For the lurve of all that is good and holy, would you please split your check!

The BBQ Pit
61

Sometimes. Cheap people are usually the type to want to itemize their bills. Therefore, these cheapo’s are likely to get seperate checks.

However, there are also lots of people like myself who are good tippers who might get a seperate check to avoid the complications of group billing. I’ve often been with a large group out where idiots want to itemize, others don’t pay at all, nobody can do math or take charge. It’s easier sometimes to just get my own bill. Or, at least, get a seperate bill for everybody at my table or a subset of the larger group.

The problem with large checks and tipping is that people are dumb. They don’t know about tax. They forget that they had five drinks, not four. They tend to underestimate thier bill, not overestimate it. That’s why the person collecting tends to end up with not enough to cover and have a good tip. Seperate bills eliminates this situation.

The tip is automatically added to large parties because the temptation is too great to not tip on them. When a 20% tip is a hundred dollars or more it can be tempting for some cheapskates to not tip just because of the amounts involved. This is moot if the checks are done seperately.

62

They are “politically correct” terms. My 18 year old daughter knows better, instinctively, than to use them. She works as a hostess at Chili’s. Her store got a new manager last month who was fond of those terms. The first time he used them in a staff meetime, no one knew what they meant. He explained them and The Teenaged Terror commented, “How totally lame!”. He has not used them since.

Whoever thinks up this politically correct bullshit ought to horsewhipped.

63

Bingo!

Althought the in-a-hurry female professional types would do this too. Maybe my attractiveness spans gender boundaries…

Or they just don’t want to deal with change. :stuck_out_tongue:

64

I’ve never had to worry about this, because when I go eat, the most people we ever have is about 6. And they’re usually good friends, and they’re college students, which usually means that they can do math.

My problem is one certain friend who DOESN’T TIP. His excuse is that he “doesn’t have the money” to do so.

Hello? You get a 200 dollar check every month so that you don’t have to work, and you just took out a 900 dollar student loan. To pay for ABSOFUCKINGLUTELY NOTHING!!! All of your school is paid for by your grandparents, you ungrateful fuck!

I hate going out to eat with this guy, but he’s my best friend outside of this issue.

65

Don’t you know? Whipping horses is politically incorrect.

66

Ahem. Equine abused.

67

That last part doesn’t even matter. If you can’t afford to tip, you can’t afford to eat in restaurants with waiters. It’s just part of the cost of eating out. He should stick to the myriad of counter-based restaurants which surround every college like a fungus. Or, just eat fungus.

68

Exactly right.

Hooray! This means I am an expert online crystal ball reader!

I think I’ll retire now so that I can keep my record of 100% accuracy intact.

69

Oops. I meant to quote Susan saying “Bingo”. I apologize for the error.

70

I would have thought you would have seen that coming… :smiley:

71

Accuracy down to 50%.

72

After carefully weighing all the arguments and evidence presented by all the posters in this thread, I think there’s only one solution to this problem: abolish restaurants.

73

Everything depends on circumstances.

I’m a server in a restaurant that allows separate checks. In this restaurant it works well for everyone involved, because:

1.Our touchscreen system makes it a snap for any reasonably intelligent person to separate quickly and accurately.

2.Our duties other than dealing with our tables are very light, and the setup is such that nearly anything we need is close to hand.

3.We are rarely understaffed.

4.Because we do not add gratuities to our checks, we generally make out better if the check is split; it’s not such a russian roullette whether the cheapskates of the table are going to end up with the entire check. Also, what Debaser said is true; many people balk at a really high tip, rationalizing to themselves that it was only one table, the server didn’t do anything to rate THAT much money regardless of what the bill was, etc. What many people don’t realize is that it take much more time, effort, coordination and just plain skill to serve a party of 12 than it does to serve 6 parties of 2.
The restaurant I used to work at is a different story:

1.There is no computer, everything is written.

