I was just passing through, noticed you were still being a stubborn obtuse prick and thought I’d say hi. You’re either a complete asshole, or you’re so deep into demonizing the OP’s(and lunch group) actions that you can’t back out and save face-so you’ll just try and wear everyone in the discussion down until they drop it completely.
“Hi”!
Sam
Oh. Thanks for stopping by. Feel free to do so again, you have such warm and fuzzy insights.
Sigh…I’ll try ONCE more to get it clear for you.
wring My beef Is NOT with your having a hard time understanding how someone could do that, or even with your being incredibly surprised by it.
It’s mainly the snide and continuous insinuations throughout your posts that state:
And I quote YOU, where in TWO separate places you snidely suggest that she’s (the boss) still not being truthful.
(bolding mine)
You see? In your most recent posts, you just REFUSE to simply take this woman, whom you don’t even know at face value.
You’ve STILL just GOT to get that little “well, if it WASN’T really deliberate” remark in there.
I understood that point of yours QUITE well too. And not only have I addressed it in this thread, so have several others.
This IS the pit, and I’d be ticked off too if someone publicly humiliated me and my group under the pretext of us not having paid the check.
No one, including the OP has said that they DIDN’T screw up by not leaving the tip.
Were they wrong in their mistake? Yes. Did they deserve the ridiculous scene she created because of it? Not in my opinion.
Does the OP have a right to come to the PIT, and PIT her for her unusual and over the top behaviour, one that several former and current servers CONFIRMED was weird, over the top, and probably a terminable offense at most restaurants?
IMO, yes.
No, she didn’t, she made a melodramatic scene and then misled them into thinking they hadn’t paid the bill. So that when she DID confront them, they were standing there confused and wondering what on EARTH she was doing and talking about.
Once again, that is NOT what happened. They didn’t say “you shouldn’t have pointed out to me that I screwed up”. Not even the OP is saying that.
His gripe was the scene she caused, how she misled them, and that it just plain is unprofessional the way she acted. And as a former server? It IS, and at most restaurants you’d likely be fired for it.
When confronted, they were confused and just standing there, (as would expect, as she was NOT tellng them what the real deal was, remember the OP?? Where he says she just kept repeating “you didn’t pay the bill”??). Once they finally figured out what the HELL she was talking about, they DID correct their mistake and paid her her damn tip.
So what the hell are YOU on about that they didn’t “correct their mistake”?
Again, you’re very stealthily treading the line to calling “bullshit” on her. You’re NOT taking an “innocent until PROVEN guilty” tack, you’re taking an “she might NOT be guilty, but she’s got shifty eyes” tack, as is evidenced by your statements I quote above, and by the tone in THIS very statement of yours.
See, THIS is what I’m talking about when I say you don’t read (or maybe you’re just not understanding them) the posts, I never said you DID owe her an apology, I said that there was a more gracious way to approach this. And, while I didn’t say it directly, MY point was that you’ve been accusing her of lying from the get-go.
ONLY after the OP came back in, did you tone it down a bit to merely insinuating that.
As far as your reiterated, “I can’t believe someone wouuld take 48 dollars in change, leave a hundred and pocket the money without realizing it…”
MY GOD woman, how many ways can I describe the possible scenario???
And I’m describing it from the point of view of someone who DOES have periodic “ditz fits”.
The woman is standing there with both sets of bills in her hands, she’s talking,…distracted…she’s already figured out the money, after several minutes of standing there with after dinner chat, she absent mindedly, with her mind on the conversation, not the money at hand, slips one handfull of “stuff” into her purse to free up her hands to put on her coat, gather her things, etc etc.
Hell, I’ve accidentally ended up with a year’s supply of stupid pens that way. Standing there talking, forgetting I even had it in my hand, absent mindedly transferring it to my purse, because vaguely, in the back of my mind, SOMETHING is being held, and in my way, I’m just not paying attention to what it is.
That makes her ditzy, unobservant and distracted, it DOESN’t mean she deserves to be looked at with such suspicion.
Good gracious sakes ALIVE!!! The OP STATED all that WELL prior to this debate between you and I. He said he’d known her quite a while and that she had NOT shown herself to be dishonest.
wring, confronting them is one thing. Doing it in a fashion which is deceitful and embarrassing is another thing entirely. You’ve spent a lot of time trying to villify krisolov’s boss for her forgetfulness, ascribing motives to her that aren’t at all clear from the story as we’ve been told it, while simultaneously ignoring that the server’s behaviour was not just “non standard” it was downright rude, at the very least.
