To auto-grat or not

To auto-grat or not


I'm sure every one is aware of the little message at the bottom of menus stating that the service will be included for parties of 6 or more. For us servers this is both a blessing and a curse.
In some cases it is a life saver to have the gratuity included. For starters, you have an idea of what you will be paid for the work you are doing, secondly, you don't get screwed. 
In my experience it has worked to my advantage having the service included. There have even been cases where people have added to the gratuity which of course is welcome since we are only allowed to add a certain percentage which is the basic minimum.
However, in some cases when parties grow over the course of a meal or sitting to drink it makes it hard to keep track of how many people are at a given table. Sometimes it is hard to track down a manager and have them add the gratuity. Also, sometimes people get offended and feel the server is being sneaky when the service is already included. It also makes it awkward when it comes time for "should I bring you over some change." Recently I had a table that started off with 5 guys just drinking. Since our policy is 6 or more I wasn't thinking of adding the service. As the night went on several friends came over to order drinks with me but when the check came it was back to the original 5 guys. Since my manager only saw 5 people he was unable to add the service. When it came time to bring the check over I just figured the guy would take into consideration that I not only served him and his 4 friends but all of them for a couple of hours and that the service was not included. This is an awkward moment though because of course you never want to actually say this to your customer. However, I guess/would like to think that he assumed the service was already added and left me with 0 when The bill was well over $200...
If only auto gratuity didn't exist perhaps I wouldn't have been stiffed?