Not inadequate per diem, just repurposed, if you will. At our company, we go out in the morning, stay all day at a hotel, then fly back home at night (typical "feeder" schedule). We are home every night therefore, our company does not pay per diem. In this situation, there would be no reimbursement for tipping a hotel van driver.

In instances where we do have a full day long affair (and do get per diem), if we were to stay at a company rented crew apartment, our per diem would be the same as if we stayed at a hotel. So, with regards to the van driver tip, our company does NOT reimburse us specifically for gratuities of any kind.

On the note of servers, I suppose I should have been more specific. ONE TIME in my life, I have left a 50% tip (a friend who served me gave me a HUGE discount, so I tipped him the price difference between the checks, which was about 50% of the lower check's value). I do not routinely tip like that. I don't think I could ever afford to go out to dinner if I did lol. On the other side of the coin, I HAVE a FEW times in my life, totally stiffed the server. This is not the norm because most of these people sincerely EARN their tip. That's all I tip upon, when the tip is earned.

Anyways, having been a server, I know the BARE MINIMUM amount of "just enough to not get fired" effort that a server could do. Anything more than that, I tip accordingly. The fact of the matter is most servers are PHENOMENAL and get tipped accordingly. A restaurant requires the server to smile, take orders, run the orders, and bring the check. An example of required vs above required is keeping a drink full. A server is REQUIRED to refill my drink when it is empty. The restaurant doesn't require a server to keep my drink filled by watching my table from a distance so that they know exactly when to bring out a new drink, that way, as I am finishing my drink, a new one has just arrived. Things like those are what good servers do and those are the things that EARN a tip. It is not a question of salary at all. What minimum wage is and how much below it they get paid is irrelevant. If Bill Gates loaded and unloaded my 10 huge pieces of luggage and offered to walk them up to my room for me after giving me one of the quickest van rides to the hotel in history, I would tip him, and probably pretty darn well. My reasoning behind this type of attitude is simple: I tip for things that people do for me that are NOT required. Things a person does SOLELY in the interest of ensuring my experience is pleasant. If I get a ride to a hotel in a van... and that's it... then, I don't tip. That is what their job requires therefore, they didn't earn a tip.

Mainly what I do NOT buy into is the idea of tipping "by default." I don't give tips because it is customary or because that is what the socially accepted practice is. Not at all. How much that particular employee is paid is not of my concern, as well as what that person's particular line of work is. If their salary is too low and they wish to not EARN their tips, I guess the should find another line of work. It is solely based on the effort and service I receive.