Thanks for the information.
As i said earlier, i haven’t worked POS equipment in a long time (about 15 years), and i was quite surprised by the implication in some other people’s posts that this level of sophistication had not yet been reached.
I don’t get it. You can’t make up your mind whether splitting a check is easy or not. If the customers are doing it, it’s their fault it takes so long and they must be stupid, because it’s the easiest thing in the world. But hey oooo you better not make the waitstaff split them. Then it’s a legitimate pain in the ass or better yet a workflow problem.
SO FIX IT!
You’re in a fucked industry when customers have legitimate problems* with the product and the usual response is ‘that’s how we’ve always done it, you must just be stupid’.
*For the last time, yes, it is a legitimate problem that if one person in my table is a cheapskate, the rest of us have to ready ourselves for sparring over who pays for what. Especially when the whole point of your industry is doing all the work for people. If I wanted to do shit for myself then I’d eat at my house and not pay the 1000% premium on your food.
Yep… I’ve thought about hanging a sign around my neck saying… I TIP WELL!!!
I was a skycap when I was in undergrad… since I was low man on the totem pole they use to make me take care of the females with children of black and hispanic origin… yeah…pretty much doin that one for the team.
I show my servers plenty of love… hey… i don’t want something happening to my grub… common sense should dictate…
Meh, if splitting checks are that important to you, then go to the places that will split checks. If you’re finding even your giant wallet is not enough to make restaurants willing to split checks, then clearly they don’t need to cater to you that badly. The free market is your friend.
And I’ve never eaten anywhere where the cheapest thing on the menu is more than 20 bucks and I’ve never seen a server answer their phone or text. I had no idea TGI Fridays had such high standards for their staff.
I wish I had worked for one of those managers who put up with that kind of crap. If I had been playing with a cell phone or ignoring my customers I’d have been fired.
I’m not doubting it happens, but the reasoning behind restaurants being reluctant to split checks is that in theory it cuts down on time spent on the floor actually being attentive to customers. I’ve noticed a steady decline in customer service over the past 20 years, but when I was working in F&B there were standards. I also tend to boycott places where that sort of thing happens and I’m not shy about calling to complain.
Any server dumb enough to let a customer witness them screwing around in the front of the house deserves to suffer for it, imo.
I’m saying it’s simple for a table full of people who have no time crunch to do. It isn’t simple for a person who has several groups of people to take care of. When you have several groups of people to watch every second counts and anything that messes up your flow can throw off the whole night. One table is wondering why their drinks are empty and you’re standing there waiting for a table full of indecisive customers to hem and haw about their order after they just called you over because they were ‘ready.’ Or 3 tables are waiting for their checks but suddenly the problem table has decided they need theirs split ‘right now.’ You have to decide who you’re going to make happy and who you’re going to have less than happy because suddenly it’s impossible to make everyone happy.
If the table that wasn’t ready to order would just say ‘come back in a few minutes’ or the table that needed separate checks didn’t, or could divide it themselves the time crunch would be solved.
I don’t see what’s so difficult to understand.
I feel no need to fix it, because 1) I no longer work in the industry, and 2) I see no need to split checks.
I just tip well and feel sorry for the people who still have to deal with this bullshit.
The only times I’ve had waitstaff sitting at a table with customers has been when the customers are also the kind who stay after hours to help clean, which generally means “knowing each other from elsewhere”; the sitting down didn’t happen if there was so much as another customer in the place. What you describe is very bizarre to me.
I prefer places where the service is included; I’ve also been known to explain American tipping customs to other Spaniards, including “ok, so since we’re going to order shared portions, that means we should use a higher % to calculate the tips than if we were ordering one portion per person, otherwise the waitress’ look of hatred will be fully justified”. There’s a lot of differences between Spanish and American server behavior which come down to “they’re on tips” (Spanish servers are a lot more likely to share a table or pull tables together, for example).
Ugh, some of the posts I multi-quoted got dropped. Sorry for anything that isn’t linking back properly.
So what happens when they transpose two digists on the calculator?
All I’m hearing is “I’m too retarded or too lazy to take five seconds to explain to my server how I’d like my check split.”
Hey, here’s an idea! Sometimes, when I buy something at a store or online, it’s a present for someone else. I can’t be bothered to ask for a gift receipt or for the item to be packaged separately. So from now on, everything I buy must come with a separate receipt or invoice, and it must all be bagged or shipped separately. How does that sound?
Just because you’re a cheap dick doesn’t mean you get to dictate your own rules. The way food service works in this country is that you tip your server based on the price of the meal–generally 10% to 20%, depending on the service, what you ordered, and how stingy you are. These tips are factored into their income. If you don’t like it, (a) don’t patronize restaurants that have waitstaff, unless it’s one where they’re explicitly not tipped, or (b) move to a country where tipping for these services isn’t the standard.
If you get a meal at a restaurant with tipped staff and don’t leave a tip, unless it’s for reasons of egregious service, you’re essentially stealing from the server and from every other patron of that restaurant. The server literally could not afford to work that job if everybody else did what you did, so you’re getting the service by making *everyone else *pay for it.
