How Much Should You Tip?

G'day, 

How much should you tip?To be honest, we've got no bloody idea anymore. When servers in most restaurants in North America pass you a payment processor, the pre-programmed tipping options you see often start at 18-20%.But that's also true in many bakeries where the service staff are taking two seconds to stick a danish in a bag and hand it to you. Is that level of service equivalent to  a waiter spending two hours with you at a restaurant?And what about if you just order a bottle of water or a juice or a bag of chips at a cafe or deli?And shouldn't a tip be some metric of a job well done, as opposed to something that is expected no matter what the service was like? A new article by Grub Street  has outlined what they believe to be "The New Rules of Tipping." And, well, let's just say it's kind of a hot take:20-25% for restaurants should be the norm. Regardless of if it is the Olive Garden or a Michelin starred restaurant. And that rate shouldn't change even if the service was bad because tips are often pooled and the waiter shouldn't have to suffer if your fish was slightly over cooked. If you're wealthier, you should tip more than if you're not. At least 20% at coffee shops because, well, baristas rely on tips to make ends meet. You don't need to give a tip if you grab something that doesn't take any preparation like, say, a muffin, but you're a miser if you don't. If you're at the bar you should tip $1 for a beer or 20% for a cocktail. Ok fine, but the miser in us asks: what does wealth have to do with how much tip a person deserves? Isn't a tip ultimately the reflection of the service of a team as a whole and shouldn't something like over-cooked fish be taken into the tip calculation? What if your "cocktail" is a Vodka Screwdriver and not a Negroni Sbagliato? What if....Like we said, we have no bloody clue anymore.