Tipping point

Well, this is not a review of 'Tipping point' book which everybody might have assumed by now. I always think about the 'tip system' as something which has been forcefully imposed on the society. Why one needs to tip a waiter for his service. From what I understand that is exactly why he gets paid by the restaurant.

I had discussion with my roommates regarding the same. Interestingly we came up with some of our own reasons about why and how 'tip system' started at the first place. Here are some of them:

1) Waiters don't get paid well. So that is why customers decided to pay them with gratitude.
2) Customers always look for some kind of royal service on their tables. So it was not a diffcult plan to come up with paying some extra money to waiter and expect some special service from him.
3) Customers wanted to impress their dinner/lunch buddies so they paid more than expected to prove how human they are.

This 'tip system' has now currently gone out of control and restaurants proudly print on their menus in bold letters to remind customers than if the group is more than 6 ppl then 15% of tip would automatically be added to the bill. Now that is insane !!!!