Do I think this is an ideal system? Hell no. I think it’s retarded. IMO we’d be better off if we just bumped up prices, eliminated tips, and had servers paid a straight hourly wage. But as long as this is how the system works, this is what you have to do unless you’re a nasty little thief.
Too fucking bad. It’s part of their job. It’s the customer’s responsibility to state as they order (or before) that they will require split checks. At that point, it’s the server’s job to say “I’m sorry, we can’t do that” (at which point the customer may choose to leave) or to accommodate the customer.
Why the hell are you still eating out with these people?
I think most of this was a very good post, except for this part. Perhaps it’s because I work in consulting, but my experiences are very different from yours. I can’t think of a work-related meal, either of my own or of anyone else whom I work with, where one person wasn’t picking up the whole check. So while your experience is that large corporate clients will require separate checks, mine is that they’ll all be on the same check.
Anytime I’ve seen someone want to split a check, it’s because money is potentially an issue. And often, the people who are *most *insistent about splitting a check are the ones who tip the least.
Yes, it’s a small additional bit of work for the server. But you know what? It’s part of what they’re getting paid to do. Their job is to provide service, and part of that service is to supply the bill in the way that the customer requests, assuming that the request is feasible and presented in a timely fashion (i.e., when ordering instead of when the check is delivered).
You know what else makes life harder for servers? Having to actually go to all the tables to take the orders! Why, if only they could just sit at the bar, and then each table could *come up *and *give *them their orders when they were ready! That would make things *much *more efficient! :rolleyes:
All I’m saying is, IME people who have the attitude of ‘I don’t give a shit what makes a server’s job more difficult’ are usually the ones who tip for shit. It seems to go together.
There’s a certain air of entitlement some people have when they go out that makes them think it’s their right to remind the person waiting their table that they’re somehow beneath them because it’s their job to wait tables, and whenever there’s a vent thread where people in the industry talk about what bugs them those people get all up in arms about how waiters and waitresses should just suck it up.
People in other industries don’t catch as much flack for venting because they’re in higher status jobs? Horseshit. It’s just another excuse for people who think they’re better than other people to be nasty.
I *do give a shit about what makes life harder for waitstaff. If I give them extra requests or if something ends up being difficult about my table or my order, I’ll tip them even better than I usually do. I’m also unfailingly polite and courteous. However, I also expect service staff to DO THEIR FUCKING JOBS, which is to provide me with service. And if you can’t handle something as simple as figuring out a way to split a check when I inform you I’d like it split at the time that I order, because it will cost you an extra 30 fucking seconds, then you need to find a new job. (This, by the way, is the general “you.”)
FYI, there’s no need to include all of a post if you’re only responding to a couple of sentences from it. It’s perfectly acceptable to delete everything but the relevant bits. (Deleting off either end of it doesn’t require anything special; deleting something that appears in the middle of what you’re quoting should get an […] or [snip].)
*Which, by the way, is around a 20% baseline–my usual method for calculating a tip is to divide by ten and multiply by two. Your service has to be pretty fucking bad for me to even drop as low as 10-15%, and IIRC only *once *have I ever not left a tip at all, and I left an explanation as to why.
Just so you know, this is my baseline tip as well. I didn’t want you to get the impression that I routinely stiff a good (or even halfway decent) server.
No, what I was meaning with my declaration of “hogwash” to your OP was that I had the impression that you expected customers to leave a tip no matter what, even if they had abysmal service. I see now that I misinterpreted what you were saying, and that we’re pretty much on the same page on this matter.
Is that better? 
you may be that rare customer who tips well and is the exception. If you were to poll random F&B people though, you would find the bigger the hassle from a customer, the smaller the tip as a rule.
The general attitude of people who who say ‘it’s their fucking job’ is that it’s perfectly OK to be shitty to waitstaff because they can’t do shit about it and the customer has the power to withhold the tip for any reason they want. And they usually do because that’s what they planned to do along, it’s a power trip. They get off on treating someone like shit who has no way to fight back.
Imagine if you took that attitude with any other profession.
Take your car to a mechanic and refuse to tell them what the problem is. ‘You figure it out, it’s your fucking job.’ But nobody is going to do that because in the long run it costs them more.
You don’t go to an attorney and withhold information and make their job more difficult, because, again, in the long run, it hurts you.
You certainly wouldn’t neglect to tell your babysitter about your child’s food allergies and just hope they figured them out, since after all, it’s their fucking job to take care of them, would you?
But some people feel perfectly justified in making servers’ jobs more difficult just because they can. Waiters and waitresses are the only ones who have no recourse when people are chickenshits, they just have to suck it up and hope their decent customers make up the difference.
I had a lot of fun working in F&B, but I certainly saw the uglier side of human nature on many nights.
In my experience, whenever there is a “gratuities included” or “no separate checks” or “no substitutions” or something it almost always means that, in that establishment, the servers were getting fucked.
