My husband's grandmother doesn't want to give a tip

In My Humble Opinion
101

Apples and oranges. Fine dining service is a completely different beast from diner service, then there’s that happy medium between the two.

Yes, the Denny’s waitress will run herself ragged for a fraction of what a fine dining server will make while putting in the same or less work. However, there are multiple factors that even it out and/or justify it.

For starters, fine dining servers typically get a fraction of the tables a diner server will get. Usually no more than 4 tables at any one time, as opposed to 8+ that a diner server will have at any one time.

Then there’s the turnaround time. Fine dining, a table is going to remain there for a couple hours, minimum. Fine dining is an art. People are not there to stuff their faces and leave. They’re dropping a couple hundred, minimum, on the meal. They’re going to be there awhile. Diner tables? Probably half an hour, forty-five minutes a table, tops.

Then there’s the art of the service. As I said above, fine dining is an art. The fine dining server must be very well trained, and very good at what they do. You will be expected to have the correct pen (and number of pens) ready to go and your uniform better be spotless and pristine. We would have line-ups prior to each shift beginning where we would stand shoulder to shoulder with the head server walking down the line and looking all of us up and down to see if a hair was out of place. And the service? It’d better be flawless. No mistakes. No messed up orders. It really is something to watch. And stressful as hell to do. And talk about being treated as a servant. That is what you are, make no qualms about it.

The Diner server? Much more lax. You can be friendly and visit with your tables. You can be yourself. Much less stiff. No one wants to make mistakes, but it’s not the end of the world if they happen. Felt tip, ball-point, no one gives a damn what kind of pen you’re using. Shirt a little wrinkled? No biggie. As far as the job itself (not counting experiences that happen within it) it’s much less stressful. A good amount of the people you’re serving are on the same economic level as yourself. There are always a few condescending jerks out there, but for the most part, no one’s looking down their nose at you. You are a server, yes, but you’re no one’s bitch. And no one expects you to be.

I’ve worked on both ends. I actually gave up fine dining to work at more in-between places. Not diners, not fine-dining. My comfort zone was in resturants that rested somewhere in the middle. I made a good living and I enjoyed it. And it put me through college.

So, as you can see, it’s really not black and white. The difference in tips based on a percentage of the overall bill is not an issue of classism. Well, it is, but for legitimate reasons. In a fine-dining resturant you’re paying for fine dining service. In a diner, you’re paying for diner service. They are very, very different things and they cost very, very different amounts. A Denny’s waitress wouldn’t last five minutes in a fine-dining resturant. And a fine-dining server wouldn’t last 5 minutes waiting tables at Denny’s. Different worlds with different salaries.

102

I agree with everything you said, lezlers. Where I live, it’s not uncommon at all to see a Mexican kid come up here and get a job bussing tables & washing dishes. They work on their English, and eventually get to try out for waiter. They continue to work on the skills, their style & polish, and eventually move on to nicer places. It’s entirely possible for this kid to end up at a nice restaurant, waiting on the occasional movie star, and making more in tips than your average Denny’s.

I don’t find that classist at all, because it’s exactly what I did, except I was a poor white kid in the mid-west when I started.

How can working hard, working your way up the ladder, and then earning more money be considered classist?

103

And let the manager know about it.

104

Wll, getting back to the topic, youy’ve come onto an Internet messageboard, claiming your grandmother has weird ideas.

I Googled “panama canal chinese” and found that there was at least some substance to the claims these people make. You, on the other hand, chose to declare your husband’s mother to be losing it, based on having asked a guy who should know and responding to your mother-in-law’s wise words, “maybe he doesn’t tell the truth”, as further evidence of her dementia.

Then you claim that she doesn’t want to tip and you felt compelled to add the tip for her despite admitting that you didn’t look to see how much she left.

I don’t doubt that there are a lot of goofy causes out there but you haven’t shown any indication that she’s the one who has lost her grip.

Are you afraid that she’ll spend all the money before she has a chance to leave it to you?

It *is *her money - not yours.

105

Just to put my two cents worth in here, I worked delivering pizza fro several years, I kind of expected elderly poeple to tip a little less than normal, because of the reason someone stated before, a lot of elderly people think they are tipping you well when they give you 10%. The people that really irked me were the ones who told me I can’t tip you because I work for the state or I am unemployed or whatever. It seems to me you should not order the service unless you are willing to pay a decent tip, if your service is rotten, decrease the tip.

