Back in the dark ages, when I was a waitress, I saw it happen many times the other way around. That is, girls (generally out with their boyfriends) being mean and rude to waitresses. First of all there’s the class divide. Second there was the "OMG a strange woman is being polite, friendly and flirty to MY man.
I even saw girls sneak back to the table and snag the tip their man had left. I figured that crap out REAL quick. I’m a pretty good judge of character when it comes to insecure jealous haven’t-grown-out-of-jr-high-yet women. As soon as I focused all of my attention on the girls, and only admired the guy in a “you girls are so smart to have chosen such a great guy” way, the bitchy women decreased immensely. I just wanted to add that I was completely the opposite. A cute flirty waitress was a way to attempt to convince my old insecure boyfriend that “seeee??? she thinks your so cute and funny and hot. I told you, she wants you honey!”.
Exactly what I was going to say. Smart waitresses quickly learn to cater to the woman (women.) The guy is usually clueless but yeah, there’s a whole lot of drama being played out there. I think that, way down, the women feel “showed up” by somebody doing something they’re perfectly capable of. In order to feel like they deserve the extra treatment they have to put down the poor schmuck actually doing the legwork. They have to show their man why THEY are different and deserve the pampering.
I used to do catering in trains, I got almost the same amount of tips as the good looking ladies, my secret, having a young face, pretending to still be in school and being nice to old people…
Tipping is not the norm in Holland, but I made more from tips selling coffee and sandwitches then I made in wages
But I find these stereotypes tend to even out over a wider and self-selecting, and cronyiesmatic restaurant bigotry. Much more even service in a place that stocks across the board female waitstaff, male and female waitstaff in fairly even amounts, Gay waitstaff, ethnic waitstaff, and an all male maitre’ de team. All different economies.
I can’t say I’ve noticed any gender split. Although I’ve almost never had an actively “rude” waiter or waitress. Cluelessness or dropping off the face of the earth? Still not all that common; again, no gender split noted. The last unpleasantly weird service I had was from a guy.
Language nitpick: Poetess & sculptress have been tossed in the Obsolete Word pile–landing on top of adventuress. Actor is edging out actress; you might see the latter word in a gossip column’s blind item, but Meryl Streep is interviewed about Her Career As an Actor.
I don’t think I’ve ever had a server treat me more rudely than my husband. In the decade or so we’ve been eating out together, we’ve only had a couple of rude servers, and they were rude to both of us.
I have noticed that servers of either gender are occasionally more attentive to my husband, but I can always flag them down since they’re coming to the table anyway. I just assumed it was either because he’s drinking beer more often than I am, so they care more about keeping his beer replaced than they do about keeping my water filled, or it was because they assumed he was paying, which is amusing because it’s almost never true.
I haven’t noticed anything waitress-specific, but I’m pretty oblivious to that kind of thing.
“Best Actress” and “Best Supporting Actress” are still the names of the Academy Award categories. It’s a perfectly fine word that’s not going anywhere.
Seriously!? I am intrigued to know what happened next.
All rationalization for poor tipping. If they can all nitpick the service enough then they can all agree to leave a shitty tip. It has been a long time since I’ve waited tables but back in the day, a table full of women was the worst. First, the nitpicking and requests for exceptions, then the poor tips (like 1 or 2%) because of the “poor” service. Or maybe I just gave terrible service to tables of all women and good service to everyone else.
Actually, my dad did this all the time too. Every little thing was an issue so that the service never deserved more than a token tip, because “you have too give them something.”
I tend to find male waiters more prone to being rude to women - but mostly in terms of female invisibility. There’s a restaurant close to my current job I refuse to go to, because they’ve done things such as try to leave the table without taking my order, or take everybody else’s payment toot suit, then leave and I waited… and waited… and waited… and when the waiter who’d collected from everybody else came back to the till, he’d go and try to collect from every male who’d arrived to the bar in the meantime rather than from me. There has been only one time when a similar incident involved waitresses, every other time it’s been men. In Spain I’ve also had incidents when someone was surprised that our group was women only - we invited them to move to Durango, where mixed-gender groups of friends are still unheard of (groups of couples move in parallel: the guys and the girls may be at the same bar, but by God they’re apart from each other).
