that was dessert.
Originally posted by krisolov
. Boss paid with a $100 bill, the change from which boss put in her bag, forgetting to leave the tip.
Come ON!! You’ve NEVER been out to lunch with someone (on a short time budget) and gotten to talking business and chatting about an interesting subject as you were taking care of the bill etc,?? And where you just distractedly placed the tip on the table (or didn’t) paying little attention to it because you were busily engrossed in, not only the conversation with 4 other workers, but the need to get back to work on time"??
You’ve never EVER over, or underpaid, or made an adding error that might potentially result in a reduced or not tip at a restaurant while under these conditions?
I can understand you being surprised that the people in the OP had forgotten, but your incredulous “Oh, that’s BS” stance, as if the OP has been purposely lying about it is really kind of insulting.
It IS very possible to forget, it’s happened to me twice. Under very similar circumstances to the OPs and it was an honest, “several people at the table a couple of separate bills” type mistake.
My family went out to dinner at a popular mexican restaurant here in Anchorage (La Mex about 15-20 years ago, in case the waitress is “listening” we were MORTIFIED and have overtipped ever since!!!). We had an awesome time, and we all had before and after dinner margueritas (and we rarely ever drink). We did a very similar accounting of the separate checks and paid the bill, we didn’t realize that we’d forgotten the tip until we were halfway home.
We went back later that week and tried to find the waitress who’d waited on us, we didn’t recognize anyone, but we told the manager the date and left the appropriate tip, trusting he’d find her with our information of which night, etc.
The second time, a friend and I had gone out to a Village Inn (kindof an upscale Denny’s), for a late night breakfast, as I was writing the check for the meal, we continued chatting and giggling. I ended up writing the check alright, but I left it in my checkbook, NOT on the table.
I found it about a week later when I went to balance my account. I took it over to the restaurant right away, along with the appropriate tip.
Luckily this restaurant, unlike the La Mex at the time, had computerized tickets which allowed them to know exactly which server to give the tip to.
The funniest thing about this one was that the busboy HAD come out to the car (chasing us down) to ask if we’d paid the bill, and we airily said “oh yes, I left the check on the table”!!).
So yes, people CAN honestly be forgetful and yes, sometimes that IS all it is, not some evil plot to bilk waitresses.
Ignore this if it’s been answered, but was the waitress in question a foreign national by any chance and did she just not have the proper words at hand to explain that you forgot to leave a tip… or…was she being polite in saying there was a “problem with the bill”, when she could have stated the obvious and told your group they had forgotten to leave the tip?
I’s a stretch, I know, and it doesn’t excuse what happened, but people react all kinds of ways in “heat of the moment” situations, and don’t always consider how it looks or sounds.
Thanks
Q
** No. I’ve had friends who were servers, and never have I forgotten that. again, if you’re paying the bill in cash and pocketing all of the change, just when did you ‘oops’ forget to drop some on the table?
** Sheesh. Did you not notice where I specifically stated that I didn’t think the OP was lying? I dohave a very difficult time believing that the OP’s boss didn’t do it well, if not deliberately, certainly didn’t make it a point to remember the tip. It wasn’t the case that she didn’t have the change - she did, from the other people’s cash.
** Do I think it’s impossible for folks to make a mistake? of course not. However, what I find telling is their attitude once the mistake is pointed out. Are they contrite “oh shit we forgot to tip the server”? no, they’re straight out pissed that she had the audacity to confront them in public about it.
Another way to avoid a server getting stiffed whilst not angering the boss is to make up some sort of excuse to run back to the resteraurant or to linger after the rest of the group has left, such as going to the restroom. That way, you can sneak some extra cash onto the table with no one else noticing.
I’ve done that on a number of occasions.
Do you just read a few key words of someone’s post and then conveniently ignore the rest?
Because I VERY thoroughly described how that could happen. (remember, I was a server too at one point and even I have forgotten)
But here goes again.
You’re at a dinner with some friends and family, you’re having a great time, maybe a drink or two (and if you’d read my post, you’d have SEEN how those in my family rarely had anything to drink, but we’d all had a couple of margueritas).
Anyway, the dinner is done and everyone is putthing on their coats, and divvying up checks, they’re talking to EACH OTHER and very involved in all the after dinner sillyness and chat, you’re holding the money, but everyone is saying “hurry up, we’re going to be late for the movie etc” so you ABSENTMNDEDLY slip the money in your pocket, grab your purse and run out the door to catch up.