It’s a little bit frightening that it seems that your worldview make an absentminded mistake something borne from maliciousness but lying and making people feel badly for a $10 tip is apparently righteous. :rolleyes:
**. So, what do you suggest that I post? I do find it hard to believe. I will not lie about that. You are, IMHO, continuing to suggest that I am directly calling her a liar, 'cause of my ‘snide tone’ etc. I do not believe that it was an honest mistake. Can’t help that. The OP believes her, that’s their right. Doesn’t make them correct. Doesn’t make them wrong, either. OTOH, just 'cause I continue to find it difficult to believe, doesn’t make me wrong, either.
**??? now who’s pulling stuff out??? She ran after them waving the bill. I doubt seriously that passers by stood in awe and wonderment, gaping and taking notes. She came after them about the tip. They had a conversation. She apparently wasn’t swearing, screaming at the top of her lungs, she ran after them. as far as any one else knew, they may have forgotten their credit card or something.
You wish me to take the OP’s assesment of this other person, because they believe their boss and say they’ve known them for years. You take the OP at their word. You’re allowed to. As I am allowed to be skeptical of the story. I still find the scenario difficult to believe. just as I’d find the errant husbands claim hard to believe.
You don’t like my tone. got it. How would you suggest that I post “I find it hard to believe” w/o such a tone that you find objectionable? I’m not refusing to take her at ‘face value’, because you see, in addition to the words some one says, I take things like body language/gestures (unavailable here), tone of voice (ditto), and relative likliness of their story into consideration. So, when I hear the story and think “gee, that doesn’t sound likely”, yea, unless I have other evidence (not some one else’s assement), I"m not likely to believe them.
If the OP had posted that a friend said the sky was green, and that they really knew this person, and found them to be believeable, my response would still be “I find that pretty hard to believe”. Would you?
Fuck it.
we disagree.
I wouldn’t want to go out to lunch w/the OP’s boss, and you may feel free to do so.
I’ll let y’all have the last word.
wring, confronting them is one thing. Doing it in a fashion which is deceitful and embarrassing is another thing entirely. You’ve spent a lot of time trying to villify krisolov’s boss for her forgetfulness, ascribing motives to her that aren’t at all clear from the story as we’ve been told it, while simultaneously ignoring that the server’s behaviour was not just “non standard” it was downright rude, at the very least.
It’s a little bit frightening that it seems that your worldview make an absentminded mistake something borne from maliciousness but lying and making people feel badly for a $10 tip is apparently righteous. :rolleyes:
I have no idea how that double post occurred. My apologies to the overtaxed hamsters.
But so long as I’m posting, I’m going to address wring one more time.
wring why is it “hard for you to believe” that someone, engaged in conversation, paying more attention to that conversation than the mundanities happening around them (and yes, paying a restaurant check is pretty damned mundane) would have a basic reaction of “money goes in wallet” and forget that before the money goes into the wallet some of it needed to be left behind?
Or perhaps would think “why do I have this money in my hand?” and instead of then thinking “to leave the tip” they’d think “better put it away” instead?
People forget stuff. That’s why there’s ways to describe that when it happens. In fact, there are several ways: forgetting, being distracted, overlooking, blanking-out, being confused, being absentminded.
None of these things are wrong. None of them require or presuppose a less-than-honest motive or any inherent maliciousness. Sometimes people just forget stuff.
I’m sure that you’ve forgotten stuff too.
So why is Krisolov’s boss’s distractedness/forgetfulness/absentmindedness or whatever you want to call it so terrible?
And again, how does that in any way ameliorate the fact that the server was dishonest and rude?
different person, different point. I’ll answer,
twl - she was a not (apparently according to the OP) a native English speaking person. She confronted them with the bill, saying theyd’ not left enough money, not that they hadn’t paid the bill (That was the OP’s groups assumption). That’s very different from your characterization of “decietful”.
I’d preferred her to say “was there a problem w/my service” however, we don’t know if she had that much skill with the language.
I don’t have a problem w/them making a mistake. I understand that mistakes happen. I’ve posted several times (but will refrain from saying “don’t you read my posts”), that my problem w/the OP’s reaction is their reaction to having their ‘mistake’ pointed out to them.
what were her options at that point? loose 10$ ? I would suspect that loosing $10 would be pretty damned significant to a person in their position, vs. the boss who was carrying around $100 bill, and the others who could afford a $12 lunch. But that’s admittedly a guess.
She ran after them. They were far enough away that she had to run, and call out to them to get their attention. and then spoke to them about the bill. again, my preference would have been for the ‘was there a problem w/my service’, but we don’t know that her English was good enough for that.
