Put mr down in the splitting the check should not be a big deal column. Most of the places I go with a group the server will ask up front to not be caught off guard later. I guess they know how to do their job.
If I see a server is especially busy and kinda stressed I’ll gladly figure it out rather than ask that server to do more work, but 99% of the time it’s no problem and suggesting it is seems silly.
I was in an airport a few days ago and I saw a young lady at the Dunkin Donouts counter talking on her cell while she was waiting on customers. Holding the phone up to her ear with her shoulder as she rang customers up. I wasn’t even buying anything and I wanted to call and complain. That sucks.
Whenever I see someone trying to conduct an in-person business transaction while having an inane conversation with someone on the phone, I cringe. If I am involved in the transaction and can get away with it*, I tell the person to either end their conversation or will just stare at them right in the eye until they hang up their phone.
*I have had a reasonable number of service-oriented jobs where it was verboten to actually ask someone not to be a complete asshole for fear that they would stop shopping there. After all, that monthly purchase of toilet paper on sale with a coupon that reduced the savings to 1/8 of the actual price was SO important to the company. :rolleyes:
I could make a WAG here - have you noticed that MANY cash registers have to spell out the change when someone pays a bill with cash? In the Dark Ages, I was taught to count back
the change into the customer’s hand - the register didn’t do it for me. But today, if you have a bill for, say, $4.97 and give the staffer, say, a five and two pennies, they are totally baffled.
“Oh no, you don’t need to give me pennies - it’s less than five dollars.”
Let us take this to the restaurant register. Say you’re the manage,r and you have had one too many waitstaff go into a meltdown because they hadn’t the time / mathematical know-how / interest in splitting the checks … what would you do? Probably it’s just easier to tell the customers it’s not store policy to separate checks, point finale, amen.
Being one of the original Luddites, I don’t know about the feasibility of newer, more modern till software - but seeing as how the vast majority of people nowadays are at home with the computer age, new software for waitstaff seems the best bet. Why is this not being done? Is it the cost, the irritation factor - what?
I do this kind of overchange almost compulsively to minimize the number of coins I have to cart around–amusingly enough, it was a habit I picked up *because *I worked on registers in high school and college. Whenever someone’s confused, I just smile politely and tell them to ring it up and see what happens, if I don’t outright explain that it will get me a larger denomination of change back.
It’s also a pretty small percentage of cashiers who are confused by this, IME.
You’d think it would, and most of the Christians I’ve known who were truly making an effort to live a Christ-like life and letting other people be were pretty damn pleasant customers and at least reasonable tippers. But you know as well as anyone else that there are other people who call themselves Christians who are far more concerned with everyone knowing they go to church and read the Bible than with actually following any of its teachings about love, charity, and kindness to one’s fellow man. And those people are, ime, almost to a person shitty, asshole customers and crappy tippers.
Our “trick” when dining with my parents is for me to leave my sunglasses at the table until the 'rents are nearly out the door, and whichever one of us has the cash will “go back for them” and pad the tip.
I just always treat these days when I eat out with my grandmother, who’s a terrible tipper. (Or, back when I was relatively broke, I’d at least insist on picking up the tip.)
unrealted but funny story. we had a husband and wife team come in and clean the floors at the music store as a working audition for future work. At first the floors looked good but after they dried completely you could see how much they had missed. The manager called them and told them we wouldn’t need their services. He wasn’t very diplomatic.
They came in mad and insisted on speaking to the owner who didn’t want to talk to them so I told them the decision was made and the owner agreed that we didn’t want their services. No diuscussion needed. As they left the woman started ranting saying that we would pay because we shouldn’t mess with the children of the Lord.
My coworker shouted after them “Stop doing crappy work in God’s name” It was a beautiful moment.
I’m currently on a business trip with two coworkers. Due to the annoying way our finance dept works we can’t just take turns splitting the cheque so what we’ve been doing is just deciding what the total with tip should be, dividing by 3 and asking the waitress to put that amount on each credit card (definitely credit as due to the annoying finance dept will likely be 6 weeks before we see a dime of reimbursement)
Is this easier or harder than just giving us separate cheques?
Any halfway decent POS system should have a mechanism for dealing with multiple sources of payment for one bill, especially if they sell gift cards which nearly every restaurant does these days. I have no idea if it’s easier than splitting a check, but it should be pretty darn simple.
Since this thread seems as good a place as any for it, let me ask the waiters/waitresses something that’s been niggling at me for ages.
Whenever the waiter/tress comes at the end of a dish to pick up the plates, I feel very awkward just standing there like an idiot and watching them do the “dirty work” for me. Thus, I feel compelled by politeness to do as I do when I eat at some friend’s place or my parents : pick up my plate and hand it to them, pass my neighbour’s plate etc…
I’ve sometimes gotten comments from my co-diners : that it’s their job and I shouldn’t bother, that it’s odd of me, all the way to “it’s actually insulting to them because a waiter’s job is be to be as invisible as possible”.
So, what’s the straight dope from the waiter/tress corner ? Would you find it weird ? Helpful ? Thinking I’m helpful but really slowing you down ? Insulting ? Considerate ? Wouldn’t give two shits either way ?
If you stacked them properly, then I would be very grateful indeed (or rather would have been). If you stack them haphazardly in some awkward attempt at politeness, then I am irked. Both cases happen often enough for it not to be strange. Unfortunately, most people suck at stacking.
Passing plates is perfectly acceptable. Normally it’s no big deal either way, but for hard-to-reach plates it’s very appreciated.
When I worked at the super-fancy restaurant though, passing plates would probably seem strange. When putting on the ritz, the ‘invisible waiter’ thing definitely comes into effect (affect?).
Yeah, although I’ve never waited tables, I’d say the interaction between server and customer varies depending on how upscale the restaurant is.
Fast food: You get your own damn food, you clean your own damn table.
Casual dining: The relationship is more casual, and while the server will of course bring food and drinks, it ain’t like they’re going to be able to cater to your every whim. Your ranch dressing is not that fucking important. Passing plates is fine and helpful.
Fine dining: Your ranch dressing is that fucking important, monsieur, and I would take it as a grave offense if you should so much as touch a dirty plate.
ETA: Oh, and since you brought it up, it’s effect. Nine times out of ten affect is a verb and effect is a noun (or adjective, like effective).
Insulting? Ha, ha, ha! Nah, I can’t imagine most waiters getting insulted over much of anything you could do. In a really high-end snooty restaurant they will of course mentally laugh at and mock your boorish lack of breeding. Servers usually aren’t descended from royalty themselves remember. It’s an act they put on in the snooty places. It’s expected.
Why is it so hard for servers to remember that I asked for water? I always ask for a soft beverage or alcoholic drink with my meal, so Im not some sort of freeloader, but I have to say 33% of the time I have to remind the server that I asked for water as well.
