🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <Cu0Joq.7sy@melpar.esys.com>, Lee Conner <lbc@h4snap> wrote:
>Edward Rice (edward.rice@his.com) wrote:
>

[Tipping scales 'n tales of good and bad service deleted]

I think I tend to be a bit more generous than I sometimes should be.
I consider waiting tables to be a difficult job.  I've known some folks
(including a close family friend) who make it a general practice to abuse
waitpersons, and I tend to be very sympathetic to those folks just
trying to do their job.  I *am*, however, wary of those neglectful
waitpersons who sort of assume that a 15% or more tip is just a
given - I mean, sometimes, they're such nonentities that I'd prefer
to get up and get  my stuff myself. ;) 

The question I have is:  When you go to a restaurant where there
is the person who takes you order, the food server, the busboy etc -
how is the tip divided, or is it divided?  This came up recently
when my fiance and I were having dinner at the Laurel Olive Garden.  Now,
there's a place with truly variable service - we've been there
four times, once with a good waitress, once with an okay
waitress, once with a *wonderful* waiter, and most recently, a
waitress best described as "the invisible woman".  We didn't see
her at all after she took our orders, which eventually came out
wrong (and cold, to boot).  Knowing our dissatisfaction, she didn't
even bother to ask if we wanted dessert, but instead brought out
a *bucketload* of those damn Andes mints with the check.  She looked
around stealthily as she did so, as if she'd be fired on the spot.
I could've done without the Andes mints in exchange for having her
not charge us for the appetizers she brought out *after* the meal, but
whatcha gonna do? ;) 

*Anyway*, the point of this was:  When it came to figure the check,
I didn't want to leave a tip at all, but my fiance pointed out that
the tip would be divided among the other persons who *did* do their
job, like the food servers, and it would not be fair to deprive them.
We eventually left something like 10%.  What say you all?