In our case later in the car my sis (who had done that) reached into her coat and said “OH NO!!, did you guys leave any tip?? Cuz I’ve got my part right here!” Us: “no, we thought dad did” and so on.
You’re still doing it right HERE! On the one hand you’re saying “hey, I admitted that” and then you turn around and snidely say “but, I STILL don’t quite believe she did it accidentally”. Unless you are willing to accept that she made an honest and silly mistake at FACE value, without all the snide little backhanded mistrust, then you don’t REALLY believe her and you’re still casting aspersions on her character.
The gracious thing to do, especially after the OP explained EXACTLY how his boss absentmindedly slipped the money in her purse, is to acknowledge that these people weren’t trying to be evil waitress bilkers.
[quote** Do I think it’s impossible for folks to make a mistake? of course not. However, what I find telling is their attitude once the mistake is pointed out. Are they contrite “oh shit we forgot to tip the server”? no, they’re straight out pissed that she had the audacity to confront them in public about it. **[/QUOTE]
I don’t think you really read the OP, the original POSTER was aggravated about it after the fact, but during the actual EVENT, the folks in the lunch party seemed, at least from the description in the OP, more surprised and confused than angry at her.
I didn’t see, in the OP where they, as you say got “straight out pissed at her” in public.
I would have been confused and likely speechless in their shoes too, PARTICULARLY since the waitress was:
A.) doing something practically unheard of for a professional waitress
B.) was either being dishonest or at least confusing in her attempts to TELL them she’d not gotten her top
C.) chased them ALL the way into the station!
Pretty bizarre for them all around.
If she’d approached them as others have suggested, with a “was everything to your satisfaction, did I do something incorrect” it would have likely been apparent to them right away. And THEN they would have apologized etc.
As it was, a repeated and frustrated “you didn’t pay the whole bill” had them confused and at a loss for words, even after they figured out what the hell she was going on about.
I can very much put myself in their shoes, if some waitress chased me all the way into a train station after my meal shouting “you didn’t pay the whole bill” I’d probably be too surprised and confused to rally with “oh, you’re so right, sorry we forgot the tip” also.
Quasi-
yes, she appeared to be a foreign national. It is possible she was approaching the matter in a roundabout manner and didn’t want to just come out and say"you fools forgot to leave a tip." That approach, if it was in fact her approach, led to an odd few minutes of us trying to guess just what was wrong. I’d rather she just came out and said it.
Wring-
hard as it may be for you to believe, this was an honest mistake. We were called on it and we settled up fair and square. The manner in which the waitress did this however, was wrong. She a)left her place of employment, b)made a public scene for something that, while customary, is not legally required to be paid, and c)while forthright enough to make said scene, was not bold enough to just come out and say we hadn’t left a tip.
I don’t think for a minute that she cared what effect this would have on our likelihood of returning to the restaurant. I don’t know if she returned triumphantly waving her money and was congratulated by her manager. I don’t know if she was fired on the spot. I’m not returning to find out. I will not patronize an establishment where the patrons are hassled in this manner. I guess I’m just an inconsiderate elitist ass that way.
Canvas
this is the second time in two threads you’ve accused me of ‘not reading your posts’ back off please. I read your post, you apparently had difficulty understanding what I wrote. Disagreeing with you is not the same as ‘not reading’, right?
I did not say (accidentally stiffing the server) can ‘never happen’. I find the description of how it was claimed to have happened here difficult to believe on the part of the person paying (See, I bolded it out again so that you can clearly understand). The OP is not the person who paid the tab. And, as opposed to claiming it can ‘never happen’, I’m saying I find it difficult to understand how it can happen in this fucking case. So all of your examples of ‘how it could happen’, which do not match the scenario described aren’t responsive to my post (which is the one you claim I didn’t read yours).
I also find it diffficult to believe that not a single person at that table didn’t notice that not only was nothing left on the table but after getting her change the boss pocketed the rest.
I also find it difficult to understand that once it was clear to them that they had forgotten the tip (given that their intent was to tip), that instead of being aghast at that fact and feeling bad for the server, they all got irritated at her gall to point it out to them in a public manner. I read all of the accounts of servers saying ‘no, that’s not generally ok practice’, and I’m not discounting it.
HOwever, as a general rule, when I’ve fucked up, I generally consider it poor manners to get pissed off at the person who points it out. Yes, it can be done ‘nicer’. so what.
