No, you raised the issue about getting the wrong tea. The extra tea on the bill is a separate issue. As others have said, it might have easily been a mistake. Docking the tip was passive aggressive. If you had addressed the bill with the waitress and she refused to remove the extra tea or was snotty about it, then adjusting the tip would be appropriate.
I have no problem with docking a tip for bad service, and by my lights, this waitress failed on three occasions. First, she failed to understand the beverages sold by her employer, as iced tea and sweet tea are two distinct and separate things. Second, presumed, based upon that failed comprehension, what Little Nemo wanted rather than clarifying. Third, she wrote up an improper bill, knowing full well that she was charging a customer for an item that they did not order and had returned, unwanted.
Yes, server minimum wage is ridiculously low and the job of a server is difficult. But knowing your menu and not substituting your own judgment ahead of customer requests are integral parts of the job.
Had it been me, not only would I have had the unwanted tea removed from the bill, I would’ve docked the tip as well. (Not the full cost of the tea, since I wouldn’t have paid for it, but by a buck or so.)
Actually that point is not clear to me.
See, after receiving the sweet tea he asks about the availability of something else. I can understand how that could come across, or at least be innocently recorded, as placing a new order.
Nowhere, it seems, does he simply tell her straight up “I did not order sweet tea.”
I didn’t see it as passive aggressive. To me passive aggressive would be if I had done something like ordering a second unsweetened iced tea and then leaving the first sweetened tea undrank on my table without saying anything on the assumption the waitress would figure out that she had made a mistake.
But I explicitly told her that I wanted an unsweetened tea as a replacement for my sweetened tea. So she understood the situation. And knowing this, she charged me for two teas.
So there wasn’t anything I could have added at this point. All I could have done was repeat what I had already said and argued about it.
I didn’t see any benefit from having an argument that I didn’t need to have and one which was not going to really change anything. I paid the same amount of money I would have paid if she hadn’t charged me for the second tea.
I don’t remember my exact words but I did make it clear that what I had wanted was unsweetened tea.
The way I see it it would be like if I had ordered mashed potatoes and they were served to me with ketchup on them. And if I told the waitress I hadn’t ordered ketchup on my mashed potatoes and she answered, “well, you didn’t specifically tell us not to put ketchup on them”.
Even if you were in a restaurant where “sweet tea” is the default (in the south, and in some southern-style BBQ joints up north, or at least around Portland), if you ordered iced tea, and the waitress just assumed you want it sweetened, I’d expect her to leave the first drink off the bill.
If you’d ordered sweet (or sweetened for us Northerners) tea, then after tasting it decided you’d prefer unsweetened, maybe she’d have been justified in billing you for both. But in your case, you were clearly right to dock her the cost of the tea.
I agree. If you didn’t ask to have the tea removed from the ticket, how do you know they wouldn’t have?
So you deduct the cost of the tea from the tip? You mention the rest of the meal was fine, so I’m assuming the service was as well. The proper thing to do here (if you’re not going to ask to have the tea removed from your ticket) would have been to tip based on your total minus the cost of the tea.
It used to chap my ass when I waited tables in college and someone would come in with BOGO coupon or a gift card, and they’d leave their tip based on the ticket after the deduction. Two $20 meals and you have a BOGO coupon? Great. My tip just went from ~$8 to $4.
Indeed, in many restaurants in the South you wouldn’t be charged for the item you didn’t want even if the mistake was unambiguously yours. Also the refills are typically included, so two teas to one customer would appear as one tea on the bill anyway. That is not often the case elsewhere IME.
You faced two issues that day, which while related, were still separate. You only addressed one (that you made her aware of directly, anyway).
The first issue was the tea, which you both worked to resolve. The second issue, she never got the chance to fix. In my experience, its not uncommon to have items remain on the bill, when orders are incorrect, but the oversight has always been corrected. I can’t say it’s ever been a public argument, either.
IMO, docking the tip was perfectly appropriate - if the waitress intentionally double-billed, then she’s eating the cost of that decision. If the waitress mistakenly double-billed, then she’s eating the cost of her mistake. Whether the waitress rang up the order or not, it was her responsibility to make the “tea replacement” situation clear to whomever rang it up.
We tip for good service, not as a default - if something like this happens, the tip should account for it, because it’s bad service, whether by design or by negligence.
As for myself, I would probably have tactfully raised the issue when paying the bill - not because of any concern about the tip I’d give the waitress, but just because I’m like that. But that’s me, and I can totally understand why many folks wouldn’t want to bother.
