are talking about? Take the order without forgetting stuff and then bring dishes from the kitchen? Isn't that just a normal baseline for this profession? Or does it mean not spitting in the food (I'm joking)? I sometimes leave tips, but not once have I understood why, because there is no such thing as "exceptional" in the waiting service imho. I only do it due to the social pressure, like a monkey in the story about water hose and a ladder.

I absolutely think that exceptional service is possible - for example, when I visit a restaurant with my elderly grandparents who have some extremely particular dietary restrictions, and the wait staff patiently discuss our options, help them create a meal that satisfies their preferences and remains interesting, I find that exceptional. I've had wait staff give us genuine recommendations on the menu, with honesty, indicating the dishes they don't like (much more rare) as well as those they do resulting in a good meal - I enjoy that candor and am happy to tip for the recommendation. I've also had staff stay late and keep a restaurant open because we were on the last train into a station with nowhere else to go and eat and didn't speak the local language - I found that exceptional as well.

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