Being a waitress I guess this topic was bound to come up at some point. I just hate being one of those negative servers who's always complaining about it. I'm a firm believer that if you don't dwell on the negative and talk about it excessively, it will effect you a lot less. But sometimes I just have to vent, ha ha.
I've been reading articles on the standards of tipping lately. Almost all of the articles were written be people who were never servers, which I found to be interesting. Including an article by this asshat, who admits to have never waited on tables, then tries to compare it to working at UPS. You don't like working with the public? Come try my job sometime, it will make you cry. Is it the hardest job in the world? Not by any means. Is it mentally, physically, and emotionally draining for money that's slightly better than minimum wage? Yes, it is.
I am a very attentive server. I really view people coming in as guests of mine, and I do my absolute best to make sure they never need anything, that their glasses are always full, and they are always satisfied with the food. I'm a people pleaser to the core, and I take it personal if people don't enjoy their meal. Which is what made my former job at Chili's so hard because a parent would have a hard day at home with their kids, wouldn't want to make dinner, drag their miserable butts in Chili's, and be as rude as possible to anyone they came into contact with because they had a bad day. Umm, I'm getting paid $3.35 an hour to be nice to you, and your $2 tip isn't really going to help that much. My dignity is worth more than that, and I won't be treated like a dog.
I'd hate it when I would be working at Chili's, have 6 tables seated in my section (instead of the standard 4 because we were short staffed), and have a mom who was glaring at me because her kids chocolate milks (which take awhile to make because they are handmade) were empty AGAIN because the little turds would slurp them down within 15 seconds of me putting them down. And after making them 5 times, I have more important things to attend to (like the OTHER 20 customers relying on me for service) than to make chocolate milks all day. I'm sorry.
I read that a lot of times, the service doesn't even reflect the amount people tip. They just always tip the same. I think this is true for maybe half of people. I had some people come in one night, keep me there an hour past when we closed to wait on them, raved to the manager how good all the food was and how great I was as a server, then left me a 10% tip. Which after I tip out 4% to the server assistant, meant I walked home with a 6% tip. Sad.
Another thing I read, that I thought was hilarious, was that if waitresses (women) put a smiley face on the check at the end, it increased their tip. But it waiters (men) put one on the check, it decreased the tip! I always thought the smiley faces were tacky ha ha.
The Melting Pot is really much better than Chili's though. The people coming in are much more pleasant, and in much better moods. I really do enjoy waiting on people and talking to them. I love meeting new people and talking about different things with them. And quite honestly, I would rather be treated nicely and tipped decently, then be treated badly and tipped really well.
5 comments:
The summer after my frosh year of college, I worked at a saloon at Cedar Point. It was an interesting summer, full of highs and lows and underage drinking.
What people didn't realize is that you're allowed to tip waitstaff in the park. So sometimes I wouldn't get a tip. We were paid $2.13 a hour. (We also had to come to work with $200 in cash every day. We'd pay for the customer's meal first, out of our own personal money, then the customer would pay us back. Thus insuring that if someone dined and dashed, the park would't be out money... Just we would.) Add in the last cook I had to work with. He had it out for all the servers. Purposefully going a little slower so that our tips would suffer (no one at the park tipped out anyone else... but no one else worked for $2.13)...
Anyway. I had my fair share of crappy customers, annoying kids, stolen tips, and crappy tips. Some days I didn't even break even and I'd walk home with less than $200 in my pocket. Added gratuity for groups? Yeah, nope.
*sigh* I try to do at least 20% if I can. Sometimes my cash is low, or when I have mental slips on math... but I really do try 20%. There's definitely a few places that I almost always try to give 50%.
Serving is a tiresome job. Not everyone can do it. Big kudos to you for pushing on. :)
Damn. I thought my job sucked. Every time I think it does some one tells me about their job and it is much worse ha ha. That's what I get for complaining :)
I always try to give people the benefit of the doubt too when it comes to tipping because you never know what's going on.
I've always found tipping confusing. So I tend to tip at least 20%. Sometimes more. Unless the waiter is rude. Then I pay my bill, sneak out and not tip at all. I can't stand rude waiters.
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Wow, that's very generous of you.
Ugghhh I hate rude servers. Or ones that are cracked out on drugs... or ones with questionable hygiene standards. Yick.
I always do 20% too. However, confession, I used to always give baristas a dollar. But I never have cash anymore. The shame.
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