So I am working at the coffeeshop tonight with Angie the Barista and two college girls step up to the counter. “can we negotiate for a brownie? Like, we buy drinks, and we could get one for free?” I turn to Angie. Business is slow, nobody is looking, so yes. You may have one. We customize your drinks for you in just the right way and give you a free brownie. We even crack jokes and talk to you. You gave us a 20 out of a 4 dollar order. You walk away. Here are some things I found wrong with this.
Never ever ask for free stuff so brazenly!
When you do, offer to tip well.
Only ask something like that when you know the people hate their job! We both love it, we don’t want to screw our shop. But if it attracts business, one brownie won’t really hurt.
I KNOW YOU HAD THE MONEY FOR THE BROWNIE. If you have money like that, don’t try and weasel your way into free food unless you are incredibly attractive.
TIP. I you gave me a 20. I gave you back $16. I KNOW YOU HAD A ONE DOLLAR BILL. The least you could do is tip. It’s not like we give away food normally, and a tip is a way of showing appreciation.
No more free stuff for them EVER. Geez, I am getting all worked up over a pastry. I know that I shouldn’t have really expected one, but I think we should have got something. We aren’t working for $tarbucks. Give us something when we stick our necks out for you.
On a related note, tips are nice if I help you choose a drink when you’re clueless about what to get. I have selecting drinks for people down to an art. When someone tries something new, we always say that if they don’t like it, we will make something else for them for free. If we do make something else for you and we didn’t mess up on the first one (regular instead of decaf for ex.), it’s nice to throw your change in the jar.
However, if we break the rules to give you food or drinks reduced or free, you damn well better throw paper or metal into that jar or you aren’t getting anything else like that again.
I dunno, I’m still having a problem with “you’re in the business of selling food, so you just gave them some free food, because they walked up and asked.”
[insert emoticon for baffled head-scratching]
And then–you’re pissed because they didn’t tip you, for giving them some free food. Why should they tip you, when you’re obviously a sucker, a patsy? Suckers and patsies don’t require tips.
Have you ever heard of the term “behavioral reinforcement”? You rewarded their behavior (asking for free food), so now they’ll do it again, to you and to other people who are in the business of selling food.
Think I’ll go down to First Wok, ask the checkout girl if I ask her nicely, if she’ll give me a free eggroll, and then she can be pissed because I didn’t tip her…
erislover, as StrangeJourney pointed out, we have a high markup on brownies. I know that they would approve such things to woo customers, but I guess we got the chump end. Usually wanting free food only works in chain resturants where there is a general loathing for management. FYI, sometimes we set out cake and pastry samples, but we didn’t this time and I don’t know how to feel about what happened. Validate me!
Sorry to piss on your parade and not validate you:
just be glad that this isn’t true: FREE FOOD=UNEMPLOYMENT.
While I agree with DDG, I have to wonder why YOU should get the tip.
So you stuck your neck out… That’s you being a fool. Why is it you deserve a tip? It wasn’t your food you were giving away, after all.
Yes, there maybe an obscene amount of markup on the brownies, but you said so yourself: You don’t work for $tarbucks. The mark up on the brownies may pay for other stuff, namely your salary.
Now then, I don’t think its a bad idea idea to give away stuff ( I do it all the time with my biz) its not your place to make that call AND expect a tip.
But now the worst thing is, I guarantee that those girls have told their friends and now they may try it too.
Huh. I worked at many fast-food and sit-down waitress joints while putting the Better Half through college, and I never encountered one, whether “cuppa joe for the farmers” coffee shop, or upscale steak house, that gave away free food. Period. Not even an order of fries at Burger King, because The Boss’s Wife knew down to the last pickle slice exactly how much they should have sold that day, and woe betide the day manager whose receipts didn’t match the pickle inventory. And if you’d said to her, “Hey, we should give a free ice cream cone to these two girls because they asked nicely and they’re such good customers”, she’d have stared at you like you were from Venus.
Which would have been ironic, since she was definitely from Mars.
