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