[Bob Womack]

I happily tip for good service. I actually tip well if there's a good reason the service wasn't as good. Nasty folks don't get tipped as well.

However, being expected to tip before service is rendered is ridiculous. It's a little like the odd business I've encountered at a doctor's office where I check in and expected to pay up front before I see the doc. Surely they don't get that many walkouts without paying. In this society it has typically been practice to render services before payment.

And then to the business of waiting being a "living wage." I've been to some restaurants in New York where waiting is clearly considered a job at a level commensurate with a living wage. There are a couple of restaurants locally that swim in that lofty pond. But, my wise younger brother is a wildly successful restaurateur in the tier above fast food. As he put it when consulted by the White House, "Waiting in our part of the industry has traditionally been considered either a first job, a last resort, or a second chance. I am glad to offer jobs to those types of individuals and deal with the risks involved. However, waiting at this level of enterprise has never been considered a job capable of sustaining a prosperous lifestyle. If you attempt to forcefully make it such you will simply deprive thousands of people who do correspond to the above categories of jobs because the industry lives on fine enough profit margins that it simple can't offer compensation of that kind without going under."

Bob