Photo: Steve Snodgrass/Flickr

Everyone loves Restaurant Week, right? Wrong – as your waiter friend could tell you, servers almost uniformly hate it. You can probably see why: more work for less tips. And if they ever seem grumpy about it, even less tips.

Thank goodness for Robin Abrahams, then, for being a voice for culinary justice. Abrahams, of The Boston Globe Magazine’s “Miss Conduct” column, responded to a question last week asking how much, exactly, one should tip during this crazy time of $20 prix fixes. Her answer? What you would have tipped on the meal, pre-discount.

Intrigued, we turned to her for more answers: how should we tip? How should we split up the check? And, at the end of the night – how should we Yelp our experience?

PRK: What’s the biggest faux pas people make when going out to eat – and what’s the biggest faux pas their servers make?

RA: Diners are often dismissive or downright abusive to wait staff. Make eye contact, speak clearly, treat the server as a human being. This could be your former college roommate. This could be your nephew. This could be you next year.

The complaint I get most often about servers is more specific: diners hate having to ask for the price of the special. Servers ought to include that information in their description, because people are often embarrassed to ask.

PRK: With new websites like Yelp that let you review restaurants after you’ve eaten there, customers can now tell the whole world what they thought of their meal – and, possibly, seriously impact a restaurant-owner’s business. Is there some things customers should refrain from mentioning in these reviews? How can customers give a fair review?

RA: The best way to give a fair review is to eat at a place multiple times. Most people aren’t going to do that, unless they are serious restaurant hounds (or statistics geeks). It’s more important to be a critical reader of Yelp. Don’t let one or two angry reviews dissuade you from trying a new place. Look at it this way: if everyone you interacted with in the course of a day had the opportunity to rate you on the internet, how fair do you think it would be?

PRK: What’s the best way to respond to rude service? Is it ever acceptable not to leave a tip?

Address the rude service as it’s happening, not at the end of the meal. If you’ve addressed it and been treated badly in return, speak to the manager and leave 15 percent. (Yes, you can omit the tip entirely if the service was truly awful, with two caveats: first, this sort of epic failure of courtesy is likely to be encountered only once in a lifetime, if that; second, that you speak to someone, either the server or the manager, before omitting the tip. Simply not tipping is the coward’s way out, and does nothing to correct the server’s behavior. He or she will think you are the person lacking in graces.)

PRK: What’s the fairest way to split up a check at a large party – including the tax and the tip? And how do you not seem obnoxious while insisting you pay only your fair share?

RA: You can ask for separate checks in advance, if you’re really concerned. At a large party, it’s generally easiest to figure the total and have everyone put in the same amount. If that winds up costing you a bit, consider it a convenience tax; if it winds up costing you a lot, don’t go to restaurant parties with these folks again.

PRK: Is there a fairer way to pay waiters than simply tipping based on meal price? How do you tip, personally?

RA: There is probably a fairer system, but in the meantime go along with the system in place (i.e., 15-20 percent on post-drink, pre-discount, pre-tax bill). Don’t impose your own idiosyncratic utopian practices on individual servers.

I tip well but not extravagantly, usually 20 percent. My husband and I mostly go to restaurants in our neighborhood, so we get to know the owners and servers. Many folks are on board with eating local–dining local isn’t a bad idea, either. Good behavior is easier and more rewarding on both sides when there is a relationship between the restaurant staff and the customers, not merely a transaction.