Tip your server asshole. I’ve blogged about this before and I may blog about it again. In fact, I may make it an annual blog until people finally get it. I do understand, not all of you have worked in food service in the past. And some of us have an overinflated version of how good of a server they were “back in the day”. I also get that most servers make the job look WAY easier than it is. Especially if you’re a good server. And of course, no customer can see what is going on behind the scenes. That’s where the real crap happens.
A lot of all of this goes back to the good old, age old advice of not judging others. Nothing burns my biscuits more than sitting at a table with friends and family and hearing them judge the server. “She’s too loud”,”they didn’t even have any cheese curds”, “she’s not friendly”, “he forgot about us”, “he brought us cold fries”, etc… Or my favorite - “I can’t believe she messed up the check.” Can I just get this one simple thought through all of your heads? YOU DON’T KNOW.
You don’t know what is going on back in the kitchen. Perhaps the cook has just gone off his/her rocker and your server is trying to cook your food and continue to wait on tables. Or maybe the cook has screwed up so many orders that they are literally throwing food at your server and/or yelling at them. Perhaps the cook is new and struggling to figure out how to balance orders as they come and prepare food that gets done at all different times accordingly. Maybe an oven, micro, stove top, grill, or fryer is malfunctioning and no one knows how to fix it. Maybe the second server got sick, didn’t show or was never scheduled. Our restaurant has six booths, seven 4 tops (seats 4 people), three 2 tops, two 6 tops and a 5 top. I have had worked shifts where every single one of those tables was full and I was the only server. Do the math. These are all instances that have happened to me in the past. And guess what - none of them are my fault as the server. Most of them are no one’s fault, shit happens. Life happens. But guess who gets the blame and the shitty tip?
You don’t know how freaking time consuming and what a pain in the ass that POS (Point of Sale) system can be. Let’s take the least user friendly interface and move shit around every other day so you can’t find it. Want to find a special, oh that’s on another button over here. Need to add fries, go back out to the main page and add those there. Want those as an appetizer, that’s two more steps. Needless to say, crap gets messed up. And I love that companies (and our managers) are always trying to make it more user friendly and updating things or moving things around. But I hate that everytime I go to the use the POS (and this time I don’t mean Point of Sale system), shit is in a different spot. Add to that the people that don’t tell you they are splitting the check until the end of the meal and now I have a giant puzzle and no time to complete it while I try to remember and match up who had what. So yeah. It takes time and yes, checks can get a little messed up. Sorry.
You apparently don’t know that I am not in charge of ordering the food and/or cooking it (most of the time). I try to check that your food is correct before I bring it out. Sometimes I just don’t have the time. And sometimes I just don’t know what is on the new specials. (Funny story about that… we have a new Caesar salad. I go to take one of my first tables this spring and someone orders the Caesar salad. I didn’t even know we had added a Caesar salad but I figured since the lady was looking at a menu, she must know what she’s talking about. But then she asks, “what’s on the Caesar salad?” My actual response was probably one of the most lame things I have ever said, “Whatever is normally on a Caesar salad?” And then she asks if there is chicken on it. I tell her no. After placing her order I ask the cook if there will be chicken on it. He says, “of course, grilled.” So I get to go back, looking like a complete idiot, and tell the lady that bonus! She’s getting chicken on her salad. Guess what - they still left me a tip!) Anyway - thanks for stiffing me because we ran out of chicken strips two minutes before you ordered. Because, yeah - that’s MY fault.
You don’t know what is going on in your server’s personal life. I get that part of being a server is being an award winning actress. You’re supposed to leave your personal life at the door and become this incredibly cheerful and bubbly person who can take an ass chewing with a smile and actually thank you for pointing out that to the server and anyone within hearing distance. But then there is that time when you’re getting divorced, your family member is sick, your car breaks down and you’re fighting for your kids when someone bitches you out because that table came in after them but got their soup first. And yeah, you lose it and your sunny personality looks more like Hurricane Sandy ripping up the coast. At that moment in time, whether or not your fries are crispy enough doesn’t seem so important to me. But I will still take it to heart and feel crushing guilt over your poor service. So good work there Judgy Judgerson. Way to remember that your server is a human being, complete with feelings, a personal life and all that other nonsense.
Since you don’t know a lot as a customer, let me fill you in a few things that may help you have better service moving forward in time.