I have questions though

  1. in a place where part of the service is a buffet but a waiter brings my drink and clears plates, I see many people tipping 20% of their ticket and have been taken to task by friends who think that my tipping somewhat less than that is bad and have in fact put in extra to cover for my bad manners (we don’t go out to eat together anymore) I think if I am serving myself a large portion of the meal the 20% “standard” doesn’t apply. I do still tip nowadays it’s a dollar, which is 50-75% of the drink price so there is a tip for pciking up dirty dishes as well.

  2. If you tip a regular waiter a less than standard amount for poor service… don’t they just chalk it up to the person being a rotton tipper? I had a particulary bad experience today, the food was great, the sevice abysmal (the waitress walked past my empty glass 5 times before I could get her attention for a refilland I had to ask for refills twice after that) I have been told by other wait staff that women eating alone get bad service because they are bad tippers, maybe they are bad tippers because tehy are getting bad service. I can forgive a lot of other problems if you keep my tea glass filled… places I go a lot bring me a pitcher or two glasses at a time. I reward exceptioanl service with an exceptional tip ( one Thanksgiving I tipped my waitress 60% since she kept my glass filled and was pleasant and helpful and because she had to work on Thankgiving so I didn’t have to eat “tradioanl Thankinging dinner” that most other places were serving.

106

Okay, I wish we could separate out the tipping portion of this string from the point of my OP.

I hadn’t checked this for a few days. Good grief!

Today I posted in the “mundane pointless” section what Grandma actually said to me on Saturday: “I don’t think I want to live another year, with everything that’s going on in the government.”

My point isn’t that I want her money. I don’t even know how much money there is, although her house is on a valuable piece of land. The house isn’t worth much. But she has a daughter who will get her estate and her daughter has six children. I am married to one of them. It is not my money and I don’t expect to receive any of it personally. Yes, my husband will inherit some stuff someday. Maybe he’ll share it with me.

I just feel extremely sad for an old woman who is WORRIED about the world around her feels that she has some responsibility for it. I think we should take that WORRY away and let her live her life in peace. But i have no say in this situation other than sharing my opinion. My in-laws are busy moving to a new house and can’t worry about Grandma right now. We have visited the last two weekends. Maybe we should make it a habit to go by once a week to make sure she is okay.

The other day her phone was busy for hours so we had to contact a neighbor. The cat had knocked it off the hook. This cat, which she took over from a friend who had to go to a nursing home, has given her life definition. It is wonderful. We bring presents for the cat and this brings her pleasure.

Kittenblue is right…not Chinese. Extremely frugal English heritage.

107

None of which explains why giving to left field causes that you believed didn’t exist but which you could easily have found have some grounds, however flimsy, and your calling her judgement into question over a tipping level that you had not observed were evidence of her being incapable of conducting her own affairs.

You say she was always a republican.

Maybe she now thinks that she is too old to do anything of worth for future generations but she has a few extra dollars which she will use to support causes she believes might help her country.

I don’t know - I’m sure I wouldn’t back those causes - but I would look for stronger evidence. I knew a guy who candidly told me his mother-in-law came back from hospital and “now she’s running round the house chasing fucking ghosts!”

His concern, I could understand.

108

Going back to tipping…

I’m in the “pay your servers minimum wage and raise the price of food” camp. I don’t like going out, ordering a “cheap” five-dollar burger, and ending up putting down a ten to cover the meal (drink, tax, tip, and rounding up for convenience). Just charge me seven bucks for the burger and use that to pay your employees! Maybe it’s my poor money management skills, but when I was a student, going out to eat with friends always ended up with me spending more than I wanted to spend, even when I thought we were going to a fairly cheap restaurant.

The worst part about it all is when a friend tells me I should tip higher because “I’ve obviously never worked in food service.” Well, excuse me, but I’ve done plenty of jobs that are at least as stressful and miserable as being on waitstaff. I was a breakfast hostess at a hotel once, single-handedly keeping a roomful of “continental breakfast” service running for four hours every morning (the other hours were spent cleaning and doing inventory, etc). I dealt with bitchy, rude people who wanted more of this or that NOW! I fixed broken things and cleaned up after people who messed with our drink or cereal dispensers. I extinguished the flaming muffin that someone’s ignorant grandma put in the microwave for five minutes (and wouldn’t fess up to). I ended up with coffee and muffin crumbs covering my uniform every day. I never got a tip, just minimum wage–and I never complained. Minimum wage was no easier for me to earn there than it would be for the average waitress at the Denny’s in my neck of the woods.

