Recently I have been working as a waiter at a restaurant at home to make money and find a way to get off my rear end. Waiting isn't a bad job, where I get to meet lots of people and I am constantly on my feet. The most frustrating thing about being a waiter is the tips that people leave. 10% is the minimum that a waiter expects for their work. 15% is what I am looking for if I believe that I worked hard on your table. The most frustrating thing is when people tip under 10% which tends to happen at lunch. I work mostly lunch shifts and it seems that people don't feel the need to tip nearly as much at lunch as they do at dinner. The people at lunch work just as hard as the people at dinner. The only difference is that the restaurant is usually less busy. So for whomever is reading this I can only hope that you now take an extra second before you leave your tip.
I feel you here buddy. Having worked in food services through high school and most of college, tipping is one area I will never again be skimpy. I don't tip under 18% unless they were terrible. Of course, it took working in the food industry to have that appreciation... I've said many times before that if everyone were forced to work as a waiter/busser for a year of their life, the world would be a much better place.
ReplyDeleteI have a tipping query that I would like your opinion on. I follow tipping guidelines that I believe a good waiter like yourself would find pleasing. My question concerns the cost of wine, and it's inclusion in the calculation of the tip. I have always included the cost of wine by the glass in the tip, but lately I have been ordering full bottles, of variable cost. Should the full value of the bottle be included in the tip, in which a relatively cheap bottle would add only a small amount, but an expensive bottle could potentially double or triple the tip, all while the waiter provides exactly the same service. Yes, this same argument could be made regarding the price of the food selections, but the stakes for wine prices can in some cases be very high, but result in very little additional work for the server. Let's take an extreme example. If you wait on customer Bill, who orders five relatively inexpensive food items totaling $20 and ice water, and your friend waits on customer Bob, who orders a $500 bottle and some fortune cookies, should Bill tip you $4, and Bob tip your friend $100?
ReplyDelete