If you're running up a $150 tab getting $6 drinks, you're getting more than one comped. Usually it's every few rounds, so the scenario would never happen, or be extremely rare. If it did, I would probably just leave $30 regardless. If I had gotten every 5th drink comped or so and the bill was $120ish I'd leave a bit extra.

If it's a very expensive restaurant, and they give you a couple a free glasses of champagne or something, then you don't need to tip half the value of the glass of champagne.

This is all common sense guys.

Mullen,

Exactly.

Sure. I never said it was a likely scenario; I was just providing an example that matched up with the description he gave (however likely or unlikely it might have been).

I'm not sure why it's being assumed that we're talking about a single person ordering only alcoholic drinks.

What I thought Agame was originally describing, and what I was talking about when referencing his post, was eating at a nice restaurant with another person, or a small group.

There are two problems people forget about when considering the effect of how we in the US pay restaurant servers, relying heavily on tips:

First, it means there is in effect a much lower minimum wage for some servers than for others. Bartender or cocktail waitress in a busy, not-scuzzy place? You do fine. Waitress at Waffle House? Good luck feeding your kids. This is true not because we tip, but because almost everyone has become acclimated to tipping as a percentage (which varies from person to person, but when you include the non-tippers probably averages out to something on the order of 10%) of the bill, plus rounding up in the case of small, frequent purchases like drinks. And yes, I get the argument that the person in the nice place has fewer tables (probably true), splits tips with someone else (often true) and works harder and does a better job (****ing bull****, and that's from someone who used to wait tables at a nice place) than the person at the ****ty place, and the argument that everyone's free to seek every job (which is sort of true but a long conversation). My point is that with compensation as it is, Waffle House can pay its server an effective $6 an hour, while the fancy bar cannot pay its servers anything less than a few times that. This is dumb — we should decide what the minimum wage is (if there is one; obviously most of us think there should be) and apply it to everyone.

Second, tipping (in any industry) fosters the acceptance of tax evasion. This has been somewhat ameliorated by IRS rules allowing servers to estimate a fixed (usually rather low relative to what they make) percentage and to use that as a "safe harbor". But there are many servers not subject to the safe harbor rules, and many, many more employees for whom there are no safe harbor provisions even though they receive cash tips... and we all know that every goddam one of those workers underreports his tips at tax time. And whether you think taxes are too high, too low, or whatever, you probably agree that one class of worker being able very easily to cheat on its taxes, while another class has fewer opportunities to do so, is both unfair and harmful to overall compliance; you may agree with me that having a law (report your taxes accurately) broken with impunity and acceptance is also harmful to society's overall morality.

tax evasion is a great reason to have tipping
good for them

I've had three bar jobs. One was a corporate place where comping was definitely frowned upon, and I didn't do it much, maybe once a while if someone was spending a lot. The other two were independent, local-type places, and I was most definitely encouraged by the boss/owner to comp drinks. More than that, I was given carte blanche to use my judgment about it, and if anything, they would have been annoyed if I wasn't comping regulars or good new patrons. Thinking about now and in the context of this thread, I'm sad to think that many of the people I comped assumed I was ripping off my bosses (both of whom were friends), but that probably was the assumption.
I'm not going to go to bat for tipping as a societal custom or a way of paying restaurant workers, but I don't think the above is a very good critique of it. For one thing, name me an industry that doesn't apportion wages unevenly among people doing essentially the same job, in favor of employees at the better jobs. Is the idea that all servers should make the same amount, or close to it?

For another thing, servers at high end restaurants are actually more skilled than Flo at Waffle House. They have a different skillset and knowledge base (wine knowledge, for example). I agree that Flo probably works as hard or harder, but again, pay in most sectors is not usually commensurate with difficulty of labor, it's commensurate with some combination of skill specialization, career experience and preferment.

I realized that one scenario in which I don't tip is when I'm at a more dive/local bar and I've spent a large amount (relative to the bar) and after I close my tab he asks me and my group what we'd like for the last round on the house.

