The coming compulsory gratuity.

• Author: RUNDLES, JEFF
• Position: Tipping has lost its connection to service - Brief Article - Column

A friend of mine recently showed me a credit-card receipt he got at a restaurant, and printed on the receipt were the words "Please remember to fill in the tip space. If forgotten, we'll add 15 percent for you."

I wasn't shocked, of course, as nothing really bowls me over anymore. But you have to admit that automatically adding a tip to every restaurant bill is a bit audacious. Or maybe brazen. Or outrageous.

I was worried that this signaled a trend in the restaurant business, so I asked several restaurateurs. They said it wasn't a common practice, but it was a trend that's been creeping up. The reason? People are tipping less these days and the staff isn't making enough money.

Are people tipping less because, suddenly, in the midst of the longest economic upswing in recent history, they are becoming more tight-fisted? No. The reason people are tipping less is that there is so much less to tip for.

Tips, of course, have always been voluntary, more or less, and we were all taught as youngsters -- or should have been taught -- that you tip 10 percent for average service, 15 percent for good service, and 20 percent or more for exceptional service. There was a tacit understanding in the tipping lesson that very poor service deserved no tip at all.

I have always been a very good tipper, pretty much going with 20 percent even when I was less than satisfied with the service. It bugged me to see the surly looks other people got from waiters and waitresses when they gave a 15 percent tip.

Lately however, I have changed. Service in restaurants has dropped off so much that I have taken to tipping less than 10 percent, sometimes far less, if the service merited such a gratuity. I haven't really worried about the impact personally, because any restaurant that had service deserving very little "tippage," as a friend of mine calls it, isn't going to get any of my repeat business.

Now, however, I am concerned. The tip in a restaurant -- and many other so-called service...