I should never have to flag down wait staff.....pay attention to your customer and do your job.
Water is basic....so is asking if I need anything....so is asking if my meal is ok.....there is more to service than bringing food to the table.
A tip is supposed to be earned for good service, not something you are entitled to.
Have I been waiting staff? No but I have been a customer for 60 years and I know what good service is
I am also self employed and know if I provide crappy service my customers won't be happy
So yeah, do your job, do it well, you get a good tip.....forget I am your customer....I forget to tip you...earn it
Yikes indeed. I waited tables for a long time, got myself through college and law school working for tips. And just about everyone else I worked with was busting their humps trying to make ends meet or to try to make themselves better. I was lucky enough to earn enough in the summer to pay my state school tuition in cash.
Minimum wage for servers during that time was just over $2.00 per hour. After I got taxed on my tips, my paycheck was almost always $0.00.
I've never forgotten that I had a customer, but I've had to cover other peoples tables when they were in a jam; have had more than my share of rushes when everyone walks in at the same time; and have had to deal with shorthanded kitchens, bar staff and bussers where things don't go as smoothly as expected. So there were times when I couldn't get around to all of my tables as quickly as I would have liked. And as a result, customers occasionally had to suffer the indignity of having to ask to have their water glass refreshed.
Fortunately, one of the skills that I learned was to spot the unreasonably demanding customer who was going to leave a lousy tip no matter how many times I doted on them. So I was cognizant that I was not meeting their expectations. I was much better off focusing on the other tables with reasonable human beings and where I had a better chance to earn a good tip.
IMO, withholding a tip because you have to ask for a refill on water is a garbage move. To each their own, I guess.