That viral tweet about "always tip 25% or you're a bad person" made me rethink how I handle restaurant feedback

Okay so there was this tweet that got like 50k likes saying if you don't tip at least 25% you're actively making servers' lives worse. And I used to always tip 20% no matter what, bad service or not, because I felt guilty. But after seeing that tweet I actually talked to my cousin who waits tables in Denver. She said she'd rather get 15% from someone who is nice and doesn't make her run around for stupid stuff than 25% from someone who is demanding and rude. So now I tip based on the whole experience, not just a flat number. I still tip at least 18% usually but I don't beat myself up if the service was genuinely rough. Does anyone else feel like these absolute tip rules online miss the point?

2 comments

2 Comments

thea6021d ago

Your cousin is totally onto something. I've had the same shift in thinking after working with a lot of different service people for my own stuff, and honestly, being a decent human matters way more than a flat percentage. It's like people forget that tipping is supposed to be about the whole experience, not just a number you have to hit to avoid getting yelled at online.

rileyprice1d ago

Yeah I gotta disagree. The percentage matters because it's a concrete way to show appreciation that actually pays their bills. Being polite is baseline stuff, not a substitute for proper compensation.