A few years ago (shortly before my hubby landed his current job), we had a rough couple of years, financially. One of the jobs he applied for was as a pizza delivery driver. It really did average $10.00-$12.00/hr. Problem? They would only guarantee him 15 hours per week. You can’t support a family on $12.00/hr. for 15 hours a week. It’s good money for the kid who is in college and needs beer money, it’s good for a guy who has a ‘real’ job and is looking to bring in some side $$$. If you have real bills to pay, and real kids to support, even though the hourly rate looks good, the total is really nothing.
:dubious: Excluding tips? Well, fair enough, I suppose.
I suppose there are very rare occasions that I might appear to be under-tipping if I’m in some ridiculously expensive restaurant. If I come off as a mingy cheapskate, I guess I can deal with that.
On the other hand, on the much more common occasions where I’m eating at a lower priced restaurant, I won’t be tipping my server significantly less, just because he’s carrying less expensive food.
If your heart goes out to anyone, maybe it should be the waitstaff of cheap diners who work just as hard, and put up with the same abuse as those at an upscale restaurant, while making a fraction of the pay because of “tiresome social expectations”. If the way I tip is a “personal power trip”, at least, unlike the social norm, it’s not completely asinine.
I’m pretty sure I’d have to be living under a rock to not know what the expected tip rate is. And I really don’t see how stating I don’t follow that rate would imply I’m completely oblivious to what it is, or that I’m making some sort of “I don’t care what people think of me” statement.
Unless the guy’s name is Heisenburg 
But hey, at least you can get some good blue meth while you are there…
There are a lot of theories as to how to get people to spend more, to tip more, to visit the restaurant/shop more often, etc. The clerks or servers or whoever are supposed to call the customers by name, for instance, by reading it off the credit card or check. This works fine if your last name is Smith, but more than once I’ve had a clerk prepare to read my last name off my check, and if it’s the account with “Bodoni” as my last name, I can see him or her panicking. Another theory is that diners LIKE for a server to kneel down or sit down when taking their orders, supposedly it leads to better tips. And yet another theory is that people LIKE to have the servers sit and chat with them a bit, as it makes the place seem friendlier. Now my brother likes the Hooters waitresses to do this, but he doesn’t think that they’re doing it out of friendliness, but out of a desire to get tips, and he likes it because he likes to look at scantily clad pretty women.
I’d suggest telling the guy that you and your wife enjoy catching up for a few minutes, but that this is “relationship” time, it’s a time that you have both set aside in order to keep your relationship healthy. If this doesn’t work, then you’re going to have to get in touch with the owner, and explain that you’d like to dine at this location more often, but that the new manager’s style is intrusive. However, the problem is that this guy’s style is obviously pretty popular. You might ask the owner to consider having a few secret shoppers drop by and see what they think. Or you could suggest that the owner print up some comment cards, which would be either mailed in, or dropped into a locked box at the restaurant. The manager should not have a key to this box. When I was working at a dress shop, we had comment cards to be placed in a bowl. The manager used to make a habit of going through the cards and removing any with any criticism of her.
Sorry for the hijack, but are you saying that people find your name hard to say? I’ve always assumed it’s either ‘bod-own-ee’ or ‘bod-on-ee’. If that’s right, it’s only 50-50. You ought to see people trying to say my name. I’d say it’s about 100-1.
Very, very few people can pronounce Bodoni correctly on the first try. It’s long o, long o, long e. Bow (as in bow and arrow) or buh, doe (a deer, a female deer), knee (joint in the leg). I had several teachers who NEVER got it right, even if they had me for four years (gym teacher). My first name is spelled creatively, too, so when people see that double whammy, their brains freeze up. That’s why I go by Lynn, my middle name.
This person says it quite closely to how my family says it.
A couple of times a month, I end up at a mid-range restaurant by myself for lunch. Often, on those occasions, the waiter will sit down opposite me to take my order. It doesn’t bother me if he (it always seems to be guys who do this) asks first if it’s OK to sit down. It does bother me if he just assumes it’s OK. It also bothers me if the waiter sits down in the booth if I am with someone else (sometimes my sister and I go out to lunch at somewhere like Ruby Tuesday’s or TGIFriday’s).
