The Tease of Things I Don't Need

Service & Tips & Related Matters
 
   Over on Brad's Mysterious Glow site, down on his messageboards, is a thread concerning tips, service, etc. kicked off by a link to the Bitter Waitress site. I read it and posted the following there (which I've expanded slightly), which seemed to have enough topics folded into it that I decided to make it into a post here.

 I always try to give a solid tip to wait staff that's at least competent, and never to penalize them for either mistakes made by the kitchen or for slow service when it's obvious that either they or the kitchen staff is overwhelmed. I was a little taken aback by the opening page that declared anything under %17 as a "shitty" tip, as I'd understood 15% to be an acceptable baseline for a "no real complaints" dining experience. If I have a very good experience I'll leave 30%, occasionally more. My biggest pet peeve is being left without something to drink. There's almost never an excuse for that, and the dryer I become the dryer the tip pool becomes.  The waiter/waitress who sweeps by with refills or replacement drinks (I'm always drinking either iced tea or soda at restaurants, not beer or mixed drinks, and as someone who wants to keep his kidneys in good order I drink a great deal at a meal) so that I'm never lacking something to drink and don't have to find myself rationing it is going to be tipped well. 

 W hat about buffet restaurants where the staff on the floor does little more than haul away the used dishes? (The Old Country Buffet and that ilk.) As a general rule of thumb at those places we (here I'm thinking of lunch during a workday when two or three of us go out) don't leave more than $1 per person dining, which would still generally land that in the 13%-15% range which, under the circumstances, strikes me as generous.

 Irritating are the Chinese buffets which all (at least here in PA) have a bizarre policy of letting us go get our own food but insisting on getting our drinks for us. (Come to think of it, places such as Pizza Hut have the same policy during their lunchtime buffets, but at least there it makes sense since most of the time it's the usual wait-staff situation.) It doesn't seem that there can be a health code commanding this, as the drink dispensing situation is nearly antiseptic compared to people reaching in under those sneeze guard panes of glass for food, right?

  It's made all the worse when the waittress makes a pass by two or more tables, collecting glasses for refills, and people are just supposed to presume they've gotten the same glass back that they handed in. I make a point of doing something distinctive to the straw, at least, so I'm reasonably sure I'm not being handed some other diner's viral and bacterial load. (I don't share a glass with anyone except under the most dire of circumstances. Even a family member -- if we're out in some isolated circumstance and they really need/want that drink I'll give it to them, but it's a one way trip; I don't want it back.)