The only reason I didn’t leave from the first site without paying was that I’d gone there with coworkers. Otherwise, heck, if you don’t want my money I’ll be happy to keep it.
The only time I’ve ever been annoyed is when my waitress i salso serving a large group of men. I know she is going to get a better tip from them by flirting but it really annoys me when I watch her chatting with them and flirting up a storm while I am just waiting for my check. :mad:
Yes, women are the hardest customers to deal with. The most likely to complain, send stuff back, scream at me over nothing, bitch about the music/lightning (neither of which I control), try to get special treatment, etc. The absolute worst group are middle-aged women. Very old women tend to be sweet as pie but not great tippers, and teenage girls are the most likely to walk out without leaving a tip (I used to be submissive and take that, but now I will embarass your ass in public if you don’t tip).
I assure you, ladies, I do not want to fuck your husband. If I’m paying more attention to him, its probably because he’s nicer to me.
The first thing that popped into my head at reading this is that you have been eating with the horrendous group of women from the movie Waiting. No matter what the waitress did, she was screwed…
If we’re served by a waitress, my female companions are usually intently curious on how much I’m tipping at the end. I tip well as a habit, so I always get the side-eye treatment from my companion and have to put up with some not-quite-joking verbal abuse over it. (Even though it’s not their money I’m spending.)
They are perfectly attractive… but I think more to the point, they are generally high-achiever, A+ personalities.
We were both eighteen and inexperienced nerds, so we sat uncomfortable through the rest of the dinner. The next time I saw him, several months later, he was cuddling with some dude.
That’d be my guess as well; I get good treatment when I go to restaurants, regardless of whether the server is male or female. If I don’t, I can always talk to the manager about it, but I usually see the manager to compliment servers rather than chastise them.
I would be baffled too! Many folks benefit from being gently reminded when places close if it’s getting close to that time when they need to pay the bill and shuffle out.
These are the same women who go out of their way to be mean and nasty to anything female while their man is within spitting distance. Sometimes there are women who never grew out of the three year old “it’s MINE and you can’t have it!” behavior.
IME, overt curiosity about how much you’re tipping and condescension about “over-tipping” from dining companions who don’t share banking accounts with you is at least a little abnormal. I’m going to continue with my guess that some of your ladyfriends are insecure and taking it out on any stranger who happens to be female within spitting distance.
The reason I used “waitress” in this post was as a matter of familiarity within the context. Normally, I use the term “server”… but, although there is nothing really wrong with it and it is fairly neutral “PC speak”, I have kind of come to resent it a bit… the true meaning, having a hint of sado-masochistic indentured servitude quality, and servile interests in its real definition, almost robotic in its present alternate meaning (IP Server)… it’s…a… it’s… My Corporate Plantation Name. No, no, much rather be a Waiter.
If I were to call most waitresses I know a “Server”, they would also probably think it too formal and wonder if I have a bug up my ass, and perhaps chuckle.
I am a server and have worked at several restaurants and have had similar experiences with women. Not to sound conceited but I am not bad looking, not the prettiest by any means but decent I’m also young and I have found that does make a difference in how you are treated often times. I am also sort of soft spoken which may play a small role,but I’m always polite and helpful to costumers. I do not give the male more attention or expect him to take care of the bill especially since I often pay the bill when I go out(my boyfriend isn’t the best tipper) I think it mostly comes down to a lot of females just naturally have this almost bitch instinct when it comes to other women and generally assume the worst in people I wouldn’t necessarily call it jealousy because I’ve had women far better looking than myself treat me similar, also I feel a lot of people women especially have ungodly expectations of servers and don’t understand the number of things that can go wrong in the kitchen or how hard it can be to remember that little cup of dipping sauce when you have 8 other tables as simple as it may seem to the costumer. That’s just my take on it.
PS every food place I’ve ever worked at servers don’t mess with difficult costumers food but often times I’ve seen fellow servers neglect them because they were so rude and demanding and didn’t expect a tip anyway.