Oh great. Another tipping curmudgeon.

Thanks a lot, algorithm. In the past week, you have served me up an undo portion of memes and posts wherein curmudgeons grouse about tipping.

Enough! Here are four thoughts and, lucky you, two bonus thoughts:

1: In the U.S., the tip is part of the price of a meal out. Right now, the more or less agreed–upon amount to add is equivalent to 20 percent of the net ticket. This is news to virtually no one walking into a restaurant in this country. If you plan to punish via tipping or not to tip at all, stay home or eat where tipping isn’t a thing.

2: Forty–three states allow restaurants to pay servers less than minimum wage, on the assumption that tips will make up the difference. The tip is not a bonus, but part of, in fact, probably most of the server’s pay.

3. Serving is hard work. If you haven’t done it, you have no idea. Cut ’em a break.

4: By all means, resent tipping. It’s a rotten system. And it’s getting out of hand. But if you withhold or diminish the tip in a restaurant, you’re a jerk. A bully. Even if the service is bad. You can’t dock a worker’s pay in other settings when you’re unhappy; the fact that you can get away with it in a restaurant doesn’t mean that you should. If you’re really unhappy, do what you’d do in any other setting (if you must): complain to management. After, that is, you tip 20 percent or more.

Bonus thought 1: If you tip more, bravo.

Bonus thought 2: If you’re the sort who withholds tips, my hunch is that you often receive the level of service you deserve.