However. . .I’ve been in sales. You have to ‘play the numbers’. If evidence shows that you get better tips by doing ‘X’, then you do ‘X’, even though it occasionally pisses someone off.
Why do people have to complicate things? If somebody is driving to my house to bring me hot fresh food when I don’t feel like going to get it or cook it, they’re going to get a tip from me for that service. Yes it’s their job, but it’s also a luxury that i have the option to make this happen with a simple phone call. If I don’t want to tip them, I can get my happy ass up and go get the food myself.
Same thing with restaurants. You don’t want to cook. You want to order whatever you want and you want somebody at your beck and call to take care of you. Ergo, you tip them for this service.
It seems really simple to me. And the people who make it all complicated…i.e. “this guy makes more money than me per hour!” should perhaps look into staying home or doing the same job themselves. That way they’ll either stop shafting people just trying to make a living, or they’ll get rich. Apparently.
And I have to add that anybody who doesn’t think their waiter/waitress deserves 20% should try that job for a week. Just give it a whirl. See how you deal with it. Trust me, it’s no picnic. And you EARN every goddamn penny.
This is legendary. I was working the night shift at a Denny’s years ago between semesters, and I got a busload of middle school kids on a church trip. The most generous kid handed me a nickel on the way out the door. I actually don’t blame the kids, because they’re kids, and they’re not used to navigating all that stuff. I blame the adults. When I take the middle school kids I work with to a competition and we all go out to lunch, we have a little lecture about tipping before we go in (unless we’re doing fast food). And then I keep a general eye on what they’re doing, and make up for those who don’t heed the instruction. Those adults could have done the same. They were just as bad, though, with the no money and the tracts.
An acquaintance of ours was discussing this with a group of church people around a bonfire, and I was vocal in my support of generous tipping. There were some holdouts, mostly of the extra-pious variety. He finally got tired of the whole argument and said, “Fine. But if you’re not going to tip, for the love of God, DON’T PRAY BEFORE YOU EAT.” He cracks me up.
Oh, God yes the church crowd. Ugh. I’m lucky in that
1)I only work Friday and Saturday nights now (the money shifts,)
and
2) We are a lunch and dinner only place, so even when I did work Sundays, it was never breakfast/brunch, so we got less of the churchies than a place that does breakfast.
But we still got our fair share. And why some of them feel religious pamplets are a good thing to leave, whether they tip well or not, I’ll never know. Has anyone actually read one of those and suddenly deicdedto stop sinning and get their ass to church?
But, in the interest of fairness, let’s not leave out all the other bad tippers (damit, I told myself if I was going to reply to this thread, I wouldn’t make it about tipping…oh well, I’ll include other reasons they suck as customers.)
Teengagers: Part of me can’t blame them for it, they don’t have a lot of money and aren’t “world wise” yet. But that doesn’t excuse the fact that most of them are assholes. Was I like that as a teen? Probably…karma at it’s finest.
Old People: Them I really can’t blame. They grew up in a different time. The fact that most of them even tip 12%-15% is surprising, really. I mean, when they were “in their prime,” tipping must have been, what, 5%-10%, at best?
Rich Jerks: They treat you like a servent, proudly wave their fancy Black American Express (I’ll admit, it’s cool you got one, and yeah, it’s made of metal, neato) and then leave 10%. I guess they didn’t get rich by “wasting” their money on peons like me.
A gaggle of middle-aged women: If I get a middle-aged couple, or a pair of couples, or a group that has at least two males, no problem. But seriously, when they are by themselves, they turn into a bunch of self-entitled cunts! It’s worse at lunch, for some reason, so yet another reason I’m glad I only do weekend dinners. They all order small meals (often not even a meal, maybe just a couple sides), with just ice water, and lemons, they all need their fucking lemons…on the side, no less, and have special requests coming out their asses. This one wants dressing on the side, that one doesn’t want tomato on her burger, that one wants to pretend she’s a cougar and flirt with me…ugh…
Oh, and they all need separate checks, but yet when I drop off the bill, they will all pay cash and not need change…NEWSFLASH: YOU DIDN’T NEED SEPARATE CHECKS!
