When tips are expected as part of wages by everyone in society, including the government, it’s absolutely garnishing wages.
What’s the cultural expectation?
In a way, you’re right: the original theory behind tips is that we reward extra service with extra cash. But in practice, that’s not the current expectation: the current expectation is that people perform labor and hope that you compensate them fairly for labor, according to a generally accepted mathematical formula based on the check.
If someone does something egregious, to the extent that you would demand a refund for charged services of similar caliber, sure: you can do the equivalent of demanding a refund. But that’s a rare thing to do with a business. Most of the time you don’t object to the price of the good or service when it’s spelled out in advance, to the extent that you’ll stiff the service provider.
If you stiff wait staff more often than you stiff service providers, it may be an abuse of your relative power with them. And I believe that’s so far out of the cultural norm that you should let them know in advance.
When I go to the mechanic, my bill has two sections: “Parts” and “Labor.” I don’t fuss at them and ask why I’m responsible for paying their workers. I just recognize that they’ve separated these charges out, so I can see them. I recommend thinking of restaurant tipping in a similar way, and wish restaurants would stop making it optional to pay for labor.
Abso-fucking-lutely.
Ye gawds, we’ve done this argument over & over.
Can’t you all take this argument somewhere else? It’s fucking tedious
I apologize to the mods and the other posters (save the one I was addressing) for junior modding in the “I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain” thread (in MPSIMS). I should indeed have either reported the post instead, or just passed it by as yet another instance of what this poster (the subject of this thread) does all the time. But I was fed up to the eye teeth in this particular instance, that she re-opened a 4-month-gone thread to school us all on how we ought to feel. I frankly wonder if the mods would have done or said anything had I reported it, because as far as I know there was nothing there against the rules (except possibly not being a jerk, which it could fall under with a broad interpretation that would be difficult to enforce). They might have sent a PM, which I gather they ended up doing anyway; I, of course, am not privy to the contents of that PM, but I suspect it was similar to @Aspenglow’s post in the resulting ATMB thread.
And I thank @Aspenglow for those remarks in the ATMB thread that the poster opened in the hopes of who-knows-what. She (@Aspenglow) elucidated my feelings very well.
The only question remaining to me is whether the poster will learn anything at all from that explanation. (All signs point to no, but I am open to being surprised.) I can well understand that the poster finds it difficult to stop being a know-it-all Nanny after having been one for so many years.
She makes a very informative comment in the ATMB thread:
“I’m trying not to feel like I need to mother everyone. It’s difficult”
She…she thinks she posses wisdom that she needs to teach to everyone.
Another thing that grates on me is that she’ll pop in with information, but she’s got her facts wrong. Facts that she could’ve gotten right by taking 30 seconds to google it.
A "mild pitting’ indeed, but after the fifth time, it can go from annoying to infuriating.
I left a comment in the ATMB thread about her insisting that she doesn’t want to be a victim, only to complain being the victim two sentences later… 
ETA: and that was a good ribbing by our mod @Aspenglow in that thread!
I was very tempted to respond “what do you think ‘playing the victim’ means? If you’re unsure, here’s a good example.” But wiser minds prevailed.
You pointed out the contradiction in a less attacking way.
I think the way you put it would have been a-ok in ATMB, especially given the blatant hypocrisy.
Don’t over think it.
[sic]
Performs raspberry (and refuses to look for suitable emoji, but I know someone else will).