What ticks me even further, is that the hostess probably splits out the tips with the servers, and rewarding them for their great work rewards her as well.[/QUOTE]
This is one of my biggest peeves about restaurants. I usually ask the server if they have to split tips. If they do I always try to surrepticiously pay the server in cash, like in a hand shake, and tell them not to split it. Maybe that's not being fair to the other 1 or 2 percent of servers that do give good service, but I don't want my money going to the 70-percent of servers that are nasty and don't give a dammmm.
