[Harloth]

Recently in the gazette* they've been talking about how waiters arent sufficiently tipped and people could be jerks and leave crappy or no tips.
Well last night we decided to double date, my friend, his girlfriend, myself and mine, to go to a restaurant (i wont name it cause although the food is good, i dont want to get all attacked and that)
Usually im the type of person who gives tip all the time, up to 20 % because i believe thats what the people deserve. i never go under 15 %. Well last night our waiter completely sucked. All we ordered was 3 drinks and 2 deserts. The guy wasnt nice, he kept giving my girlfriend stupid looks because she has trouble speaking english, and we had to call him 3-4 times. He also gave me a dirty look when i had asked him to come back because we didnt decide yet. So, the bill came out to 32$. And the tip should be 5 bucks. i gave him 3$, more than he deserved. (35$)
As we got up to leave, the guy had the nerve to come up to me and tell me, next time give better tip. Before i could tell him he didnt deserve a tip and that was generous, he had left to go to another table.
As we left i thought about what the gazette had said, and thought, man what an idiot this guy is. Someone had said to tell the customers to give better tips, but he forgot to read the guy who did that was a good and polite waiter.


I hate assholes...



*montreal's newspaper

[NaOH]

He would have gotten nothing from me. I only tip when there's a REALLY good reason to do so.

And he actually told you to tip better? Holy fuck. I'd have slapped the shit out of him for that.

[TricksterMyth]

Yoinks. I've seen both sides of the coin. I've been in restaurants with great service and seen friends leave little or no tips....and I've been in hoity toity snooty jobs where the service has been horrendous, and at the bottom of the receipt there's a "Suggested tip" printout. That being said, I do tend to err on the high side for tipping (past waitress, it's a reflex, sometimes it's just a lousy shift), but not always. My Dad always stiffs. His thinking is "If he got $5.00 per table this hour, he'd be making $20.00 an hour." He doesn't listen when I try to explain that you rarely have all 4 tables fill and open in the course of an hour, amongst other things. I dunno.

I try to be as nice as I can, but Harl, I think you were justified. I would have chased him down to tell him that he has no right to ask for better tips for cruddy service...and moreover, I would have had something to say to the manager. I say nice things to managers too, just to be fair, but in a situation like that, you had every right to complain. Sounds like that server was just a jerk.

[Hannah]

That would have definitely been a go-to-the-manager situation. Very rarely is the manager upset with customers for bringing poor service to their attention, because nobody wants to manage an unsuccessful restaurant.

I will even tip for bad service, so long as they're nice and they're TRYING, like when people are just starting out and haven't quite got the hang of it yet. I'e been there, I know how hard it can be.

My Dad feels the same way, and he gets great service wherever he goes in our little hometown, because he leaves gigantic tips if they're good. I've seen him leave a $25 tip for a $40 order when we were the only ones in the restaurant. But on the flip side, he's walk out without even ordering AND speak to the manager if the service is bad.

[Fury]

I would have gone to manager immediatly if he had the nerve to tell me that after such a sloppy service.

[Laemkral]

I believe in tipping extra for good service. I usually take the tax and double it, rounding up, as my minimum (7% times 2 =14%). If service is really good, and the waiter put forth an effort, I'll usually throw on a couple extra bucks. If they were just half assing, getting orders wrong and not hurrying to fix it, well then I'm not rewarding you for a bad job. If you were mediocre, not good but not great, you'll still get somethng cause I'm a generous guy.

As for the manager, I have no problem saying go to them and complain. Waiters aren't hard to come by. Plenty of high school kids who'd LOVE to work hard to get some extra cash, and this isn't exactly a hard job to learn with a little practice. Same thing if they did an outstanding job. Leave a little extra and go to the manager. They tend to pass on customer comments that are complimentary because this just motivates them to keep doing a great job. And hard working employees means a smooth running business.

[b00]

Wow..what a dick!

If someone had something like that to me, I probably woud have dropped everything and tackled him. First off, just because your girlfriend can't speak English great doesn't mean he should be rude about that. You're a waiter. You're supposed to serve, be courteous. Rarely do I get a poor waiter, but when I do, I leave nothing. They're called tips, they're not obligatory or mandatory.

There was once this episode of 3rd Rock from the Sun that I enjoyed. Dick took out a bunch of ones and put them on the table. Whenever the waiter messed up, he'd take a dollar off. Maybe I'll try that next time I get a dick waiter.

[Hannah]

Actually, you know what I never really understood? Why do we tip people who only take orders and bring us food, and not tip people who come out in -40 to fill up our gas and wash our windshield?

[linuxelf]

Oh, man, that would have been a mistake with my wife and I. First, I wouldn't tip him at all. If the waiter does an average job, he will get 15%. I'll go up from there based on stuff that he may do that went above and beyond. However, if they don't do their job at all, they just get nothing. My wife and I have walked out of restaraunts on many occasions without eating because the service was poor.

I'm a pretty laid back kind of guy. If the guy had told me I needed to tip more next time, I'd have just laughed at him and walked out. My wife, however, would have called the manager over and berated the waiter in front of all the other customers. We've gotten so many free meals from managers just trying to get her to leave the restaraunt. She doesn't take someone in a service position being rude, and that guy crossed WAY over the line.

