You know, all it takes is to be the server once or twice to appreciate what goes into it. I worked as a waitress in a small restaurant when I was in high school (back when minimum wage for restaurant work was $.85 an hour, as opposed to the generous $1.90 or so my friends made in other jobs) and have never forgotten waiting on a family of six that wanted everything in the world, were delightful and pleasant, and then left me a quarter for their $40 check (which would be about a $150 check today).
So to this day I try to be courteous to my servers, say please and thank you, leave nice tips, and compliment them on what they do well. Like last night we stopped at an IHOP. Now, this is not a gourmet restaurant, but there were exactly two waitresses handling the whole restaurant. Both women in their late 50s, I’d say. Nobody to seat customers, nobody to ring up the checks at the register – they were doing it all. And yet through it all, they were pleasant to us, apologized for delays, were incredibly efficient both in serving everyone and in helping each other out and communicating with each other what had been done, and kept smiles on their faces the whole time. We left a big tip and congratulated them on their incredibly great attitudes, which turned what could have been a rotten time into a pleasant meal.
That’s what earns people great tips, doing a great job. Sure, anyone can slap your food down; but the intangibles are what make all the difference.
And the OP? They were total assholes. I think I might have violated my rules if I were you and followed them out asking, “Excuse me, was there a problem with the service?”
Audrey, I agree with all you post except the above bit (in certain circumstances). I have arrived at a restaurant just before closing several times for the same reason - we are involved in a sporting event, out of town, with our kids and the schedule is such that we are left trying to find dinner at an unreasonable hour. We, too, would prefer to be at the resraurant earlier. However, in such circumstances you can be assured that I will order quickly and leave a healthy tip.
amarone, I’m not saying that everybody who goes to a restaurant right before they close is an asshole; nor do they deserve lesser service than anybody else.
But there have been those nights wherein the entire staff is exhausted, and it’s two minutes til closing, and we’re all just grateful to see the light at the end of the tunnel…and a party of 15 people walks in and wants dinner. “You’re still open, right? Your sign says you don’t close TIL ELEVEN!”
There goes at least an hour. And I could have been gone in twenty minutes. (And as a bartender, it’s not like I make any worthwhile money off that party; if their tab is five hundred dollars, I still only make five bucks.)
And yeah, it’s a part of the gig sometimes, and I signed up for it, so sure, I’ve kind of got it coming.
But damn, it sucks! We’ve had people who stay for two hours past closing time. Just sitting there, talking, long after their meal is finished. And I just know that when they go home they’re going to talk about “how romantic” or “how much fun” it was. “We just couldn’t stop talking! The whole restaurant was closed and we had the whole place to ourselves!”
And therein lies the rub; if you tell them anything, you become the asshole yourself. So you just get to sit there watching them talk away two hours of time wherein you should’ve already been at home yourself. (Or drinking, or eating, or doing whatever the hell you had planned after work.)
So you just suck it up and get a little more cynical towards your fellow human beings. I don’t hate everybody who dashes in for a late-night snack; I just think people who do should do what you’ve said…make it quick and tip a little extra.
I always tip well. And I’m ‘just’ a college student who goes to Denny’s, Steak & Shake, etc. Especially at Denny’s, because this previous semester I was there at least 2-3 times a week. Generally if it was a $10 meal, I tip an average of $4, maybe $5 if it’s a well-known server that knows my quirks (always having a diet coke, watching to see if its almost empty, etc).
I love servers that come by to see if everything is OK outside of the times when they are taking my order or giving me my check. I have no problem tipping 50%. It’s only a few dollars where I go, and I love making people happy.
I think my roommate and I only had one server that was completely rude, and we still tipped 15%.
Audrey, you nailed the whole “people dashing in at the last minute” rub, thank you.
I believe I got into a debate about that some time ago on these boards with someone, and it turned into quite the debate. You summed up my position perfectly.
Source: http://www.dol.gov/esa/minwage/q-a.htm
Translation - In your job you cannot be paid less than the federal minimum wage $5.15/hour or state minimum wage, whichever is higher. If your $2.13/hour plus tips do not meet the required federal or state minimum wage, your employer must make up the difference.
Well, Guin, we are in the service industry. It’s what we do. I don’t mind that people want to come in at the end of a shift and order food. I can usually do other things to get ready to leave as soon as they get up. I only have a problem when I’m not tipped.
Duckster I’m sure you can imagine why that little bit of news isn’t that comforting. Wow. I am a skilled server and I get $2.13 an hour. The only way that I could get that inforced would be if i worked an entire night and didn’t make enough to cover min wage. That really dosen’t happen. One table that doesn’t tip won’t make me go hungry for a week. They are just assholes and lower my opinion of the human race asa a whole. Ugh. Slime.
