How much do you tip?

[Thatch]

I live in Germany now and much prefer the style of tipping here. Servers are servers by trade, get paid a fair salary and basically only take 'round up' tips, a euro or two as a thank you, not nearly a quarter of the billed amount as some sort of unwritten line item charge. I do hate american style tipping. I find it a strange exercise in social shaming to force the direct support of the waitstaff onto the patron. The waitstaff here fall more consistently into the 'adequate' category (in US service terms) with much less 'bad service' or 'exceptional service' experiences than I have gotten in the states. They tend to just do thier jobs, which at the end of the day is all I really want. The few times I get really exceptional service I know it's because the person is generally just a nice person and it isn't an act to elicit a higher tip.