So regardless of how the ‘stiffing’ happened (accident, deliberate ploy on the part of the boss to get her subordinates to subsidize her lunch at the expense of the server, sheer stupidity, whatever), I still disagree w/the OP’s reaction to having their error pointed out.
Now as for me having to appologize to anyone - I would say that if the OP felt that I was accusing them of lying, I am sorry about that. I do not feel that it’s within your rights to demand an appology for me finding it ‘difficult to believe’ that the scenario could happen as described, w/o someone (most likely the boss who had gathered all of the other loose bills, neglected to drop a tip and pocketed all of the change), noticing that there was no tip left.
It’s what I think. I am not claiming it’s impossible (hence I don’t think that’s the same thing as saying “you’re lying”), but,, should I have further experiences w/that person (unlikely since AFAIK they don’t post here) I would tend to look at anything the say skeptically until I’d had sufficient experience with them to evaluate their relative veracity.
And I believe that all of us do that. I don’t always assume that everyone some one says is the truth, especially when it conflicts with what I feel for me is common sense. and the scenario described conflicts. Obviously YMV.
wring, are you being deliberately obtuse, or is it just a natural thing for you?
Sam
Well, the reason I said that is because you frequently reply to my posts as if I’d said exactly OPPOSITE of what I actually said in them. Or, you post a complaint addressing a point which I have ALREADY answered, and answered quite thoroughly as if you didn’t see the previously posted answer at all.
I understood that part QUITE clearly. It doesn’t matter if the OP paid the tab or not, you were still making a concerted effort to act as if the boss must have PURPOSELY done it, that (and this is based on your posts throughout this thread), she couldn’t POSSIBLY have “forgotten” etc ad nauseum.
The OP came back in and explained EXACTLY how his boss absentmindedly put the money in her purse as she was preparing to go, and the rest of them were all gathering up their things, so what she did was VERY similar to my description of what I did.
Again, if she was chatting animatedly with her coworkers, she likely wasn’t paying very close attention and without thinking at all about it, just slipped it into her handbag.
And you didn’t just “say you found it hard” you STILL went on to insinuate in your most recent post that …:
(bolding mine)
Basically saying, “I still don’t really quite believe she honestly forgot”.
I’m just trying to imagine someone at a business lunch of associates, NOT talking and visiting and getting their things together, etc.
What do YOU do when you go to lunch? Break out your palm pilot to make sure everything on the table is lined up according to lat/longs? Most people I know are busy being social, or are discussing the next steps in the project once they get back to the office, they are looking at EACH OTHER, not the table, NOT the bill, they’re just being PEOPLE. Yes, they should have been more careful, that does NOT mean that they purposely did it. As your verbiage STILL, slyly, seems to suggest you think.
Again, WHERE did you read this? The OP?? Because that’s NOT what he said, in fact he said that they all DID feel bad and embarrassed and they did NOT get “all irritated at her gall…”.
He came in later and did that here. Nowhere did he say that they chastised HER for her actions.
And again, it appears that you didn’t thoroughly read the OP. According to his account, they felt bad and embarrassed. NOWHERE does it say that they “got pissed off” at her.
(bolding mine, and you’re STILL insinuating ulterior motives on the part of the boss!!!)
That’s fine, if you disagree with their reaction to her chasing them down, heck, that’s your opinion, MY beef was with the ongoing theme (based on your series of posts here) of you thinking they were lying about their mistake.
Also, I must have read a different OP than you did, it didn’t appear to me that they were irritated at having their error pointed out. They didn’t even KNOW what the error was thanks to her inability to articulate it. It finally filtered through, upon which they CORRECTED their mistake.
And as for them apologizing, as I said, they were probably too aghast and speechless at the whole fiasco of a scene to be able to even THINK of it, AT THE TIME.
Where did I “demand” an apology??
I said “it would be the gracious thing to do”. Whether or not you feel you should apologize or whatever is entirely up to you.
Well, your first posts on the subject started out with absolute “I don’t believe it, that’s impossible, that’s BS, etc” And gradually wound down to “I have a hard time believing it etc”.
But up until this very post, you were STILL insinuating with:
(bolding mine)
… and .that you didn’t reaaaaaallly believe her.
Well, I guess that’s (among other things :)) where we differ, I always believe that “innocent until PROVEN guilty”.
