tip rates, what are your standards? Options

[queen]

how good of a tipper are you? what do you consider a "good" tip? what types of services rendered affect the amount of tip you give? define "good" service.

i think i'm a fair tipper. i never tip more than 20% 'cause i don't believe any service is worth the additional 5 above that. also, there's no such thing as "excellent" service to me --essentially, nothing above "good".

my tip rating:
0% for crappy service: basically, doing everything wrong. so far, i haven't had service that would be deserving of this title.
5% for noob service: obviously a new guy. you could tell the person has putforth effort, but s/he's probably just not fit for the job. again, it's rare that i tip this low.
10% for "close-but-no-cigar" service: nothing goes particularly wrong. server is already familiar with the job but is apparently just slow and/or having a bad day.
15% for decent service how i expect to be served every night! fulfillment of all requests in a timely and orderly fashion. server is nice, but not too clingy, maybe even funny, good people skills
20% for good service speedy fulfillment of all requests. giving a little extra. excellent people skills, basically kissing the ground i walk on.

just curious because i know people who tip 5% for what i would consider "good service" and others who tip up to 30% for the same.

[superstitious]

The pizza delivery guy from Papa Johns told me that a 20% tip was mandatory. I politely gave him a dollar and told him to complain to his manager. What an ass.

The 20% isn't what bothers me, it's the fact that he had the balls to actually DEMAND it.

[mipadi]

The pizza delivery guy from Papa Johns told me that a 20% tip was mandatory. I politely gave him a dollar and told him to complain to his manager. What an ass.

I usually tip pizza guys a few dollars at most. I mean, c'mon...they get paid, it's not like they made my pizza and waited on me, they just drove it to my door and that's already figured into their compensation.

As for restaurants, I usually tip 15% and then round up to the next dollar. Bars, I usually only give 10% or so, but that's because I only buy beer at the bar, and it's not hard/time-consuming to get me a bottle from the freezer or something from the tap.