[Cysios]

Maybe if you had given him a good tip he would have been nice to the next people and such... But he wasnt nice to you so he didn't deserve it...

[Cybercat]

Tipping is always a bit of a problem for me, because things vary from country to country. I know that in the US the salaries of waiters are low because tips are expected, but this isn't the same over here.

I do tip even here if everything is ok, but if I get below average service I tend not to, because they didn't do anything to deserve it. That doesn't really work in the US, so over there I'd only not tip if they were really lousy.

[Toomuchfreetime]

I almost NEVER tip 20%, 15%, whatever it is. I tip what I feel they deserve, which is usually 32 cents.

Every so often, I'll get a GREAT waiter. Like, I love the guy. I'll give 5 bucks out of my own pocket, not to mention the additional tip money everyone else puts in (my friends and I split tip).

Otherwise, I literally rate the guy. It's like a frickin' test. If he does good, I give him money. If he's attitudy, slow, obnoxious, and generally a prick, I won't contribute a cent.


...I had a guy come up to our group about insufficient tip once. There were about six of us; the bill was something like 70 dollars, 75. We tipped a 5, well under ten percent. I felt justified in this; the service was slow, he got the orders wrong, there was way too much attitude on his part, and he was pretty much being a negligent prick. He had the nerve to come up to us.

...I said to him "If you wanted a better tip, you should've been a better waiter. Also, for having the nerve to come up to us about that, I'm gonna wanna reduce your tip further." He just didn't know what to say or do.

Final tip: $3.50.

...Yeah. I'm an asshole.

[ForgottenCode]

Why do we only tip waiters? And like when I order out from a restaurant, and they print the bill with a tip line, I don't give them anything, but always get a wierd look... I mean come on. You're only typing in the order. I'm out of your hair in 5 minutes.

But generally I just tip whatever the tax is and round up to the next dollar.

[TricksterMyth]

I raise the tip for a couple of reasons.

-Sympathy.

Yeah, it's BS, but if a waiter/waitress looks like they're having a really shitball day, if they're still trying, I'll 'donate' a buck or two extra.

-Rookiedom.

Having to shadow sucks wang. Plus I dunno about most restaurants, but when I worked at Friday's, tips were split between the shadower and the shadowee. So if a kid who's shadowing is doing a good job, I make sure he gets enough for it to be worth it, and kudos to the waiter for training a good server, too. Also, little known fact: not all of what a waiter/waitress receives in tips stays with them. At chain restaurants that do a lot of business (Friday's, Applebees), the host/ess and busboy/girl staff all receive a portion of the tips brought in during the shift. So that eats away at the amount a waiter/tress makes per hour, too.

-Shit shift.

Early/late in the lunch shift, late late at night. ESPECIALLY late at night. It takes discipline not to just sit in the back room and BS at 2 am on a Saturday night/Sunday morning. If I'm in after a late movie and the service is still good, I figure it's worth it. This also qualifies for Christmas morning at IHOP, etc.

Past that it's just the requisite good service/cute waiter deal.

But that's just me. -end ramble-

[bhaney]

I tend to be a big tipper as well, but only if the service is good. I worked in a pizza shop when I was in High School and we had a dine in resturant that was almost always packed. There were times when I waitress would call off that they would make me go out and wait tables. I must say that I got a whole new respect for servers from that experience. Working in a resturant also gave me a lot more patience when I go out to resturant.

Most of the time, if your food is taking a long time to get out, it is not the servers fault. It is the kitchens fault. The server has no say in what order the tickets are made. They also can't control your order ticket getting misplaced in the kitchen. If the food comes out way late, but it is hot, then it is the kitchens fault. If the food comes out late and is cold, you have a shitty server who let your meal sit on the counter for 20 minutes.

I agree with Trickster too in that I will tip more if it is bad shift or the waitress looks like she is just having a shitty day. As long as her attidue doesn't pour over to my table I will tip her big.

Also, if there is one waitress in the whole damn place, and she is waiting on every single table in the building, cut her some slack. It is not her fault that she is working alone, it is the managers fault for either not scheduling enough people to work, or not finding someone to cover for the people who called off. This happened to me in a pizza hut one night. The place was packed and there was only one waitress because the 2 others that were supposed to work with her called off sick. She had only been working there a couple of weeks and was not ready to deal with that. I felt so bad for here. There 12 of us in our party and the girl got like a 50 dollar tip from us. She earned it that night.

I guess everyone should be a server at least once in their life to appreciate what they do. It is not as easy as it looks.

[GeneralJackAss]

I think it should be a requirment by law, that everyone has to work a foodservice job by the age of 18. It will totally change your perspective on it.

You never know what is really going on in the kitchen, or whose fault it is. You don't know, if someone called in playing hookie, and the person who DID show up to do their job is working twice as hard. Or if a cook just walked out, or if it was mixed up with another order on cooks part.

Equipment could be down, and other things. A good waiter will never tell you about the millions of problems going on with the restuarant. And they shouldn't. So, you just never know. And until you have worked there yourself, I think that people's comments about, "That waiter has to earn his 3-5 dollar tip: are outragous.