I feel like they genuinely appreciated the business and tip I already gave them, and it's an act of goodwill for him to offer. It could be that I'm being cheap by not throwing down another $10 or $20, but I think this is the one case where not tipping is completely fine and saying thanks energetically is enough.

I agree with that

bearz,

Yeah. Places where I get a shot for the road or a nip of something to sip on at the end of the night, I do the same as you and just give them a sincere thanks.

no im not fine with tipping at all
Also,im not fine with people working like dogs all day for pennies.
Tipping serves the system just fine,there are so many ****ty jobs out there.
Who tips those people?Who gives those people a break?
Tipping is a hypocritical gesture that serves the fake morallity of the system quite well.
Damn,i hate capitalism so badly.

Is this a spoken word performance?

So there's a cleaner at the casino I've gotten friendly with. My car had a dead battery and I asked him for a jump. He said he'll do it when his shift is over. Should I tip here, and if so, is much?

I'd say yes because it's at a casino and the tipping culture is prevalent there. I'd probably give him a twenty even though he will probably say its okay and it's your job to make sure he takes it.

At work or an office, I'd just thank them for helping me out and offer to buy them a drink sometime.

Ugh at 20. Id rather just walk home and have my friend do it for free in the morning

Don't forget you need to buy a new battery.

I gave 10

That's fine. Now go spend $100 on a new battery (or at least get it tested for free at Autozone).

Don't casinos have security that will provide jumps for free?

Not here. According to the room manager one of the security guards screwed up a guys engine and he sued. Obviously that was the end of that

Let me clarify.

Let's say I'm at a bar and not a regular. I order 10 drinks over the course of a night (they're not all necessarily for myself). The bartender either gives me 1 drink free at the end (let's even say I wanted said drink) or just takes the price of one off my bill, charging me for 9.

In NYC bars, drinks are often 10-15 dollars per. So such a bill could be well over $100. The bartender saving me the cost of one drink doesn't really save me any money if I'm expected to tip more to make up the difference. Fudge the numbers enough and this can be true even if a few drinks are comped.

So let's say my bill should have been $125. I tip 20% so that would be $150.
So now let's say I'm only charged $110. I tip 25-30% and spend $140.

Ok so I still saved $10. But it's just annoying. As asdf correctly understood, if you're expected to tip more (and whether you are or not, I feel like I should), you're not really getting something comped, just discounted slightly.

Brocktoon,
I was talking about restaurants as well. I often go to diners or whatever with friends and we go a lot so we know the waitresses and they don't charge us for some things. But then my buddies insist on tipping like 30+% because of how much money "they're saving us." Well they're not saving us all that much if we're tipping a lot more because of it. I've had scenarios where we've had $100 bills knocked down to $70, and then we end up tipping $35 and we end up saving less than $20 bucks.

Yea I get it, you're probably still gonna save something. And if you're being comped 1 drink on a $500 bar tab, you're doing something wrong and you certainly shouldn't be upping your tip anyway.

My point is really....if you're in my social group, there's no such thing as a comped drink or meal.

AGame, I assume you're not in your 20's.

Agame,

So in your scenarios you were comped $15 and $30 and saved about $10 and $15 on your final bill. Why is that so annoying to you? Your amounts are in the same ballpark as what most of us are saying itt.

By the way, based on reactions from servers and bartenders at places I don't frequent regularly when I leave a "50% of difference" tip after being comped something, I suspect most people don't leave as much as is being suggested in this thread. Except bartenders and servers who like to leave like 100% of the comped value...

Anyway, it's not an exact science for me. Let's say I got $10 comped and the bill comes out to $78 after tip, I'm prob leaving $80. And if it comes out to $73 after tip I'm also prob leaving $80.

I'm 25

It wouldn't annoy me if I was still saving a large amount. I went to a bar once and the bartender was flirting with me and must have really liked me because I had like a $150 tab and she charged me $50 or something. I happily tipped her $50 and felt like I still saved a ton of money.

I know "large amount" is relative and I agree it isn't always an exact science. But IME, some waiters/waitresses/bartenders feel like they're doing you this awesome favor by knocking the price down on your bill, and are only doing it so you'll tip more. Well great, but the bigger that tip is, the less favor you did.