Just a little rant, directed to restaurant customers... (cause i had a rough night)
a. If you get a discount on food because of a promotion (for example, half off drinks, dollar burgers *ahem*, etc.) then you need to be wary of that when you tip your server. Just because the food cost YOU less, it didn't mean less work for your server. In fact, promotions usually mean the server is busier in general, and that his/her total sales are considerably lower. Take that into account. If you got two softs drinks at $2 a piece and two $1 burgers, your tab is only $6. That doesn't mean you should tip 15-20% of SIX DOLLARS. At full price those burgers were $8 each and your tab should have been $20.
b. Servers DO NOT (for the most part) get paid hourly. The restaurant or bar has to pay us something so that they have something to take the taxes on our tips out of. Odds are that your server will never see that $2.65/hour they're being paid. Taxes eat it all.
c. 15% is the new MINIMUM. MINIMUM, folks. Good service deserves 20%. Deal with it. It's easy, take the total, slide the decimal one number to the left, and double it. Do not go with the 'tax times three' rule because a lot of alcoholic beverages are not taxed. You could drink all night and not pay a dollar in tax.
d. Waiting tables is hard work. Seriously. When servers/bartenders get off of work they are sticky, smelly, covered in god-knows-what, sore, and tired. Please don't make their lives harder by doing stupid shit at your table. You may think it's funny to pour all the sugar packets into a little pile in the middle of the table and then drip your beer into the middle, making a sticky little beer volcano. That's fine... just clean it up before you leave! It's not okay to let your children smash the 15 packets of crackers we gave you (for free) into the carpet. It's not okay to tear your beverage napkin into eight thousand pieces and scatter it all over the table and floor. Unless you are a monkey. In which case, what are you doing out at restaurant anyway?
e. Finally, if you get inebriated enough to start ordering rounds of shots for you, your friends, and the table of hots chicks next to you, that's YOUR FAULT. When you get the tab and it's more than you expected, that's YOUR FAULT. Don't take it out on your server with a shitty tip. They had to deal with your drunk asses all night.
f. Next time you're trying to figure out what to tip your server, think about it. Did you wait tables sometime in the past? Do you know anyone who has, or currently does? Do you want to be remembered as an awesome customer or a shitty tipper? Because, TRUST ME, servers and bartenders remember how you tipped. If you plan on returning to any establishment, there is a chance that you'll get the same server. And do you want them to be motivated to treat you well, or do you want them to write you off the second you walk in because they know they're not making money off you anyway? Of course, a good server would still give you 'acceptable' service, but don't expect any 'above and beyonds.'
(inhales.... exhales....)
Thank you.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
But remember, just like there are shitty customers, there are shitty servers. We had one last week. I'm sure he meant well, but the dude was just unable to do his job. He said all the right things "I'll be back in a minute to get your drink orders" (letting us know he saw us but was in the middle of something else, that's fine).. But 10 minutes later and several walk bys by him, still no drink order ordered. The rest of the meal was like that. We had to wait 15 minutes after we asked for our check for him to ask if we were ready for our check. Did we tip him? Yes. 10%. He tried, but the lad really doesn't belong in a restaurant.
So, just remember, if you see a returning 'bad tipper' that we may just be jaded from having too many bad servers who don't do a good job and shouldn't be in the job they're in.
On the other hand, when we do run across a superquality server, 20% is the minimum. Coz "I have friends who work in bars and restaurants and I hear how they get screwed on tips."
But just remember.. we may have had a shitty day, we may have gotten screwed at something during the day and feel we need to "pay back" some other helpless person, we may be jaded from having too many encounters with people who do shitty jobs. And it does suck that your job just happens to be one of the last social encounters we'd have in a day, so if we've had a supershitty day, even superdooperkaren service at that point will not undo the whole "ive been fucked all day" on our shoulders. But then again, I'm guessing barista tips in the morning suck too coz we're tired, grumpy and pissy that we're having to go into our suckass jobs that make our lives such a horrible pissfest, that we have to go out at nite and take it out on the wait staff where we end our nights.
It's an evil cycle.
Or you could be an artist and have all of society pissing on you all the time with no tips at all, wishing you were making at least $2.65 an hour.
Post a Comment