What amazes me most is the expected tipping in situations other than food service. I had my hair highlighted professionally last year. I usually do it at home, but I’m getting married soon, so I decided to start getting it done by a pro. BIG mistake–it wasn’t that good; I do a comparable job myself. I paid over a hundred dollars for the job and was confronted by a “Tip:_____” on my credit card receipt. I asked the cashier how much tips at hair salons usually are. (I give my usual guy a five for a twenty-dollar haircut, but that’s because I’m getting a steep student discount on the haircut, and because he’s wonderful.) The cashier told me that fifteen percent is customary.

OK, now…I’m supposed to pay $125 for highlights and then another $20 to this hairstylist? She was pretty bitchy the whole night, she tossed my coat on a chair when I came in (it fell right onto the floor), she didn’t talk to me while doing the color, and she complained about my never having had my hair highlighted there before–and blamed the disappointing job on me (“I can’t do it how you want it unless I know what you want, and I’ve never done your hair before.”)

I guess what I’m saying is that in my experience (I’m basing this also off hairstylists I’ve had in the past), hairdressers want tips but aren’t willing to work for them like waitstaff are. 95% of the time (in my experience), waitstaff are at least trying to provide good service on top of the product, in a way that is apparent to me, the customer. Hairstylists have about a 20% track record of the same.

I tipped about 10% (the cashier was glaring at me) and still felt like I gave her too much.

109

I don’t really understand why I’m absolutely expected to tip in some situations, it’s suggested in others, and in some situations it would be downright odd. I don’t often go to hair salons - if I want to colour or cut my hair, I usually do it myself. But when I do, I often get the kind of hairdresser who pushes his or her idea on you, and seems to stick with their idea even after you refuse to, say, get layers or a blunt cut or whatever. Yet I’m expected to tip. I wouldn’t expect to get tipped in a restaurant if I pushed a certain menu item on someone, and ordered it for them anyway after they’d picked something else.

And then there’s those situations that seem to be gray areas. For example, if I go to a nightclub, I usually tip the bartender. Not a big tip, but you know, a keep the change type one. Why? All he or she did was pour me a drink - there’s not really a service aspect, as it’s usually too loud and too busy for conversation. Plus, I’m paying before I get the drink, so it’s not like I’m typing for a perfectly made cocktail or shooter. But everyone I know does it - I’d feel awkward standing there while the bartender went to make $1.15 change. And it’s suggested you tip cab drivers (which I don’t necessarily understand, either… I can’t tip my bus driver), but many cabbies refuse the tip I’m trying to give them, or tell me I’m tipping way too much (of course, this only makes me want to tip them more). I can’t imagine a waitress coming back to my table after I’ve paid and saying “No, no, this is waaaaay too much, take some back”. I’ve got friends that never tipped cabbies at all, and when they find out other people do they’re shocked because “No one told me and the cabbie never said anything when I gave him exact change! Not even a glare!”

But what about the guy at my produce market who digs through a pile of avocados to get me a ripe one? The girl at the clothing store (and remember, not all work on commission) who recommends a fabulous looking shirt or outfit I never would have thought of? It’d be socially awkward to pull either aside and slip them a fiver. Why? They’ve provided excellent customer service, far beyond what the basic requirements of their jobs are.

Where do our ideas of who to tip, and when, come from?

110

You should’ve told the cashier why you were only tipping 10%. Giving poor tips as a response to poor service doesn’t do much good if you don’t communicate why the tip is poor. The stylist and cashier probably just assumed you were a cheapskate. Stylist won’t spend much time reflecting on how she can get better tips as a result of one random cheapskate, you know?

111

Here’s a short article on CNN about tipping. It doesn’t go into who you should tip, but talks a bit about why we tip and where the practice may have come from.

It links to an article suggesting who you should tip, and how much, but not how we decided who gets tipped or not. This whole tipping sub-topic would make a good thread on its own, apparently. Tipping threads usually do get pretty good traffic.