Now that’s a different issue entirely, and I’m fully with you - tipping based on a coupon or gift card discount is a major dick move. If I just got an awesome $40 meal for two with great service, but only paid $20, I’m certainly not going to tip a measly $4.
We probably should have it as a banner at all the borders - iced tea in Canada is highly likely to not be what US Americans expect it to be. I learned this from working with some people from Texas - they (like you, Balthisar) seemed to be personally affronted that we don’t do iced tea/sweetened tea the same way as places in the US. Personally, I make no apologies for it. I like crappy fountain iced tea. 
I think your waitress was in the wrong, Little Nemo. I had a similar situation a year or so ago; the menu had plain pan bread on it, and also pan bread with balsamic vinegar and oil as an appetizer. We ordered (what we thought) was the bread and oil and vinegar as an appetizer. We got a dry hunk of bread. I was a little amazed at the waitress for not thinking that maybe we would like the appetizer version of bread, not just a hunk of bread, and maybe asking us if all we wanted was just the dry chunk of bread to gnaw on while we waited for our dinners (we hadn’t realized that there were two version of bread on the menu - we thought we had ordered the right thing). If there are two things on a menu that are similar, I think it is up to the wait staff to know that and clarify with their customers.
We have entirely too little information about the restaurant and the product, but I can weigh in here. I opened a tea bar in my bookstore. If you come in and order iced tea, you have 80 different teas to choose from, and I brew it fresh in front of you. My costs obviously depend on what you order, but the tea leaves themselves anywhere from 0.13 to about 1.00 for a 20-ounce cup. The cup (20-ounce compostable), lid, and straw run about .035 combined. I’ve had people put in 0.25 or more in stevia, or double that in honey (we serve locally-made clover-alfalfa honey). Incremental out-of-pocket expenses start at .48 for the cheapest stuff in the store, unsweetened, and can run as high as 1.85.
And that’s not even considering chai (which requires milk), boba (which requires milk, syrup, and tapioca pearls), or any of the other specialty teas.
I also just spent $900.00 on a used ice machine and $200 on a water temperature control unit, so I’ll have to amortize that in somewhere.
Bottom line, Joey is right. Tea ain’t free.
Yes, I realize that the OP may have been getting some powdered crap instead of brewed tea, but even still, Joey’s point is valid.
I didn’t think I should have to point out that I shouldn’t be charged for something I didn’t order and didn’t consume. The waitress was aware of both of these things, so what would I have said to her that she didn’t already know?
I agree that I shouldn’t short-tip a waitress for something that was beyond her control. If the food had just been bad, I wouldn’t take it out of her tip. But this was an issue concerning how the order was taken and that, to me, means she can be held accountable.
If I’d wanted to be a dick about it, I suppose I could have argued the point, had them take the cost of the second tea of my bill - and then left a small tip because of the poor service that led to me having to get my tea replaced and having the argument.
People from the southern part of the US expect sweetened tea when they order iced tea. People from the rest of the US expect unsweetened tea. I have no idea what y’all are serving in Canada.
I would have asked them if they burned a steak I’d ordered as medium rare, would I have to pay for both of them. If they said “yes,” I would have thanked them for giving me a small learning experience to know never to come back there again.
I think the OP should’ve been a bit more assertive. Just say: “Excuse me? Why am I charged for 2 teas?”. Then remind the waitress what happened. I am pretty certain that they’ll just take the extra tea off the tab. Not confrontational at all. Just normal operations between two people. So the waitress made a mistake in overbilling and the OP erred in not calling it out to her. Neither is fault-free.
An average glass of brewed iced tea in a diner costs between 7 and 10 cents, and that’s the high end, with refills. I’ve sold a metric ass-ton of tea in my life, and the math isn’t too difficult.
A gallon of Lipton tea, which is what we’re talking about here, costs about 14 cents.
You should have said “Excuse me, but you accidentally charged me for the tea I didn’t order.” That’s it, mistakes happen in life and this is a completely understandable one. It’s a simple error. If it turns out that it is restaurant policy to charge in this situation you have a beef with management, but I’m finding it hard to believe that this wasn’t a simple mistake.
The thing is, IMO, you were a dick about it. Not giving the waitress a chance to fix a simple error is impolite. You wouldn’t have gotten an argument, you would have received an apology. Your actions were unjustified and IMO mean-spirited.
She made a simple mistake; you were wrong.
The thing was I didn’t order two teas and send one back. She didn’t place the second tea on my bill until I asked for a replacement for the sweetened tea. So she was fully aware she was charging me for a replacement. She didn’t “accidentally” charge me for two teas.