I will always remember the conditioned response I get wrapping up an Uber or Lyft ride. It's a feeling of anticipation. As you're driving away from dropping off your passenger, you wait to see the blip at the top of your app, informing you of whether your rider has tipped you.

I consider myself a people-pleasing and very likable person. There are very few people I don't get along with. I can count, on my fingers, the number of people in my life that I have an openly hostile relationship with. Whatever conflicts I have, I tend to work out, and simply have a very open and agreeable disposition.

However, I've realized the one pet peeve I have: I hate it when people don't tip their servers well or criticize waiters or servers. I hate whenever we criticize service workers. I have been at happy hours where my friends have complained about disrespectful waiters and servers, or wait times that are too long for food or drinks.

Whenever I'm with people that make those kinds of comments, I have a visceral reaction. Whenever I hear someone complain about a conversation with an Uber or Lyft driver, I also have a visceral reaction. As an Uber and Lyft driver, I am well aware of how thankless the job can be and how little compensation you can have for the hours and work you put in. Although I have never worked as a waiter or server, as my employment has been limited to retail and education, I can certainly empathize with overworked and overburdened employees in the service industry.

I can empathize with relying on tips because your company isn't paying you enough. I go through it as an Uber and Lyft driver, just glad that I'm making my actual salary now as a teacher. A ride with Uber or Lyft could easily have over 50 percent of what a rider pays go to the ridesharing company between booking and other fees. I will always remember testing the system and having one of my best friends request a Lyft to McDonald's and myself taking the ride. He paid $7.70, and I made $3.75.

I can't imagine what that reality is like as a server to be so dependent on tips.

Susannah Breslin writes in Forbes that "you never forget your worst tip." She starts her story talking about an experience where she forgot to add the automatic gratuity to a bill that was well over $100. She talks about having a lone dollar bill and some change, and said: "It's hard not to draw one conclusion from that sight: you're not worth much."

Breslin's own experience as a server meant that getting a bad tip arose from only three occasions: either the under-tipper had a cultural difference, they were was spiteful, or they didn't get how hard it was to be a server.

It doesn't help that tipping isn't the best system, plagued with sexual harassment, racism, sexism, and exploitation, but even if we're opposed to tipping as a principle, we still have to play into the system. For a lot of servers around the country, there's no better system out there than tipping for the income of a lot of servers.

"But until the tipping culture in the U.S. changes, when you withhold tip, you withhold salary. Don't be that jerk and don't have that awkward conversation. Don't eat out if you can't tip. Tipping isn't optional. Not in the U.S." — Dasha Slepenkina on Quora

Tipping is more than just income. I know the struggle and pained look on my server's face when I'm with a large group of people with a lot of demands and needs, whether it's refilling a drink, water, or having our plates taken. I also know that our table is not the only one my server is catering to, and I know the pain that comes when we ask to split the check among 15 people.

I can imagine that being a server to a large party isn't too unlike having an UberXL ride and a rider asking if they can fill the car with three more people than its maximum capacity, and the riders getting mad at you when you say no for safety reasons.

Think about the jobs servers have. Not only are they there to deliver your food, drive you around, put out your meal, and make sure your check is right, but they also have the unstated obligation of making you happy and make conversation with you when you prompt it. And they have to work with 10 patrons sitting at a table just like you — all without getting paid too much.

So when you withhold some of your tip because your server was short or grumpy, think again. If you were a server, how would you feel?

Yes, it's probably more effective for employees, servers, and drivers to get paid more for their services rather than leaving it to the customer to tip. Society certainly needs to move more in that direction, but when customers don't tip out of principle and protest, the move doesn't hurt the company. It hurts the workers. Above all, as someone in the service industry, a tip means more than the additional money in your wallet. It's an indication of self-worth for how good your services were. As a driver or a server, you try to go above and beyond for your customers and feel like a failure, sometimes, if you aren't.

In this society and this day and age, tipping is how we convey and review our service. A bad tip or no tip at all gives a message to a server that maybe you don't intend, but that a server certainly receives.

So, I always tip my servers 20 percent or more as a gesture of understanding or empathy.

I will never know how much the patron before or after me tips, but I tip a lot because I have relied on tips before, and I know how much that reliance sucks. I know that tips are a gesture of solidarity as well, as tip money is money exclusively given to servers and the people working on the floor. When you tip a rideshare driver, your tip money goes straight to the driver. Having money go directly to the server and not the middleman has a certain appeal to me that makes me feel like I'm doing the right thing as a consumer.

Yes, of course, tipping culture needs to change so servers are actually being paid a living and even minimum wage. But until then, tipping is the only choice we have. And that's why I tip my servers 20 percent or more.