I also have to say that I am very very professional and and I wouldn’t even say anything to them if they came into the restraunt tommorow. I refuse to treat a customer differently because they are ass meat.
Speaking of people who don’t tip…are there people of certain races or sexes that you expect a lower tip from? Ir is it just Dallas?
Normally I’m not the biggest fan of Dr. Phil (huge understatement), but I caught a few minutes of a show when I was at my mom’s house a couple of weeks ago. The lady on this particular show was taken to task by Dr. Phil for being shitty to waitstaff. She whined and complained constantly about everything imaginable and was a very bad tipper. So they set her up with a job (for one night) at a restaurant. She definitely learned her lesson. The videotaped it - and she gave not-so-great service because she’d never realized before how hard a job waitressing is and how much is involved. She was run off her feet - and she wasn’t even handling a full section/load of tables. It was pretty hilarious. She said later she’d learned her lesson and was also going to be nice to her waiters in the future.
Thanks for that. After my post it occurred to me that Lynn Bodoni saying what she did meant that it was uncommon. Later I went shopping and observed other customers and discovered that it’s not as universal as I assumed. I even started to feel self-concious saying “Thank you” when handed the bag and again when handed my change. Pretty funny.
Speaking of people who don’t tip…are there people of certain races or sexes that you expect a lower tip from?
When I worked fast food (3 different places) I got to the point I could tell which customers were going to be trouble and which ones would be nice.
The absolute friggin WORST bitch customers were white women with small children. I called them the Happy Meal Nazis because they would come bitch about the toy: “but we got this one laaaaast week, where’s the neeeeeeeeew one,” etc. Some of them actually expected you to go back in the stockroom and start digging through boxes to see if we had the toy they wanted, never mind that it was lunch hour and we had a mob in there waiting to order. They were always frazzled, wrestling 2 or 3 kids and snippy. And God forbid there be a random onion on their baby’s hamburger, they’d turn into Medusa, snakes and all.
The second worst were young black women. They generally wanted asskissing. A group of girls came in one night, probably in their early 20s (old enough to know better is the point I’m trying to convey) and had me in tears before they were through with me because I “didn’t hand them their change” correctly and made a federal case out of it. Lucky for me my boss just kinda smiled and nodded until they went away, realizing they were just being assholes.
The nicest were black men of any age. I loved them. We had this one regular customer who would come in and he was such a doll that I’d sneak in extra stuff. I was just a kid at the time and it didn’t occur to me until years later that he probably thought I was hitting on him. Oops!
In general though the breakdown was women customers were a pain in the ass and the men were usually cool. Men and women complain differently. If a mistake was made with their order, the women would take it personally and thus GET personal with you: as if the kitchen staff were back there intentionally screwing up their order just to make them have a bad day. Women are also MUCH more likely, in my experience, to want to “speak to the manager” (read: try to get you fired).
When I had men complain they usually didn’t go for blood and try to get you fired and they didn’t make such a big DEAL out of whatever mistake was made. They were pretty laid back, as in “oops, they gave me lettuce could I get another sandwich?” and then they’d chill at the counter until they got a new one. Women would be rolling their eyes and huffing and then would stomp away.
Legal disclaimer: these were my personal experiences in western Kentucky in the 90s. I am not saying the observations I made are universal, etc. etc. etc.
I was once in a class with a women who told a fairly awful tipping horror story. This was maybe eight years ago, I don’t know exactly. She had a table that had run up a $100 bill, and of course the people at the table were the demanding sort.
They DID leave her a tip.
A quarter.
My dad used to sneak extra money on the table after his dad left a tip (I don’t know if his dad still does this) because his dad would just leave whatever loose change he had as a tip.
I had to sneak an extra dollar or two onto a table more than once with my ex, who was a 10% tipper. In 2002. I don’t THINK so. I was in classes with people who were waiting tables, and I KNOW how hard it is.
I always say that everyone should be required to do a resturant stint (I’d say a month) at some point in their lives, such as the Dr. Phil example. It just puts things in perspective.
As far as the certain races/tips scenerio, I may get flamed for this, but it’s my experience in 8 years of waiting tables.
I found that African Americans, Spainards (sp?), and English people were the worst tippers. The Spanish and English people got sort of a pass, because of the tipping customs in their own countries. Of course, every time I travel out of country I always read up on the tipping customs of whatever country I’m visiting, but that’s just me, I guess. African Americans don’t really have that excuse, IMHO, they just always seemed to be the cheapest customers, always wanting free stuff, leaving shitty tips, ect. I also experienced some of the same things that SnoopyFan mentioned, the wanting me to kiss ass thing. The putting the change in the hand correctly thing brought back some memories.