2.The serving staff is loaded with additional duties such as getting/making their own salads/appetizers/desserts, and stocking/prepping many food items. The stock room and freezer are located down a flight of stairs.

3.The owner/chef is an abusive tool, and they are chronically understaffed.

They have a strict no separate check policy, although I must add that this was done not to benefit the servers, but the kitchen. However, if they did have to separate checks the whole place would probably unravel, with penis ensuing.

Oh, and for those of you blaming the server for the policies, WTF? Restaurants are not democracies. Deciding not to go back is a proper response, punishing someone who has absolutely no say in the matter with a low tip is being an asshole.

74

Stores get plenty of small bills. The problem is, they continually clean out the registers throughout the day because they’re afraid of being robbed, and often have ridiculously convoluted procedures for the cashier to be able to obtain more change, because they’re afraid of the cashiers stealing from them as well. Then they bitch when they have to change a 20, which isn’t a lot of money these days. People aren’t eating the small bills, they’re going into store safes, never to be seen again.

75

Clean out the registers of ones*? We have extra packets of ones under the cash drawer, because we run out of them so often. None of my employees have ever cleaned out ones or fives from the drawer, and I probably do it twice a year.

Twenties, we clean out regularly. Fifties and hundreds don’t go in the drawer in the first place.

It doesn’t take many people paying for $10.50 purchases with $20 bills to wipe out a register’s stock of ones.

76

I remember hearing some comedian refer to crisp cash machine twenties as “yuppie trading cards.”

My personal peeve as well. Sorry to stereotype my fellow actors, but nothing ticks me off more than having to put in $15 for *a bagel and an egg cream * at a diner because someone is either too stupid to compute what they owe or too “poor” (read: most usually too cheap) to actually *pay * what they owe.

I remember one post-show gathering where Huz and myself and another couple had to kick in ten bucks extra apiece to cover a couple who threw down less than their share and cut out early! And another where the guy who ordered two nice bottles of wine (for his end of the table) tried to get us all to split the check evenly. Nuh-uh!

That said, Huz and I always make sure we tip our servers well. As both an actor (with many actor-waiter friends) and someone who’s done my share of customer service, I know how tough it can be.

77

Um…actually, I have to question your future-predicting abilities b/c there are plenty of restaurants I eat at that do not ever do separate checks, and I usually have to wait for a table. I see myriads of large, non-check-splitting parties enjoying great food and not giving a flying fuck. All over San Antonio! Imagine!

So feel free not to eat at my hypothetical non-check-splitting restaurant, but just because you don’t come back doesn’t mean that nobody else will. If a business doesn’t float your boat for whatever reason, you’re within your rights not to patronize it.

But don’t assume that you and your family friends’ non-patronage is going to cripple a whole freakin’ business. Geez. “We won’t ever come back!” is sometimes good news. Trust me.

78

I had a friend/co-worker who used to be GLAD to get the bill when a group of us went out to eat.
Her ‘job’ was to make sure no one at the table left without making sure their fare-share of the bill, plus deserved tip, was ponied up.

That she was a part-time bartender and absolutely relished making everyone aware that out waiter had “busted their ass” for us was a bonus.

79

I’m curious how the waiter (and I use that term in a gender-neutral manner) feels when a large group comes in and gets a single check, then several people throw in cards and make a list on the back of the check that says “charge $35 on Joe Smith’s card, $30 on Jane Doe’s, $16 on Conrad Bain”, and the server gets this list and a pile of cash.

It is pretty much the norm in a large group I frequently go out with, but I always thought it would be a sort of a pain in the ass from the waiter’s perspective. Former waitstaff in the group assure me this is not obnoxious behavior.

80

This is great! A list makes it really easy for the server (assuming there’s not 10+ cards you want charged seperately, then it gets a bit obnoxious). It’s better than everyone at the table shoving their cards at the server and saying “put 10 on mine!” If you must split the check post-meal, this is the way to do it.