Now, THAT annoys me! When you get your change and it’s, say, a one dollar bill and a ten. The server knows perfectly well that you need smaller bills to leave a tip, and hasn’t provided them.
You’d think they’d cotton on that they’ll get more if they make it easy for us! But perhaps, as above, just enough people leave the ten to make it a worthwhile strategy?
Yeah, that’s usually a surprise to me, too. It’s rarely because the till has no ones, because whenever I’ve asked to break the larger bill, they’ve always been able to do so. I guess that’s one of those things that separates a good waiter from a not so good one.
One of my favorite waiter screw-ups, though, was when a bunch of us went to a restaurant and brought a bottle of wine. The waiter informed us that the corkage fee would be “X”, and we said “fine”. Later, she came back and informed us that since the wine was quite expensive, the corkage fee would be “X +Y”. One of my companions replied: “Feel free to charge us whatever you want taken out of your tip”. That was probably kind of cruel, and not something I would have said, but I couldn’t help but laugh.
Or…
She was busy, has lost track of how much your bill was, and is only trying to streamline service for everyone, by saving herself several minutes spent making change and returning it. Time that could be better spent delivering food and clearing plates.
You would be surprised at the number of people, who need separate checks on a busy Friday lunch (of course, no worries, happy to oblige!), then sit and watch as a swamped server makes several trips making change for six people. After they leave, only one of them really wanted their change!
An enormous waste of time, during a very busy lunch hour, is very annoying, if it can be avoided by asking, “Do you need change?”, it’s worth a try. Please don’t take offence, she’s trying to insure another table gets timely service too. Is it really so hard to simply answer, “Yes, thanks!” Is it really so terribly offensive a question? Can’t you just understand, this person must be very busy, and simply answer?
WTF? A quick off the cuff statement that’s mostly true (7/10 provinces are as I described) is an embarrassment to the whole country? Seriously?
As for the facts, two out of ten provinces have reduced wages for people who primarily serve alcohol and those two are BC and Ontario. (Alberta had a similar rate, it was eliminated in 2016) The difference between the two minimums is $1.50 in Ontario ($11.40 to $9.90) and $1.25 in BC. (10.85 to $9.60) This works out to an 11.5% reduction in BC and 13.2% in Ontario. Quebec is the only province which unilaterally reduces people who receives any gratuities, by $1.80/hr or 16%. Quebec is full of funny rules that don’t apply to the rest of the country, so I shouldn’t have been surprised by that one.
In comparison, the US federal minimum wage is $7.25, and the minimum wage for servers is $2.13, which is a 70.6% reduction in wages. There is a significant difference between 16% and 70.6%, yes?
Forget I asked about what tipping rates are considered good, I’m done with this thread.
This thread prompted me to have a conversation with my server this morning (whom I’n familiar with).
She told me she worked with this one girl who was cute as a button. Whenever men would come in, she would deliberately take the money and not bring change back. And if the guys asked: “Uh ma’ am, can I have my change back?” She would get this butt hurt look on her face and say: “You want change back?”
The manager was made aware of her nonsense, and he apparently didn’t care.
It was a Tuesday, and the place was almost empty.
I just asked a friend of mine who still works in restaurants, and of course YMMV as I’m sure it varies among restaurants. Since the vast majority of people pay by card, most servers just don’t have that much cash with them on a daily basis and they’re not receiving cash tips during their shift. Most of the time, it’s easiest to get change from the bartender, but that can be a pain too as sometimes the bartender bitches about losing his singles. Sometimes it is worth it to give back the change inconveniently, sometimes you’ll get the higher tip and sometimes you’ll get a lousy one.
We all know the clichés about the younger retail store cashiers who can’t make change except by typing in whatever cash amount you tender and seeing whatever number the magic register says is the change he/she should count out to you. For gosh sakes, after handing them a $20 and them keying it in, don’t hand them an extra 14 cents to make the change come out to $X.75; they’ll be baffled and need to call a manager for help voiding the whole transaction.
It’s been a couple years since I last paid for a meal at a place with waitstaff using cash. IOW, I’d be out of practice dealing with change and such. I wonder how much that’s true for the staff?
Certainly greasy spoon diners see a lot of cash. Fancy steak houses probably a lot more American Express Blue and a lot less cash.
Something else not mentioned.
A lot of people, particularly at lunch time, want to eat and go. The moment they’ve swallowed the last bite, their internal stopwatch is running. They want to pay and leave, right friggin now.
As between leaving a $9 tip from a $20 for an $11 meal or waiting 5 minutes for the extra $6-7 back, a lot of people would rather have the time than the money.
Again it depends on the SES of the joint. A diner full of truck drivers is different from the sandwich shop on the ground floor of a building housing an investment bank.
In the interest of saving time I’ll usually flag the waitperson early in the meal, hand him/her my card and say “Run the bill on this whenever it’s convenient.” I usually have a charge slip to sign long before I’m done eating. The meal ends with last bite, write up tip & sign, pocket card, stand up & leave. Bang, bang, bang, gone in [sub]less than[/sub] 60 seconds.
It would not take too many customers acting like me to train waitstaff that holding people hostage waiting to pay is bad service and bad business. Far quicker to automatically ask cash payers: “You want change from that?” Probably with zero awareness of the size of your specific individual bill versus the size of the specific individual cash pile you handed them.
