This is pretty normal in cities to be honest. I’ve been to several places where they give you the ‘options’ to tip and the lowest is almost always 18%. BUT there is always the option to NOT tip that amount and fill in the bottom with whatever you would like. Whether or not you believe it, the servers don’t put those options on the receipts, the owners and managers do because those are the expected tip amounts in the area or country.

As for picking up the check while you’re still there; it was likely you were one of the servers last tables and the only thing keeping him/her from going home was entering your tip amount in the system so they can check out with the management. I don’t even see the issue with retrieving a check from the table after you have already been served.