Why should some staff on a low wage be given a tip for doing the job they are paid for and others not? If you went into a clothes shop and spent £200, would you give £20 to the cashier? If you go to your local swimming centre do you slip the cleaner a quid for mopping the floor?
Does a cashier in a shop spend an hour, two hours, maybe more, attending to your needs? Providing personalised service? Recommending & possibly tailoring items for your consumption? Communicating with other departments (in the case of waiting staff - bar/kitchen/management) to ensure you have the best possible experience? Sort out problems? Take the flack when issues do arise? Chat to you if that's what you want? Take pictures of your party even though they have 10 other tables to tend to? Order a taxi for you when you're ready to leave? Recommend where to go next? Ultimately making a contribution to your enjoyment of your lunch or your night out? All the while making everything seem smooth & effortless, whilst doing the same for however many other tables/customers they need to take care of in the space of their shift, for hours on end, on their feet, with a half hour break (may be paid or unpaid / food may or may not be provided at a staff rate).
No matter what you think about a service charge, at the end of the day it's discretionary. If you don't like it, ask for it to be removed.
Don’t forget that how tips are dealt with is very much ‘in house’ and the system isn’t regulated. Each outlet you go to can decide tips policy for itself. I would boycott a bar/restaurant where the management kept the tips and gave a small % to staff, & it's a common practice. Sometimes the individual server keeps most of what they make in their section and ‘tips out’ a % to bar, kitchen porter etc. Sometimes the tips are pooled and an hourly rate is calculated & divvied out according to your hours worked (the fairest system i.m.o.)
For what it's worth, I worked in hospitality for many years. Tips were a nice bonus, but never taken for granted. In my early 20s my work mates & I treated it as beer money. Sometimes you made enough for a taxi home, sometimes - like at xmas - enough to match your weekly wage (many years ago & v.low NMW). You’d be daft to rely on tips to make a meaningful contribution to your lifestyle, but sometimes it could help until payday rolled around.
Ultimately, I would defy anyone to work a Christmas period in hospitality and then turn around and say that tips aren’t hard earned. There are those of us hoary old hospitality veterans who say that a yearlong service, to include an xmas service, should be compulsory for everyone, like army service is in some countries. If only to teach people how to treat their fellow humans with a bit of respect and courtesy.
Thank goodness we don’t have a system like the U.S. whereupon tips are required to make up low wages.
The history and origins of tipping are actually very interesting. There are links to shady and shitty employment practices in the U.S. and associated lack of rights affecting young black women in particular. They were typically poorly educated and unskilled and were exploited by employers in the service industries. BBC Radio 4 did a documentary (?) on it a few years ago. It may still be on the iPlayer.
Look at cultural differences too. Before you go on holiday, do you not find out if tipping is customary in the country you’re going to, and then act accordingly?
Does anyone remember a t.v. ad from a number of years ago (could have been for a global bank like HSBC or summat) that used tipping customs in various countries (obligatory in U.S., frowned upon in The Netherlands etc.) to highlight the importance of communication and ‘getting it right’ when talking moolah?