I have a $5 tip minimum if it’s just me eating out, but I understand that can be a high % and I’m not a typical person. I find the question fairly typical, though. I agree with the “I’ll be right back with your change” method mentioned. Maybe places should teach servers that if they don’t already. To me, asking if I need change back is courteous because it saves work and time for both of us if I don’t. Also, even though I would leave $5 or whatever the change is forma twenty on a $13-15 check, I think they should bring back all ones to give you the choice and not presume a $5 tip.
I stopped getting pizza delivered from my favorite pizza joint for two reasons: 1- they’re the most expensive pizza in town (but sometimes worth it) and B - the last two times I had it delivered, the guy shows up with my $22 pizza, I give him thirty bucks and he says, “do you need change?”
Now my usual reply would be, “if you think I’m giving you and eight dollar tip, you’re high, junior.” My actual reply is, “uh, yeah,” because I’m pretty sure the guy is high and I don’t feel like explaining shit to him. But that’s not the worst. Two times in a row - same yutz - “uh, I don’t think I have any bills on me.” At that point my only choice was to send the pizza back or give Schleprock eight clams.
So fuck that. Old Schleppy is now out of the fleecing Jack for tip money bidness.
I’m in the “The change is so I can tip.” department, too.
The haircut place I go to charges $7.99. I pay with a bill and get bills back plus a penny. I give bills back as tip, plus the penny. I like the idea that she’s precise enough to actually (try and) hand me the penny. If I gave her $8 I know she would dig a penny out and offer it.
Waiters should do the same.
The thing is, smart waiters do! They say, “Let me get your change!”, instead of, “Do you need change?”
And they bring you smaller bills with your change, to accommodate your tipping. But inexperienced servers often don’t bring enough small bills in their float. So after making change for a table of six separate checks, may not have enough small bills to do so every time.
Plus, servers kinda can’t win. In Canada $1 and $2 are coins. So I can bring you two fives, or a five plus 2X$2 and 1X$1, but that’s lots of change for you to carry around if you intended to tip $5. Offend you with a pocket of change? Or offend you by assuming ou want to tip me $5? If I bring it to you all in smaller bills there are people who will interpret that as, “scheming manipulation for more tips!”, and decrease their tip because of it.
All of service is walking a fine line and trying to feel out: do these people- want friendly chatty interaction, or cool efficient ‘just bring my beer and food’? Bring two forks with their one piece of cake, or will that be offensive to the one who ordered it? Change in small bills, even if it’s lots of coins? Well, I think you see the problem!
12 year service industry representative weighing in here…
The server in question is merely being efficient at their job. For people who have never worked in a busy restaurant on a Friday or Saturday night, quick little questions like that save 30 seconds here and there and keep a server afloat.
Let’s say you have a nice four or five table section on a busy weekend night… here’s the running line of tasks in my head at any given time:
1, Table A just sat down and I need to greet them, take a drink order, and tell specials.
2, Table C just received their main course, I need to check in about 90 seconds to make sure everything tastes good, is cooked correctly, and nothing elsewhere is needed.
3, Table E has a birthday celebration, I have to time out a piece of cake with a candle so it comes exactly once main courses are cleared and before birthday boy or girl can ask for a dessert menu…
It’s a surprise you know!
4, Table B is finished and ready to go, and all six people need separate checks. This not being 1978, they all have credit cards and everything is processed in 20 seconds a check.
5, Table D is also finished and all 5 people want separate checks, but most paying for their $30 meal with a $100. I now have to pull $350 out thin air relatively fast… obviously I wouldn’t ask these people with the $100 if they need change, but if I see a twenty and other small bills hanging out I’m going to ask “all set or do you need change?”
It’s the difference between cashing out a table in two minutes versus four or five minutes. To all the other tables, that amount of time can be the difference between selling a 2nd round of drinks or “I haven’t seen my server in forever” (in reality three minutes).
On the other hand, I’ve had people be gravely offended when I bring them back their $1.50 change from a $20.
Basically you aren’t going to please everyone every time. Of course I am working in the service industry to make money, but do you know who tips the best and spends the most money?
Repeat customers.
Now maybe your Darden Corporation high schooler servers don’t get that, but if you’re eating at a nicer, local, independent restaurant they should get it.
Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk
Heh, that happened to me last night. I was grabbing a quick bite before I had to be somewhere, and when I asked the waiter for the check (which I shouldn’t have had to do in the first place), I told him I was running late and really needed to pay. He brought me back change as two 1$ bills and a 10. He wasn’t getting a $10 tip, and he was lucky I had a $5 bill in my wallet, otherwise I would have left him the $2 and gone on to where I had to be.
@ the OP: Sounds like a hopeful ploy to get you to leave a big tip. And yes, can come across as rather devious.
Maybe I am an insensitive bastard, but if the server asked if I wanted change back from a $20 for a $11 check, I would have said “Yes please” and tipped as normal. Maybe it was a ploy to get a bigger tip, maybe it was force of habit, maybe she can’t count to twenty without taking her shoes off. I don’t really care.
Or tell her the bellhop riddle and ask her to get change from him. Or, if she brought back $7 and expected to keep the difference, I would shrug and say “Usually I tip 40%, but if that’s all you want it’s OK with me” and escape under cover of darkness.
Regards,
Shodan