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A Christian's responsibility to tip?

We try to limit out eating out as a family to once a week. This keeps costs down and helps us really enjoy it. Saturday evening rolled around and we decided on a place (I wanted Mexican, but got outvoted).

The night started out fine. We had a big table with a view of the kitchen (which the girls liked). The kids also got crayons and paper (which they also liked). We had a game plan for who was getting what. Everyone was happy (although I still wanted Mexican).

Our happiness peaked in the first five minutes because the rest of the meal was peppered with server mistake after server mistake. We were constantly waiting on refills, the server brought the wrong meal for the girls (and then she tried to fix it by disregarding what I had originally ordered and bringing us something else), items were missing, we had to repeatedly ask for certain condiments and sauces — it was just an unpleasant experience from the service end.

The food itself was good and the girls weren't really aware of all the mistakes, but my wife and I certainly were. And I noticed that the people at the table next to us were having problems with the same server (I overheard them discussing the final bill — the server eventually recognized her error).

When it was finally time to pay our bill, the server took my debit card, and returned with the bill for me to sign. She failed to come back with my card — par for the course.

Now it's tip time.

Let's pause for a minute so I can give some personal background. I've done more than my fair share of food-industry work — six restaurants, a country club, a grocery store, and a camp kitchen. I know what it's like to work for tips. I know what it's like to give good service (and occasionally bad).

I know what a good dining experience should be and how hard restaurant work can be. I also know how lucrative such work can be, considering the rather easy requirements for becoming a server. In fact, I think everyone should work in a restaurant so that they can have a better appreciation for servers.

And it's with this background that I nearly always tip at least 15%. But that night, I didn't. I couldn't. It was just so bad. And you know what? It felt good!

Why? Because I hate rewarding bad behavior with good things. Why should I reward that waitress's terrible service with a good tip? Wouldn't I just be reinforcing bad service? When my kids act up, they don't get good things — they get consequences. In school and in jobs, poor performance generally yields bad results. Just because I'm a Christian, should I feel obligated to tip higher because it might help my witness?

Now it's true (at least in the restaurants I've worked at) that servers don't like the Sunday lunch crowd — aka, the church crowd. Supposedly, tips are worse and guests aren't as nice as you'd think they'd be. It's possible this is the case, though I also think the quick influx of guests and increased number of kids makes it a more stressful shift. I'd be curious to see the actual breakdown of tip percentages as compared to other lunch shifts.

But back to our recent dining experience, my question is: Was I wrong? As a Christian, should I tip well regardless of how poor the service is? Perhaps the server saw us pray before we ate — so was not giving her at least 15% a bad witness? Or perhaps I should have said something or written a note explaining why I just couldn't give her a nice tip?

I know some people not like it that my family eats out weekly, but that's not what this post is about. I'm specifically interested in your thoughts on what you think our responsibility is, as Christians, on tipping. Is there any scripture to back up your viewpoint? As always, keep it civil! Thanks!

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