I’ve been reading this thread since the beginning and felt the need to clear up this misconception. The restaurant in question is in the train station, along with a shopping mall compelte with food court.
Oh, and it has a 9-screen multiplex too. I wonder if the waitress would chase anyone into there.
Thanks for clearing that up Jeff I was picturing it as being like the train station in DC, where the food court is a good bit form the train station area proper.
CS, it is the DC train station. The OP must have been in one of the restaurants in the great hall.
Wait, the OP is from Baltimore which means I got the two confused unless krisolov was visiting down here.
GAWD got something specific to say, or just driving by?
Canvas - try this analogy: Female Poster posts some story about how they found female panties in the glove compartment of their spouses car, but it’s really ok, 'cause according to the spouse, some stranger came up to him and paid him $50 to take them from her. Now, I would find that story ‘hard to believe’, but would not be calling the poster a liar. I would stop short of saying outright that the husband’s a liar ('cause I try like hell not to say that unless I have proof. and generally here, those claims of ‘liar’ are no more than some one forgot, or was misinformed. to me, ‘liar’ means the person knows the truth and deliberately misstates it). But I would not have any problem saying “I find it hard to believe”. and wouldn’t retract it etc.
So when you’re continuing to insist that I’m ‘essentially’ calling some one a ‘liar’ - no, I’m really trying hard to not do so. and I see a very specific difference between saying I find their story difficult to believe (all the more so, if you make the assumption that these folks go out to eat frequently, together, business type stuff. IMHO).
that’s what I’m doing here. So, I am being very specific about what I am claiming - I wasn’t there, I don’t know the ‘truth’, but frankly, neither does the OP, since they aren’t inside the bosses head at the time this occured.
my statements about the OP and their group being ‘pissed’ comes from, oh, say posting a damn pit thread entittled “When waitresses attack” in which the server is referred to as “Ass”. now, you may consider that to be less than ‘pissed’. and further promises to ‘never go there again’. I characterize that as ‘being pissed’ at the server.
Bottom line to me:
- The OP and group screwed up by not leaving the tip.
- the server pointed it out to them, yes, in public.
- For me, if I’ve screwed up, and the person most directly affected points it out to me, my response isn’t generally going to be “you shouldn’t have pointed it out to me” (which was the only other option available to the server by that point).
- For me, the claim by the OP’s boss (via the OP) is a difficult to believe story. Would I have directly called her a liar to her face? No, but you can bet your ass that I’d be watching in the future to see if it happens again.
so, I disagree that the OP has a ‘justfiable’ complaint.
I disagree that I owe the OP’s boss an apology for thinking that their claim is difficult to believe.
I ran this whole scenario by someone who dines out frequently (5-9 times weekly every week, sometimes in groups, sometimes alone, in fine dining, buffets, etc, in all sorts of cities etc.) . they, too found it difficult to believe that after gathering up $48 in mixed bills from the group, the boss would take a $100 bill from their wallet, pay the bill, pocket all of the change, and not realize there’d been no tip left.
Canvas Innocent until proven guilty works well in the court system, but, to protect myself in general, if you’ve given me a reason to believe you’re dishonest, I don’t wait for proof before I take cautionary steps (of verifying stuff you say/do). So, at this point, I’d say the OP’s boss has givne (at least me) reason to suspect she’s not all that honest, so I’d guide myself accordingly.
LOL, well that’s what I THOUGH he said, but then I though, no… I must have just assumed that.
But then I’ve only been there once and we only went to the food court and the stores. When we went to get back on the train, it seems as if it were quite a ways (not like a huge hike, but not just right there either), from the rest of the mall.
Isn’t that the one called Grand Central? Forgive a sheltered “unwordly” Alaskan.
It is interesting that nowhere in your summary is an indication that you believe the waitress also “screwed up” in any way.
- Rick
'cause I don’t have a personal problem w/her confronting them about no tip. I understand that some of the people here say that it’s non standard behavior for servers. But, if you’re counting on your pay to pay your bills (as many of us do), the fact that some one else’s ‘mistake’ will cause you to have less pay, well, I understand perfectly why she’d be upset and not want that to happen.
I acknowledge that servers say that it’s non standard.
I also understand that she didn’t do it in a ‘good’ way (ie say stuff like ‘was my service less than standard’?)
but the fact that she confronted them at all? nope I don’t think that was morally wrong, so I didn’t include it in my ‘list’