You might be the best diner around and these things inconvenience you, but you don’t work there. I can almost guarantee if there is “no separate checks” that’s the reason. The owner might say “it’s too hard” but what he really means is his staff were getting regularly fucked over and his best staff were quitting and finding better work elsewhere.
I’ve never seen “no substitutions” where it has anything to do with servers getting screwed, as opposed to the kitchen not wanting to do it. And if any of those things are on the menu, I got no problem with it.
No gratuities tends to cost the server if I am eating, because 99% of the time I would tip more than that amount.
No separate checks doesn’t affect me because I don’t want them, but I do think it behooves a restaurant to do them if the customer asks in advance.
No substitutions I can live with, but it makes me very wary of what is going on in the kitchen and whether they are simply reheating prepared stuff.
A better analogy: you take your car to a mechanic for a new set of tires and an oil change and tell him you’d like to pay for them separately. Does he:
[ol]
[li]Say “sure,” and either create two invoices or a single invoice with separate totals, or[/li]
[li]Dig in his heels, insist there is NO WAY he accommodate you… it just isn’t worth his time… it cannot be done with a simple calculator and pen/paper… it would take seconds, perhaps minutes to accomplish… what is he, a miracle worker???[/li][/ol]
The answer I received would significantly influence my decision to use, return to, or recommend our hypothetical mechanic to others in the future.
Thing is, on these boards people will always say that if the particular problem isn’t the waiter’s fault, they won’t dock the tip. In reality, the server is the restaurant’s representative and they’ll get docked because the customer doesn’t like the carpet, the font on the menu, the music playing, or anything else that displeases them. If there is a “no substitutions” policy it might be because the servers screw it up, could be the kitchen screws it up and the server pays, or it could be there’s a regular gaggle of old ladies who like to play “substitute every single thing in the dish.” Who knows? Owners generally don’t institute inconveniencing policies until they pretty much have to.
Your analogy is really flawed. It’s not like anyone here is getting approached by a waiter who asks for your order and they reply “it’s your fucking job to figure it out! Now go to the kitchen and get me some food!”
Seriously, every single one of your examples involved the withholding of informaiton. How is a request to split a check the same? Where is information being withheld?
My household budget involves allocating certain money towards distinct categories. In order to keep track of it when going shopping, we’ll often separate out groceries from household. We’ll then tell the checkout person that we’re paying cash for these products and we’re paying by credit card for these products. Not once has the person sighed, rolled her eyes and said “but that’s going to take me an extra thirty seconds to do!” It just gets done.
And I’m not even tipping her for the effort!
Last night I discussed, at length, this thread’s current thrust with my buddy who was a server for years. First off, he said that the whole separate-checks-are-monumentally-complicated-and-time-consuming thing is a joke. He said that back when he was a server at T.G.I. Friday’s, for instance, he had no trouble whatsoever utilizing the POS system to accommodate requests for separate checks, even for large parties. And this was over ten years ago. And he said it was similarly easy to do at every other establishment he’s ever worked at in the capacity as a waiter. He said that it should never be a problem, provided the guests let their server know up front that they desire separate checks.
Now, as to the issue of a mandatory gratuity for large groups, he says that’s pretty much here to stay, and is a necessity for one reason (and this is how he put it): black people. He said, again, that black people were the absolute shittiest tippers he ever had to deal with. He said that it was routine for them to tip $0.07 on a $300 bill. And this was, of course, after having run the server ragged during their entire stay at the restaurant.
Yeah, my problem is with people who don’t factor the tip into what they can afford, assuming good or at least adequate service.
And yet, none of that is relevant to WHAT WE’RE DISCUSSING HERE, you stupid bint, which is **SPLITTING CHECKS **when the request is made at a reasonable time (i.e., before or during ordering). Which, unless the restaurant has a policy against it, IS PART OF THE WAITPERSON’S JOB, I.E., PROVIDING FUCKING SERVICE.
**SERIOUS BUSINESS **caps and bold because apparently you can’t read what I type like a normal person.
Oh, well *everybody *knows that. Funny story, actually–it’s how Black people get their skin color. It isn’t really melanin. They actually suck all the pigment out of dollar bills. But they can’t control it, so it happens at really random times, so suddenly they’re left with a wallet that’s half-full of worthless pieces of paper. It’s quite embarassing, really.
:rolleyes:
I usually go to tiny neighbourhood places, somewhere between 10 and 18 tables, some don’t even have POS systems (bills are on carbon paper or on these tiny yellow pads, and in a handwritten code for each item), some use old relics of cash registers with buttons for each menu item, so I know not every restaurant has a POS which makes it easy to split a bill - but as I said before, even if it is not easy, a server should always accommodate the request.
That being said, my favorite pub though has a wonderful POS, and they can easily split bills, My hubby and I are always on our own tab at our table, and when quite a few friends are meeting up or you are meeting Cheapy McPennyPincher for a pint - you need your own tab! All they do is drag items on the touch screen when they split a tab. I sure wish that POS existed 15 years ago when I waited tables.