So on balance we have :
group of people who collectively made a mistake which would have cost server $10.
Her options were to forget about it and earn less, or confront them.
she chose to confront them, but by that time they were far enough away that she had to run and call out to them.
and then, they didn’t like how they were confronted, found it embarassing to have it pointed out that they’d failed to leave a tip. Was a crowd gathered? apparently not. So they were embarassed for each other?? pay the tip and move on.
which they did.
but the OP was still, somehow upset about the server actually confronting them about the tip. so they come here and rant. call her an ass.
and I think that’s a shitty way to deal. Others obviously disagree. I can live w/that.
The more I read this thread, the more I become certain about this:
Waitstaff have no particular right to tips.
Yes, it’s custom. And I am a generous tipper, and a former waiter. But if the scenario above happened to me, I believe I’d tear a $50 bill into pieces in front of the waitress’ face while telling her that I’d rather do this to the $50 than tip her a dollar.
I didn’t start out feeling this way, but this thread has brought me to this conclusion.
Tipping is a voluntary act. You have no right to demand a tip. As a waiter, you roll the dice. I’d get elderly tables sometimes and wince; the elderly were notoriously poor tippers. As were the very young - teenagers without full-time jobs. I would be overjoyed at tables full of young professionals, people with a new Visa card and money to burn.
But for all those generalizations, sometimes the elderly tipped well, and once a table of ten yuppies stiffed me, after I had spent half the night bringing them drinks and laughing with them like we were long-lost buds.
And I didn’t CONSIDER going after them for the tip, because I recognized that it was theirs to give or withhold. And when the elderly ladies would press a dollar into my hands on a $65 check and tell me, “Now, THIS is for you!” I’d smile and tell them thanks.
Because, even though their notions of tipping were apparently locked in the 1950s, the tip was THEIRS to give or withhold.
wring, I think you need to wrap your mind around that concept. The tip is not mandatory. It’s not required. The waiter or waitress has no right to it. It’s an act of discretion, left to the customer.
Period.
I’ve been having trouble accessing the 'Net today. Access was intermittant at work because of a firewall problem and just after I got home, a nearby transformer blew. I checked the OP and found that the dining party had indeed been in DC, as I had thought.
Only “Grand Central” I know is in Manhattan.
DurRRRR! Dang, I kindof knew that.
:: Claps::
This is what I’ve been thinking this whole thread. Thanks for putting it so eloquently.
Well, the waitress stood up for herself and expected her due. What is wrong with that? I didn’t notice the “el cheapo” family making any speeches about the tip being enitirely voluntary.
I expect an argument like that is much easier to make on this thread than to a waitress as it is so ludicrous
Well, that just depends on what you mean by ‘required’, doesn’t it?
I’m not required to wait in a qeue to see a movie. There is no law in place which makes it mandatory. It’s a custom arrived at by consensus, here. I am well within my rights to walk right past a long qeue of people who’ve been waiting and march straight up to the box office. No rules in place against it, anywhere that I’m aware of. The people that I might inconvenience by such an action have no legal way to force me to enter the line at the back-- if they want to do anything about it, they can only attempt to appeal to my sense of fair play. “Hey, Mr. Mudd,” they might say, “This is the line for Leonard Part VII.” At this point, I can exercise my own discretion: I can acknowledge that basic human decency requires me to respect the line, and head back accordingly, or I can decide that I’m better than all that, and who cares what those jerks think? Expressing indignation that the aggrieved individuals would have the gall to draw attention to my faux pas is not a viable option.
(As it happens, I like qeues. I qeue up for the bus, although I’m sure no-one can tell, because that level of civilization hasn’t spread this far yet, and people tend to just push toward the door in a chaotic mob.)
Heute Die Welt – Morgen das Bussystem!
As i said in my first post on this thread, i never chased down a customer when i was a waiter, except for one occasion when they didn’t even leave enough to cover the bill. When i got stiffed, i just lived with it, and vowed that if the person ever returned to the restaurant they would wait 20 minutes for a glass of water and at least an hour for their meal. However, i would just like to make a quick, and personal point abut the issue of the tip being voluntary.
There is certainly no doubt that, from a legal standpoint, the customer is under no obligation whatsoever to give a gratuity. From a more general point of view, however, i tend to take the following position:
The American people, through their elected representatives, have decided that there will be a minimum wage, and that people should not be paid less than this for the work that they do. (And please, let’s not turn this into a debate over whether we need a minimum wage; that’s for another thread).
The American people, through their elected representatives, have also decided that employees in certain industries can be expected to supplement their wages through a system of gratuities, and that because of this, those employees can legally be paid considerably less than the mandated minimum wage.
