A Facebook friend asked, "How much do you tip your servers?" I replied by shamelessly linking to some of the rants I've composed here, but as I re-read them, it occurred to me that I could have been clearer. At points it sounds like I'm trying to excuse bad service. I'm not.
What I'm trying to do is address this problem: You give good service; you like your guests, and they appear to like you; you're sure you could not have rendered better service, and they still leave you three twenties on a $55 tab and cheerfully encourage you to "keep the change."I choose not to think these people are cheap, but merely uninformed. If only they knew more about the nature of the work and the pay scale, they'd be better tippers.
So this post will describe what's hard about restaurant work, why servers deserve good tips, and also what waiters and waitresses can do to give better service (which, I admit, I haven't written about yet).
What's difficult about waiting tables? It's physically demanding. Do you like to take walks? How about a five hour walk? Carrying one to twenty points weights? During your meal time? That's what a typical shift for a waiter or waitress entails. I'm in fairly good shape; I ran a marathon (slowly) last fall, yet I'm still exhausted after work.
It's mentally demanding. Say you have five tables. Table one wants more iced tea. Table two wants a second round of cocktails. Tables three and four want their check, and table four wants it split in a ridiculous way. Table five's steak is undercooked, and wants it brought up to medium well.
This means you have to be five places at once (the server station, the bar, the MICROS screen, the kitchen, and finding a manager to split the check). This is called "being in the weeds," and it's terrifying. You can feel the guests' impatience rising--crawling up your back--even as you can feel your tip plummeting. This situation happens more than I care to think about, and the anxiety and stress goes home with you after your shift is through.
The cooks. There are three kinds of cooks. First, there are the cooks who don't give you hell. God bless 'em.
Then there are the cooks who give you hell because it's their job. Nothing personal, but who would keep the front of house staff humble if it weren't for the back of house staff? It's like that cartoon where the sheep dog and the coyote are buddies until they clock in, and then they spend all day trying to kill each other. I respect these cooks, but don't really want to deal with them if I've already been yelled at by a customer.
Last are the cooks who lead miserable lives and don't know how to interact with others without making them as miserable as possible. If I've already been yelled at by a customer, facing this type of cook makes me want to grab a steak knife and open up my wrists right there on the spot.
The management. My general manager doesn't steal, doesn't sleep with the staff, and isn't a coke head. That alone puts him in the upper echelon of hospitality industry management. But it gets better! He's friendly, works hard, and is knowledgeable. I have a great GM. Not everybody does. In addition to the illicit drugs, sex and thievery, there are the managers who don't like you if you don't have boobs, or if your boobs aren't big enough. There are the managers who think that what it means to be a manager is making servers do pointless work--because they can. Please, get out of this line of work and become a prison guard. Order inmates to move rock piles around the yard. Just don't waste my time.
Yes, there is work that is more physically demanding. True, there is work that is more mentally taxing. Sure, there is work that is more consequential. If I screw up, the worst thing that happens is somebody's dinner gets ruined. If a soldier or a nurse screws up, somebody could get killed. And there are plenty of jobs where you have to work with difficult, incompetent or shifty people.
The point is that none of these other jobs pay people a base salary of $2.13 per hour. That's why a 20% tip for adequate service is not unreasonable.
I admit that it's a two-way street. Waiters and waitresses need to give good service if they expect a good tip. And this is how we can do a better job:
Don't show up for work drunk or stoned. Please.
Don't be a racist. I may be airing our lovely industry's dirty laundry here, but it's a fact. A lot of servers assume that African Americans don't tip well. It's not true. I've gotten good tips from all kinds of people, and bad tips from all kinds of people. What's true is this: if you walk up to a table expecting a poor tip because you've already sized them up, you're likely to get one. Your bad attitude will bleed through your service. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Don't make excuses. Even if it's not your fault, accept blame as if it were your fault. Apologize and fix the problem quickly. People don't want to hear excuses, or even reasons, if it means you're dumping on your co-workers. It's not like you're having to hang on a cross for six hours for the sins of the world; you're just having to say, "I'm sorry" to snatch a decent tip out of the fire.
Ask for help and offer help. If you're weeded, ask your co-workers to help you out. And if you've already spontaneously helped them out, say by clearing dishes or refilling drinks at one of their tables, they're more likely to respond Yes.
I've already mentioned what guests can do better, so I won't reiterate those points; I'll just link to them. Bottom line is, bad tipping reduces waiters and waitresses to a form of sweatshop labor. It isn't just. 20% is a good way to reward hard work with good money.
And now, a musical tribute to my peeps. Take it away Cartman!
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