commasense, people regularly leave waiters the bill + tip in cash in the billfold. It is a common practice. People do not normally give their bank extra left over money from their bank account.
Please answer this question, are you similarly put out by the blatant tip request on the bottom of your credit card receipt?
Cheesesteak, you can’t approach this logically. This is a social convention we’re talking about … there’s no real logic behind it.
A credit card receipt is not a sentient agent “asking” for a tip, as it is merely a piece of paper spit out by a machine. Said machine, having no free will, operates without motive (except that which is programmed in). The fact that generation of the tip line is programmed in at an ealier date gives its appearance on the CC receipt some situational distance from the immediate transaction. It doesn’t feel like a solicitation to a significant number of people.
Not necessarily logical, but there ya go.
Even in an . . . um . . . unfine dining restaurant, there’s often a food runner or, at the very least, another server who happens to have a couple of seconds free to deliver your food to you when your server doesn’t (which gets it to you more quickly and keeps it from either getting cold or charring under the warmer while your server is otherwise occupied).
No, because it doesn’t have the social pressure of a real person standing over you making an arguably rude request. Whether this is the intent of all, some, or no waiters, I’m quite sure some customers feel pressured to leave more than they would have otherwise for fear of being “rude” to the server.
I don’t see the tip line on a receipt as a request so much as a convenience that management has provided to cope with a nearly universal practice. Not having it there would no doubt create many problems. The customer is still free, obviously, to ignore it in favor of leaving cash on the table or stiffing the waiter.
I take your point that it presumes a tip will be left, but it just doesn’t have the same impact as the waiter asking “Keep the change?”
Feel free to disagree.
I guess I just don’t see the impact in the first place. I really consider it just a question asking if the customer took care of the tip at the same time as the bill or if they’re going to handle that separately. The credit card slip asks roughly the same thing, and you have to put a big fat $0 on that line if you want to skip the tip, so it seemed similar to me.
For those of you defending this practice: Would you be just as comfortable with the waitperson taking the check and payment from the customer, and then saying “Can I have my tip now?”
Because to me, that’s exactly what’s happening with the “want your change” line. And it’s incredibly rude.
It may be closer to
While it appears that this is exactly what some people think is happenning, it’s not at all clear that this exactly what’s happenning.
I suspect that the motivation is often closer to what Ms. Haniver proposed. More of a query as to what further attention the bill needs. I’ve seen servers stuff multiple books into their aprons without opening them because they had higher priorities at the moment.
Please note that I didn’t discuss the relative rudeness of the behavior. I’m only addressing the idea that the query is somehow a money grubbing gesture on the part of the server.
I, once again, disagree. They are asking you whether or not you need change or intended on leaving the whole dollar amount for them. They’re not demanding a tip, not demanding a certain dollar amount for a tip. If you’re truly weak enough to feel “pressured” into leaving the difference for them, that’s your problem. I have absolutely no problem telling a waitperson, “Yes I need the change back”, or “No, keep the change”.
As I said before, regionally, this is a standard line and it’s no more rude than “do you need a refill?” Egads! How presumptive to assume you want a refill of Diet Coke!
Sam
Definitely not. They’d get this tip instead “Don’t look directly into the sun.”
I think SimonX has said it more eloquently than I. If you were to ask a server what they intended by asking if change was needed back, I have no doubt that their intent is efficiency rather than greed. Intent isn’t an excuse for rude behavior, but it does distinguish this query from “Gimme my tip now!”
I prefer (as most people do) to let the waitperson find out *if * they got a tip and how much it is AFTER I’ve left the table.
IMHO, the server’s intention is irrelevant. Smoothly dealing with the customer trumps all here. It does no good to talk about the way things ought to be, or the way people ought to react. It’s better to deal with actualities rather than abstractions. People for whom asking about the change is an insulting practice are out there – and servers are ideally obliged to wait on them in a fully professional manner, from the greeting to the bill.
This is a situation where being unreasonable != being wrong. Yes, if sufficient context exists, thinking the waiter is pushing for a tip may (or may not) be unreasonable. However, the patron is still correct to take umbrage.
Disclaimer: I am talking about only this particular situation. I do not think every unreasonable customer is correct every time in every situation.
The gentleman who started the Hard Times is my old man’s college roommate. It’s good chili, and I can say I’m reasonably sure that’s not standard operating procedure there.
Eat, enjoy, be cool, man. Everyone else, you want good chili in the DC area… head to the Hard Times.
Is that so you can pull some “Gotcha, ya!” move on them, or what? Do you honestly give a fuck if they know whether or not they got a tip at all before you leave? or how much it might honestly be? Do you think they sit back in the galley with a calculator to find out how much change there is and how much their tip might be?
I honestly don’t care if they know if, or how much their tip is. I tend to be much less of a control freak than that. And I pay with a credit card 99.9% of the time…with that presumptuous little “tip” line at the bottom. When I do pay with cash, they ask if I need change back about 50% of the time. When asked, I leave them with a simple and polite “yes” or a simple and polite “no, keep the change”.
Why is it so difficult to be polite and not get inflamed over perceived slights?
Sam
Do you not see that by automatically assuming I’m leaving a tip, they’re essentially demanding a tip? (Full disclosure: I always tip, usually 20 percent of the total bill including tax, adjusted based on my perception of the level of service.)
Going by what you and Cheesesteak are saying, the proper response on my part to the question “Do you want/need your change?” would be “Why do you ask?” We then get into a discussion that is competely unrelated to the waitperson/customer relationship, which could have the effect of slowing the waitperson down even further, which kills the weak (in my opinion) rationale for asking the change question in the first place.
I’m truly enjoying this thread. I’ve learned that I’m “weak” if I perceive a waitperson’s behavior strikes me as rude. I’ve also learned that said waitperson behavior can include almost anything up to the throwing of ashtrays before it’s presumed to be rude.
Actually, for nearly everyone who perceived such a slight, politeness is the rule. We’re not talking about hostile parties on either side here. We’re talking about one of the many causes of the “silent stiff”.
Otherwise, your question is a great one. But there is no answer out there — servers simply must deal with people who are prone to perceived slights. Continually expecting customers to change their behavior is one of the surest ways to fail at waiting tables.
BULLY??!?!?
It’s a time saving device. I’ve NEVER felt bullied by any server because they asked “do you need change?”. We say “no” and get to leave and he or she gets to go on to other things. We say “yes” and he or she does our transaction first so we can leave and free up a table.
Goddamn, people are so easily offended.
Actually, but “assuming” that you’re going to leave a tip, I’d say that they’re being gracious and giving you that benefit of the doubt that you’re not a rude fucker who’s going to stiff them or penalize them based on stupid semantic control-freak game. I don’t understand why everyone’s so hung up on it being gauche for the server to even acknowledge that there might be a tip forthcoming…standard practice in this country is to tip, and this whole hoop-jumping, game-playing, don’t reference the fact that the server wants a tip nonsense is just stupid.
Sauron- I’ve rarely seen a mischaracterization of a post such as yours. Stop being an idiot, and read the posts for what they are, not what your dramatic license(yes, you are given to fits of DL quite often in the pit), interprets them to mean.
bordelund- I didn’t mean to infer that everyone responds rudely to the question. But obviously there are quite a few posters, and people in general, who do. Some who ask “Why?” to the question, or proceed to lecture them in front of other diners, or mistakenly perceive the question as a demand for a tip. :rolleyes:
A simple yes or no will suffice in place of the more dramatic and inflamed responses.
Sam
Fine, your objection has been noted.
Meanwhile, there are servers out there, right now, trying to make a living, who can’t afford to think like this.