Don’t get me wrong I’m not anti tipping I just think it can be a little confusing for visitors.
Also are the tips shared with the back of house staff who are probably on a worse wage and get no opportunity to get tips. Most restaurants here (to my knowledge) combine the tips and then share them between all staff.
You may have to clarify the context here.
Why is there a need to turn a service into ‘theatre’, simply to get recognition for doing a good job, in order to get more money?
The one that threw me in France was being expected to tip a theatre usher for showing you to a seat you could easily find yourself. If I wasn’t in company of a native I’d have never thought of that one.
In a restaurant a tip of 10% is considered generous I’m told.
and, in my experience, you get the best level of service I’ve had anywhere.
In places where tipping is obligatory, I find you often get very polite and friendly service, but not always “good service”.
I agree. Pay staff a decent wage so that tipping is either not needed, or is only paid when you get exceptional service
That’s a common practice in the US too, although I couldn’t swear to it being the norm.
Catching the bus.
No thanks I’ve already been on it several times. 
Doesn’t go anywhere.
While in college I worked as a waiter and bartender at a very nice restaurant and a percentage of the tips went to the kitchen staff and bus staff. When I graduated I kept working a couple of nights a week and was bringing home as much cash in two nights as I cleared in my weekly paycheck at my full time job. Helped me put together the money for the down payment on my first house.
The owners trained the staff and if you could not perform to their standards you were gone.
Tipping isn’t the problem for me it’s the fact that these people are in such a low base salary to start with. Also I’ve heard (so I’m sure I’ll be corrected if wrong) that the government already assumes you’ve received a certain amount as income in your tax receipts. That would mean if for some reason you never received that limit you could be even further disadvantaged by having to prove your case to the IRS.
Disco’s.
Dancing around like a loon in an environment that’s not totally under the influence of it always being cold and raining helps.
I would second that.
Japan was an eye opener when it came to what constitutes a good service, and probably more importantly, the pride in their job without the need to put on a song and dance about it.
At the time the hourly rate for a waiter was something like $1.25 cents per hour so if you were not making good tips it would never be worth anyone’s time to wait on tables. There were also no health care benefits. By time I was leaving the industry the IRS was just starting to have restaurants take out taxes on wages. Most folks did not receive a weekly pay check since that all went to the IRS.
I’ve never really got tipping, simply because it’s not the social norm here (or even England where I’ve lived). I actually have found France / Europe and the US a bit intimidating in this regard, worrying about getting things wrong, offending people and paying twice the cost for something by the time you have tipped everyone.
The staff relying on tips kind of throws my radar out as well. I’ve found sometimes that wait staff can be overly friendly to a point where it’s so obviously false/forced that it’s embarrassing. Mrs Pete and I noticed that younger women can sometimes be overly friendly to older men. I guess they think that we’re all that stupid we believe it and tip more generously.
And then they add state taxes so a cheap meal is no longer cheap.
I’m not sure I can give you the answer you want but it works, and is more common in the US but not exclusive to the US.
The real problem with tipping is the management not paying their staff a decent wage and exacerbated by the more over priced the food the more you are expected to tip.
Someone should open a chain of restaurants with the slogan “we pay our staff properly so you don’t have to”.
It is becoming more difficult here in France locally. The norm is to leave the few coins change behind but with contactless payment that is less frequent to pay in cash. What to do then? I still haven’t found the answer. Adding a few centimes to the bill seems mean and adding 10 percent to a coffee and croissant embarrasses the server. The sticky subject of who gets the tip then occurs- the establishment or the server through some unknown process controlled by the establishment?
Just leave a few coins on the table when you leave, they’ll spot it quick enough.