That is retarded, with a weekly check of maybe 90 bucks. They live off of their tips. They have to pay rent, utilities, food, and EVERYTHING off of their tips. And on top of that, you don't know if their tips are taxed or not. It all depends on the restaurant.

I always tip well, and if the service was shitty, I'll still tip well, but I'll pull the waiter/waitress to the side, and tell them whats up.

[The Illusionist]

I've got absolutely no time for waiters who think they deserve a good tip for only mediocre service.

Don't get me wrong - there are waiters out there who work hard and deserve much, much more than they could possibvly hope to earn. But I go into a restaurant or something and expect at least average service - that's what they are being paid to do.
Tips, in my eyes, are the carrot for those who work above and beyond the call, and for that I try to tip how I would want to be tipped.

"Want to be", being the operative phrase.

I work in a supermarket.
It is my responsibility to check freezers and fridges (no gloves - I "only" spend 2-3 hours a night in there, afterall) for products that are past their sell-by date. Potentially, without me, people could be buying green milk and being very, very ill. And for it, I am accosted thanklessly by all other members of staff to do small but significant parts of their jobs since I happen to be close enough to do it, regardless of what else I have to do.

I also stack shelves - the most repetitive, mind-numbingly god-awful job a man can be expected to do while fully clothed. While doing this, people tend not to see me (5' 9", 65Kilos, wearing a bright blue tartan shirt - go figure?) and then ram shopping carts into my shoulders/hips. Thanks a bunch, grandma.

I am also entrusted with "customer care" - which basically involves being the whipping boy to every half-arsed, half-witted dimwit that walks through the doors, be it as errand-runner or rant-target. Hell truley is other people, 4 nights week, after the pubs have kicked out for the night.
I'm also mobile around 12,000 square metres all night long, which only increases my chance of running into someone with the IQ of a houseplant and the manners of a sociopathic chimp.

Waste Disposal is also my job - ever seen 100kilos of week-old rancid fruit? I have, on an almost weekly basis, often more, having lugged it across the store and throw it (by hand - still no gloves) into a compactor. Which is still full of 500kilos of month-old rancid fruit.

And when was the last time you heard of some poor schmuck like me demanding a tip - or even expecting to get one, for that matter?

Such gall, these bastards who dare to demand more for writing down orders incorrectly and bringing receipts slowly.....

And now there goes my good mood again!

Imma gonna go lie down for a while....

[mrluisp]

I've gotta agree with a couple posts here. It's very hard to understand what it's like for a waiter unless you've worked in the restaurant industry.

I spent about 6 months in there, and it was exhilarating, but also hard work. All my base salary went to cover taxes. Any money I made was off tip. Ever since then, I rarely tip less than 15%, and will go up to 25% if the waiter was good.

However, I won't put up with shit service or rude attitude. There's no freaking reason for that. As far as I'm concerned the waiter still has to earn his keep. He should never expect a tip by default, but if he works hard, he should be compensated, and I think anything less than 15% for decent service is shitty. Again though, I fucking hate shit service, and I won't tip a shitty waiter.

One thing that bothers in Europe is that gratuity is already included in the price of all food. So waiters are usually not as good on average as compared to North America. That shit drives me nuts! I rarely leave a tip unless the service is actually decent. I think one thing that makes going out to restaurants so enjoyable is the service.

[Sperm Whale]

Years ago when I was a waiter (before the invention of the credit car). One of the waitresses had a big party in the back of the restaurant that we all ended up helping her with (making the salads, drinks etc). The bill came out to something like $200 (small family restaurant btw) and we all busted our asses for her so the service was good. I started bussing the table right after the people left and the waitress ran back to get "her" tip. When she got to the table she say a $5 sticking out from the plate and made some loud comment to the guy about being cheap and only tipping $5. The guy came back and pulled the $50 bill out, showed her called her stupid and greedy or something like that and walked away. When he got the the front of the store he handed the $50 to the cashier (the owner's wife) and told her it was for everybody EXCEPT his waitress!


Sperm "man I hated that job " Whale

[SCB]

all you guys talking about not tipping really pisses me off. i dont know how this shit works in canada, but here in the U.S, servers make a whopping 2.13/hour. we LIVE on our tips. now, i can understand the service being bad, and that being a reason to not tip well, but jesus, have some respect for the position. i work in a restaurant called Johnny Carinos, which is a lot like an olive garden, but a little more family-oriented (i.e. less formal). i typically have a 4-table section, and the restaurant usually goes on a wait at about 5 pm, we close at 11. now, 4 tables may not seem like much to you, but you dont realize the steps of service that servers often have to go through. the whole "in and out of your hair in five minutes thing" is completely and totally ridiculous.

if some jackoff tips me change, you bet your ass ill be in his face, unless i fucked something up big time. jesus i swear if some of you people ate at a place twice, i cant believe youre still even GETTING service.

tipping under 15%, unless the service was bad, is absolutely ridiculous.

quick edit: i only read about 2 of these before i got pissed and made the post, sorry if it sounds harsh.