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ORIGINAL: kdsub


There you go...you think you are a judge of character and the situation without experiencing it...so be it then.

Butch

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ORIGINAL: NuevaVida

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ORIGINAL: kdsub


There you go...you think you are a judge of character and the situation without experiencing it...so be it then.

Butch

Hi Butch,

I received your post to me as observation and not argument, as intended, so I hope you can receive this the same.

Everyone judges.  Those who think your mom did the right thing are also judging. 

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Those who think your mom did the right thing are also judging. 

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ORIGINAL: kdsub

I am sorry I did not mean that post for you I meant it for julia... I thank all for you comments on this issue.. It was just a sidebar and I don't mean for it to take up the thread...

Butch

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ORIGINAL: heartcream

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ORIGINAL: SmokingGun82

First, I should note that I tend to over tip habitually... but I do have a question no one has been able to answer for me.

The argument for not stiffing a waiter/waitress is that they work for less than minimum wage, and the tips are to make up for that. So... why exactly is what they should get/expect based on how much the food costs?

For instance, here in Wisconsin minimum wage for wait staff is 2.35. So if I go to dinner with five friends, spend an hour there, assume we're her only table, and leave a twenty dollar tip on a three hundred dollar bill... why would that be cheap? For that hour she made 22.35- which isn't bad, really.

It's not something I do, or plan to start doing... I'm just curious if there's a flaw in my line of thought.

A eensy bit deluded on the 'over tipping' if 20 bucks for five people on a 300 bill is your math. Yikes. Dude not even 10%.

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ORIGINAL: gungadin09

i usually tip about 20%. i know that's extremely high. i work in the industry, and i want to be generous. i don't undertip unless the service was atrocious.

pam

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ORIGINAL: subtee

~FR

In the same way that one cannot hope to envision what a server's life might be like, one cannot envision what a patron's life might be like. Therefore, we have to rely on reasonable expectations and customs when it comes to dining out.

In the same way it is expected to tip, it is expected to receive gracious service and our own decision when it comes time to decide a tip.

No one should be expected to think outside these bounds. It's not reasonable. This is a professional relationship lasting an hour or two. Part of being a person employed as a server is accepting that the gratitude, expressed in tip, will be varied. If he or she can't accept that as part of the job, they should look elsewhere.

IMHO

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i usually tip about 20%. i know that's extremely high. i work in the industry, and i want to be generous. i don't undertip unless the service was atrocious.

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ORIGINAL: Glasgow

Normally I would agree that you shouldn't work in a job that you aren't compatible with, but that's not the way the world works.

People don't dream of becoming servers since childhood. Usually, being a server is a job you have to take because you can't get a better job elsewhere. Food service is a very stressful job.

America would be a wonderful country (and, indeed, every country besides) if everyone was working in a job that they were fully compatible with. But if that were true, we wouldn't have wonderful comedies like The Office, now would we?

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ORIGINAL: WyldHrt

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i usually tip about 20%. i know that's extremely high. i work in the industry, and i want to be generous. i don't undertip unless the service was atrocious.

20% is extremely high? Odd, that's my standard tip, and that of many on this thread.

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Working in the "casual family diner," such theories become incredibly flexible. Those servers are usually over sat (and often double and triple sat or more). Now in a place where the policy is to greet a table and get a drink order in less than a minute, that just ain't gonna happen when the hostess just sat 3 tables in your section all at once. Those "casual family diners" are privately owned, and usually run by very tempermental people who have no problem yelling and screaming at employees whereever they want. Which of course delays getting to the table even more.

I was a trainer at one of those places. All the servers I trained were trained as though they were working in a high end restaurant. In other words, they were taught how to take the orders in the proper rotation so they could remember where the food went, how to properly carry a tray, the correct side to serve and clear, and all those other little "details." No one is delivering their food for them like in a high end restaurant. In fact, half the time you are lucky if you can get someone to grab the second (and possibly third) tray to take to a big table. Those servers still need to know about the food, and in a lot of those places, computers still aren't in use, so the server is also adding up your check manually, including tax.

Meanwhile if we are to believe the majority of the people on this thread, they all are exceptional almost all the time, taking a dozen tables, contacting the health department for minor violations and the rest all eat at the high end establishments paying big bucks for their meal. Personally, I don't buy it.

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ORIGINAL: barelynangel

I never said she should be fired for poor service, i said i hope she was fired for what she did and to me what she did was accosted a customer.  Running after a customer to say something smart and throw money at them, yeah -- sorry i don't think she should have kept her job.

That's not ill will, that's having expectations that customers can walk into that establishment without worrying about being accosted by a pissed off waitress. 

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Finally we got the supervisor to chase her down and she stomped to our table and slapped down the change without saying a word.

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ORIGINAL: kdsub

Listening to all the X servers and their comments reminded me that my mother many years ago was also a server. She is hell on wheels about service always comparing how she used to do it.

One day I took my mother out to dinner. The service was terrible but it was crowded so we were still going to leave a 15% tip. When it came time to pay the bill it came to $32 or so. I gave the waitress two twenties and we waited for our change… It never came and we could not get her attention.

Finally we got the supervisor to chase her down and she stomped to our table and slapped down the change without saying a word. My mother silently picked up the change… reached into her purse and took out 2 pennies and placed them on the table.

As we were walking through the restaurant to the door the waitress ran up to my mom and said” here take your two cents.” My mother smiled, took the 2 pennies, and in a strong voice said” you’re right you aren’t worth two cents now get out of my way”.

I love her.

Butch

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ORIGINAL: barelynangel


I've posted the whole story. My comments about her being fired was based upon her actions of the last paragraph.  And while you quoted somthing i wasn't speaking about and bolded exactly what i was, i think you wll find my statement of what i think she should have been fired for of her RUNNING UP TO BUTCHS MOM accurate. 

I will admit, i thought she threw the two penny's but just the fact she ran up to the customer and confronted her in such a way in front of other people and customers is a firing concept to me because to me that is a waitress accosting a customer because the customer didn't tip her what she wanted or expected. 

You may think that is appropriate conduct of wait staff, i mean this whole thread seems to advocate wait staff is given a whole slew of excuses because "they have a hard job,"  yeah they do, but so do many people in the world  who deal with clients and customers and most other jobs don't allow or excuse the behavior of their staff because they have a hard job and yeah, accosting a customer tends to be a firing offense.  And that isn't ill will, its called expectations of treating a client appropriately.

angel