Oh, red, it isn’t like I’ve never given food out to someone in the five years I spent at the golden arches, and I agree that they should have tipped you (something up to the cost of the brownie would have been appropriate, no?) but, here’s my thing: someone who is going to schmooze for free food isn’t exactly high up on social skills to begin with, IMO. And I’m not sure I ethically agree with the expectation that one should rob the owner and hope the money lost will end up in your tip jar.
If you give out free stuff without expectations (like I did) then you’ll find yourself much less stressed about the affair. I mean, you do make regular hourly wages, don’t you?—and tips are an addition to that?
So you gave out free food with the expectation that you would get a tip? Isn’t that effectively stealing from your employer? Why not just fail to ring up the transaction and pocket the money? It seems like that was what you really intended, and then you are assured of the payoff.
And I don’t think that people who beg for food are the clientel your employer wants to encourage.
Eh, I shouldn’t have expected anything. I guess I was worked up about it last night. I shouldn’t have given out food like that either. It’s a learning experience.
Yes, I know you have seen the error of your ways, blah blah blah…
Red_dragon60, I don’t think you could have expected a tip. Ignore the ethical BS for a second and look at simple mathematics.
Two coffees and a brownie: $5.
Two coffees, a free brownie and a tip: $5
Do you see why they didn’t tip you now? It completely defeats the purpose of asking for something free!
But, just as important, these girls aren’t the type to tip you. Trust me when I say I know their type. They’re the ones that slink up to you in a bar and ask you to buy them a drink. They don’t do it because they’re interested in getting to know you, they do it because they can get a free drink out of it. When they’re done, often before that, they won’t give you the time of day. But this time, unlike the brownie, it costs you $4 out of your own pocket.
These above all else are the ones you have to learn to say no to. They don’t hear it that much as it is.
When I was working at Dairy Queen, we got regular visits from people demanding free ice cream for their dogs. For their dogs . And they would get angry if anyone declined to GIVE them free ice cream for their dogs.
You know, in a weird way this reminds me of an incident that occurred when I was a teenager, working as a tour guide at a local attraction.
A family comes in the gift shop to buy tickets for the next tour. (I gave tours of a set of caverns.) They had a mentally-challenged son, and although he was in his late teens, they explained he was, mentally, about three. So they asked me if they could buy a child’s ticket for him. This wasn’t a scam; the boy was obviously not a functioning adult. I was fine with that, and was about to ring up the tickets accordingly. Unfortunately, the owner of the caverns happened to be standing there, so I felt compelled to ask him about the situation. His response? “No. If he’s an adult in age, he has to buy an adult ticket.”
(One of my co-workers had a saying for this man; whenever we heard about his latest escapades, she always said “What a weed.”)
The family was upset, but not angry; they understood the rule. They walked away, and were obviously trying to decide if they could afford to pay for another adult ticket. (These things weren’t cheap; at that time [mid-eighties], adult tickets for a one-hour tour were pushing ten bucks.) So I moseyed over to them a few minutes later and told them I’d be taking the tickets for the next tour, and I wouldn’t ask for one for their son. They were very grateful.
One freebie that I think is justified is “Free coffee for cops between sundown and sunrise”. That makes sense, because cop cars in the lot, and cops in the store, on third shift, scare away wrongdoers.
I worked at a hot dog stand once where the owner was giving a free dog to people who were down on their luck. Only he had to give it up after a while, because it turned into a free-for-all.
Twice, when I was on register at McD’s, I gave ice-cream to people who I felt had had to wait too long for their order. But I paid for it; it wasn’t on Ronald’s dime.
At the same store, the owner took each of us aside, separately, trying to find out who it was that was hooking up their friends. (I never knew who it was.) His rationale was that a lot of people were asking for free stuff, and that had to be because they’d heard someone, or several someones, was/were a soft touch. In other words, what Baboon said.
At McD’s, workers were allowed to eat “dirty” fries: in other words, fries that were on the rim of the bin and couldn’t be served. My first day at BK, I clocked out for my break and, en route to the break room, grabbed a “dirty” fry. The owner said to me, when my shift was over, “I…thought I saw you steal a fry…” Steal a fry? One french fry, that can’t be served anyway?! Aiya!
