I worked in retail as a truck unloader throughout college for just above minimum wage, making about $55/day after taxes. Me and my buddy would go to applebees on our weekend nights off to hang out, and I never had a problem tipping until a fateful night about a year ago.

Our favorite waitress was having a "bad" night, and she started bitching to us about how she "only" made $150 that night in tips. Needless to say her untaxed $150 was sounding pretty fucking good for someone who pulled 4000 pound pallets for a fraction of that. I usually left her $4 tips on a $10-15 bill, but that night I started feeling uncomfortable leaving anything over 15%, realizing I was rewarding her self-entitled bullshit. After a while I just stopped going entirely.

Tipping culture is a cancer. I can't figure out how we as a society have effectively been brainwashed that giving mediocre servers a minimum of 15% of an overpriced meal is the "right" thing to do. You can go buy beers at 7-11 for effectively 1/3rd what you are paying a restaurant for, without even including tips, and food is only marginally better. Considering fast food can get by paying at least minimum wage, I have trouble buying into the idea that restaurants, who often charge 3x as much as fast food for similar amounts of food, can't afford to pay their servers. Sure the food quality is definitely better, but at worst raise the prices if it's really so necessary.

Anyway, as the article talks about, this self-entitled attitude from restaurants and servers to pay them extra to do their job won't end until we as a society make it stop. Until then they will keep expecting more and more from customers that are already paying far more than they should for food. Soon we'll be tipping our cashiers for bagging our groceries and tipping used car salesmen for conning us out of our money.