Rednecks/Hicks: Oh, dear LORD, rednecks. We don’t get a ton, because are prices are a tad higher than most of them would like, but it’s still more than I’d like to see. Granted, they aren’t all bad. Some of my family are a little redneckish…and to an extent, so am I (I’m from a rural area, I hunt, I think trucks are cool, though I don’t own one,) so I know it’s possible to be a redneck and not be a cheapskate jerk, but most of them are. Did you ever see Waiting? That scene’s not too far off…and for some reason, 90% of them LOVE their Budweiser. Not Bud Light, which is more popular with everyone else, but Bud Heavy…they are the only ones I know who drink it. About a year ago we got rid of it on tap and replaced it with SIerra Neveda (it’s a corporate place and it was a corporate decision,) and oh man, was there bitching.
And now to make myself feel better, here are the best customers:
Upper middle class couple/double date with another upper-middle class couple, or 25-35 year olds of any economic backgrond, save the aforementioned redneck/hick (though if I do get the rare nice/decent tipping redneck or hick, they are more likely to be younger ones.)
They will order booze, and decent booze, at that. They will probably order an appetizer. Their meals will be decent (we just got a new filet and scallop combo and it’s selling like hotcakes to the upp-middle class…and it’s like $25, so score!) They are polite, and not needy. I know I can get a drink order, that they will be ready to order meals when I come back with those drinks, and odds are the only thing they will need (assuming stuff is cooked properly) is a drink refill or two. And always an 18-25% tip.
You would be shocked at the number of grocery clerks, etc., who call me Mrs. Nugg-ent. Hasn’t anybody ever heard of Ted anymore?
You’re from Seattle. He was from Detroit - far too far away for the correct pronunciation to travel.
There’s a fair selection here.
Although Mississippienne did not mention the ethnicity of the restaurant, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the tiramisu kind of gives it away.
I try to be extra-nice to waitpersons. They have a crappy job, and have to deal with crappy, snappy people. My tips start at 15%, and then are typically rounded up to the next even dollar. If the service is shoddy, I still leave a tip of 15%, because everyone is entitled to a bad day. If the service is exceptionally crappy, that person will get the same tip, but I will have a chat with the manager and let them know they have a potential problem brewing.
Let me be clear: I’m not referring to the slightly annoying, but ultimately tolerable practice of servers crouching down to your eye level or sitting in the booth across from/next to you for a minute or two to take my order. This guy would sit down with us, unbidden, and start talking about whatever-the-fuck with us, for minutes and minutes upon end, showing no intention of ever leaving our table on his own. You know, just like he’s a treasured member of our social circle.
Several people that I’ve talked to about this IRL seem to think that maybe it’s just a cultural thing; that it’s a common practice down in old Mexico. Maybe that’s true. All I know is, it became such an issue that we started to find ourselves manufacturing ruses in order to get Freddy away from our table in the quickest way possible, and that ultimately amounted to a stressful dining experience for us. And as the wife and I don’t actually enjoy being stressed out by the prospect of eating in a restaurant (we’re kind of odd that way), we decided that we’d cease our patronage of Cazadores (the restaurant) altogether.
(But we still miss the food. Damn it.)
3 cabbies, another tipped occupation, at my bar during a Bulls play off game (back in the 72-10 season). Stayed for the whole game, got a round or two on my comp tab, total for the three of them - $88. They left $90.
Justice was sweet when the next week I was getting a cab back from the loop, and it was one of them. I don’t think he was happy when I insisted on the change to the nickel, not even rounding up the loose change to the nearest dollar. One of the two times in my life I have refused to tip.
Do you think he knew it was you?
Also: what’s a comp tab?