:rolleyes:
FYI, my X is black, waited tables, and totally agreed with me on the black customers thing.
The best tippers were young men, obviously on first or second dates. They were great tippers and super polite, as they were trying to impress their dates. I loved waiting on them.
That’s just my experience, and of course, standard disclaimers apply.
Almost forgot, blue collar, white families are also really good tippers. Methinks the liklihood that they’ve waited tables at some point in their lives is very high, which would explain it.
I’d always be much happier to wait on a big party of construction guys than buisnessmen. Believe it or not, the construction guys were usually a lot nicer (read: didn’t treat me like a slave, or like someone “lower” than them) and left a much better tip.
I think you may be misreading their intentions. (Or maybe not; after all, you were in that profession, and I never was). I used to go out to eat with a particular acquaintance of mine sometimes, and it was her MO to always complain about the meal/service/whatever, in hopes of getting free stuff out of it (charges knocked off the bill, whatever). Got to be so emabarrassing, I started turning down her invites to lunch, even though she always paid.
OMG, I hope no server has ever thought of me in this category! Yikes! I certainly try not to do these things you’ve described! But I will say this: a waitperson who’s nice to my little kid will definitely be thanked monetarily. I remember when my oldest was about 3, I had her in a Friendly’s restaurant; for those who don’t know about Friendly’s, it’s casual, and ice cream is a specialty. The waiter was a teenage boy, maybe 18 or 19. He was adequate, as a waiter; but when the meal was over, and my princess wanted a particularly messy sundae, I said “No, you’ll have it all over you!” The waiter playfully said, “Oh, let her get that one; I’ll even clean her up when she’s done”. I did let her get the messy one; he did, indeed, bring out a pile of wet-naps and do a job on her hands and face. He got a 25% tip. Not for cleaning her up, but for being nice to her.
I have noticed differences in tipping “styles” among different races, sexes and ethnicities. And before someone makes the comment that people are only reacting to my expectations, let me state for the record (your honor) that I really did try to debunk the stereotypes. Because the stereotype 'round these parts is that black women are particularly bad tippers, I set it up with the hostess one day that all parties containing black women would be in my station - I was determined to prove my co-workers wrong. With no exaggeration at all, I can truthfully say that was my worst day ever in the service industry. Not only was I stiffed completely by most of my tables that day, the ones who did tip literally tipped in small change. And lest anyone think my level of service that day was sub-par, that was also the day I got the most positive comments to the manager about my service! All that said, I have also been well-tipped by black women, but infrequently enough that those occasions stand out very well in my memory.
Incidentally, regardless of race or sex, the worst tippers of all IN MY EXPERIENCE are teachers.
I was a waitress in a very small bar in Poulsbo WA for a short period of time. It was a karaoke bar, they just sorta asked me to work there when their current waitress left on materity leave. I enjoyed most of my experience there.
One couple stood out in particular…for many reasons. The husband was a short cowboy type, wranglers and a moustache. He was always smiling. He always ordered the same thing, shot of bar tequila, and Red Dog beer, Red Label.
When he showed up alone, I got tipped a reasonable amount.
Sometimes, his wife would come with him. She was a very well endowed woman, much taller than he was and she NEVER smiled.
Or tipped. If he came with her, I was left with nothing, each and every time. Including the time that she brought another couple with them and the 4 of them drank heavily all night. She and the other lady seemed to be intentionally working me hard. I was left with the impression that she was extremely jealous, and didn’t allow him to tip female waitstaff. I always treated them the same, whether he was alone or with her. I was the only waitress, so there wasn’t a chance of passing them off on anyone.
In answer to another question, if you frequent a place often, there is a very strong chance that the staff will remember you…for good and bad, no matter if you tip well or not. They will remember, and they will discuss certain customers amongst themselves.
Well, of course. I’ve never worked as a waitress, but I have done retail, and yes, people would come in five minutes before closing and proceed to take their good old time and then act like assholes and you’d practically have to throw them out.
I’m just saying if I had a restaurant, that’s what my policy would be.
When possible, when I pay with a credit card I tip in cash. I know I liked it better that way when I was on the receiving end of the deal. Anyway, many of the times if I am friendly with the server, as a joke I’ll write a giant NO!!! in the tip column and then leave cash on top of it. I am shocked that someone would actually do this and not leave anything.
Unless the service was absolutely terrible, in which case all bets are off.
I don’t hate everybody who dashes in for a late-night snack; I just think people who do should do what you’ve said…make it quick and tip a little extra.