Opinion: Tipping, why you should

In the states of South Carolina and Georgia servers are paid $2.13 hourly, the lowest a restaurant can pay legally. 

The ideology behind such a low hourly rate is that servers can make their income based on tips. Ideally, this works. 

Ideally. 

In reality, sometimes a server can work all night giving fantastic service, and walk away with $33 in their pocket after tip out. 

This has happened to almost every server, including myself. 

When going out to a sit-down restaurant, people should calculate a tip into their budget for the meal.

“For the wait staff at sit-down restaurants, the tip should be 15 to 20 percent of the pretax bill.” stated Libby Wells in her article The new rules of tipping: How much to tip in every situation.

Tipping below 15 percent should only really be done when a server is not providing quality service, and if that is the case, ask to speak to a manager. Telling the manager will do more to get your point across than tipping below percentage or not tipping at all.