The American people have also decided, again through their elected representatives, that the Internal Revenue Service, in calculating the income of people in gratuity-based industries, can look not at the actual amount that the person earns, but at the sales made by that person. And further, the American people allow the Internal Revenue Service to levy income taxes on such workers based on the level of their sales, whether or not the level of gratuities received is commensurate with the sales made.
Given that the American people have set up a system that officially and legally recognizes the custom of tipping, and actually penalizes services employees up-front, both in the wage and the taxation system, it seems to me that it is a bit hypocritical to argue that the tip is nothing but a voluntary addition to a bill, and that no-one is under any obligation to give one. While it is true that tipping is not mandated by any law or regulation, the allowance made for tipping in the laws covering wages and taxation should, in my opinion, shift the moral burden of responsibility firmly onto the customer in making sure that adequate service is rewarded by an appropriate gratuity.
Basically what i’m arguing here is that while tipping might not be legally compulsory, the system that has been set up makes it, at the very least, socially and morally compulsory, and not just something that you do out of the goodness of your heart. Any time a tip is not left, it should only be for particularly poor service, and the fact that this is the reason should be explained clearly to the server and/or the manager. I have no problem with poor servers being weeded out of the profession; i just don’t think that servers who do their job properly should be shafted. And while forgetting to tip (when adequate service has been provided) might not be covered by the same legal penalties as forgetting to pay the bill, in my opinion both are equally egregious from a moral standpoint.
Larry Mudd:
It’s QUEUE
If a server’s tips fall below the amount necessary to constitute minimum wage, the employer is required to make up the difference. So, while it’s true that employers may pay hourly amounts less than minimum wage, it’s NOT true that the employee may ultimately earn less than minimum wage as a result of deficient tips.
Similarly, while the IRS’ withholding policy is based on a percentage of sales income, the actual amount of tax ultimately paid is based on ACTUAL income. Once again, if the actual income earned is less than projected, less tax will be due.
Would you care to revise your comments, mhendo, in light of this information?
Not in the slightest. I am well aware of both those things. As i said in an earlier post, and as Barbara Ehrenreich points out in Nickel and Dimed, some employers fail in their obligations to make up minimum wage, and many employees who suffer from this do not know about the law and/or are too scared of saying anything lest they be fired.
Whether the server ends up making minimum wage anyway, and whether the IRS ends up taking the correct amount of tax, was not the main thrust of my post. My point was that the American people have chosen to formalize the tipping system in wage and tax law, and so should be willing to follow through by giving appropriate gratuities.
Again, in case people don’t get it, i’ve never made any assertion that tipping should be legally enforceable. My argument was a social and moral one, and i continue to maintain that:
a) tipping is (morally) mandatory in the US if you receive acceptable service
b) people who don’t tip, or who tip inadequately when the service is acceptable, are cunts
YMMV
Ms. Ehrenreich’s book relates anecdotal evidence from her “experimental” jobs in three cities. This is hardly sufficient evidence to draw the conclusions that “many” - a substantial portion - of employees are ignorant or intimidated. Moreover, her bias against employers is self-evident; this is hardly a neutral source.
Even if employees are ignorant or intimidated by their employer, they still must file a tax return every year. At that time, their wages are accurately reported and taxed. So even if I accept that malfeasance from employers is substantial, it affects only the wages, not the tax situation.
Are you telling me that because employees are ignorant of their rights as regards minimum wage, I am morally obligated to pay them?
I’ve made my position on tipping clear. The system has been officially acknowledged in law, so i believe that we should follow the system unless provided with a particular reason not to, i.e. poor service.
My point about some employers not living up to their legal obligations was simply an observation and, as i said in my last post, was not the main reason that i believe that tipping is morally required.
You are free to do whatever you like when you eat at restaurants. If you receive adequate service and do not tip, however, i’m free to think you’re a cunt.
People who don’t tip often offer some sort of petty rationalization about it being voluntary. It would be much more honest, in general, if they just admitted that they were cheapskate assholes who should be home eating ramen. As quite a few people in this thread, and in this one, have pointed out, the customer ends up paying for the food no matter what the system. If enough people decide not to tip, all that will happen is that employers will start to raise the price of food to make up for the extra wages they have to pay out.
As i said in the other thread, that wouldn’t worry me too much. I am quite philosophically supportive of a system that has no tipping, and that pays servers decent wages (like Australia, where i’m from). But in a system where tipping is the norm, people who don’t do it just want to offload part of the cost of their dining experience onto someone else.