a) this sounds horrendous, and
b) so there's zero pretence that tipping is somehow related to quality of experience?
(I ask as a fairly well-travelled Australian, but who rarely sojourned into North America.)
There's certainly a "pretense" of tipping as an incentive, and you can treat it that way if you want to (to a point; you can't reasonably tip much below 15%). But you should ignore the pretense; it's not worth the psychic energy.
Hmm. Imagine that you never had to consider any kind of unstated, fuzzy mathematical wrangling at restaurants, hairdressers, hotels, in taxis, at stores, etc - your entire life every financial transaction was straightforward.
If you came from that environment, this arrangement would seem horrendous (and annoying).
I understand that there's some cultural exceptionalism involved - there always is - but for most of the (rest of the) world this kind of intentional, onerous, relentless, and needlessly complex obligation is some combination of bewildering, disrespectful, and anathema.
If that's too difficult, horrendous, and annoying to do then chances are you shouldn't be eating out in the first place.
My point remains that forcing everyone to consider a tip of varying amounts in a wide range of social / fiscal interactions, is a needless cognitive burden.
Approximately 95% of the planet gets by somewhere between 'just fine' and 'much better' without it.
In the US, I'd say service is "excellent" more than 95% of the time, and I don't think I can recall a single instance of worse than "adequate" in my life.
I have no idea if tipping sufficiently explains this, but it sure seems at least plausible...
I don't know if I could confidently pick the worst service experience across that time, but a sit-down dining comedy club in Manhattan (NY, USA) would probably be towards the top of the list.
I tend to be non-demanding, accommodating, and convivial etc, so that may have skewed most of my experiences across Asia and Europe towards the positive end of the spectrum.
Restaurant in the Netherlands. We walk in, there's a podium and a sign to please wait for the hostess. We wait for several minutes, finally get impatient and walk around the restaurants. Find two young girls chatting away in the back. They notice us, but continue their conversation for another minute, then ask us what we want. We ask to be seated.
No problem, they seat us. Another 5 or so minutes go by, we get up and find the girls again. "Can we have some menus, please?"
It didn't get any better from there :P
Ever since that I avoid all sit down restaurants in that country, full stop. Luckily, I don't mind döner kebab for breakfast lunch and dinner!
I've only spent a week in Amsterdam, but I don't recall any negative experiences at all.
When travelling I do tend to eschew touristy areas - other than having to look at specific places / objects, access museums or historic sites, etc - then a quick escape to less tourist-heavy areas.
I'm sure we all do the same in places we live, and therefore know well, but I guess holiday mode puts us in a more sanguine mood.