- Do not whistle or snap your fingers, or shake your empty glass at your server. I will smile and come at your beck and call. But the things I will call you in my head (and to my coworkers) would make a sailor turn red. I am not your dog. I will be back in a second. You may not be the only table I’m waiting on. Which brings me to another point.
- That phone ringing? It isn’t my mom to tell me that she loves me and misses me. It’s a to go order. And the next one is too. And the next one. If you’re wondering why your food is taking so long when you are the only table IN the restaurant, remind yourself that we have a to go menu and a back pickup window. You may very well never see the 14 large pizzas, 4 burgers and fries and 3 soup specials go out the door that was ordered BEFORE you.
- We don’t mind staying a little after close. We have clean up work to do anyway. But be aware that if I have swept and mopped and everyone else has been gone for 45 minutes to an hour, it is time for you to leave. I literally had a table stay for 2 ½ hours the other night. One of those hours was past close, past clean up and I was simply wrapping silverware waiting for them to leave. I have a 45 minute drive and a family I would like to see also. Please be considerate of closing time.
- You can complain about the TV station, the temperature, the lighting, but I am not/can not change it. I may lose my patience with you as the sweat drips down my back and you tell me how chilly you are. I get it, I am always cold. Always. I keep a sweatshirt in my car just for summertime visiting of air conditioned locations. Because I get it. It is literally 120 degrees in the kitchen standing over the grill. It is not much cooler standing on the other side of the line waiting for your meal. I don’t want to hear about how chilly you are.
- When you order your salad with “just iceberg and could you leave the onion off, but change the green olives for black olives. And can you put the cheese in a separate cup on the side and an extra dressing” I have to type all of that up. By hand. Without a keyboard. And I will add “for the picky fucker in booth 4” at the end. Even though it takes me extra time. We will also talk poorly of you in the kitchen. Hope you’re okay with that, but at the same time - I don’t really care.
- I am not an idiot. You are not better than me. I am not scum to be looked down upon and no - I do not deserve a shitty tip because “this is all I’ve done with my life”. I’ve overheard people say “if they want to get paid more, they should get a better job”. Again, you do not know. It kills me inside that I can’t say something to those people. Most of whom I am more educated than. It goes back to judging again. I’m not too stupid to get a higher paying job. I’m not too unskilled to do a “real job”. And you’re an asshole, for the record.
- The standard going rate for a tip is 15-20%. Not 10% and certainly not “I’ll catch her next time” (which I heard at my last shift right before I got stiffed). I love that so many of the teens that come in the restaurant are great tippers. I commented on it to Libby once. She explained that mostly they just know that you should leave a good tip and are never really sure how much to leave so they leave a lot. Which works out great for me, but I feel a little guilty that the fact that they all carry phones with calculators never really crossed their minds.
- If I am busy than all out and stop by to ask you for your order, and you tell me you aren’t quite ready and to stop back in a few minutes… yeah - be prepared for it to be a lot of minutes. Just saying. Because I had that 2 minutes it was going to take me to take your order and that fleeting moment will be gone and may take a while to come back. On the flip side, if you aren’t REALLY ready to order, but tell me that you are and then hem and haw around for 5 minutes, I am very likely going to move off to another table and one of the ten million other tasks I have at that exact moment.
- Do not sit at a dirty table when there are clean tables throughout the restaurant. The reason should be obvious. If that table is dirty, it is because I have been too busy to clean it. If I am too busy to clean it. I am definitely too busy to clean it before I wait on you. You want fast service? Sit at a clean table. Also, and this should also be obvious, do not sit at a table for WAY more people than are in your group. I am always shocked by the number of times that people will come in and there will be 14 smaller tables open, but two people will sit at one of the 6 tops up front. I need those tables for future 6 tops. You need to sit at a table for 2-4 people. MOVE.
- I adore little kids. They seriously make my day when they come in and I get to wait on them. Even better if I have a few minutes to actually talk to them. But please, make your kids sit in their seats, them running around the restaurant is not only annoying, it is dangerous. Also, if your toddler throws 52 cheerios and veggie straws on the floor, please pick them up before the next customer comes along and grinds them into the carpet. And lastly, if your child pees on the floor and I have to clean it up, you had better leave me an extra special tip. Yes. This did in fact happen to me.
As you’ve probably guessed. I could go on for a while. I waitressed through high school and college and have been back at it now for the past 7 years. There are so many things I love about waitressing, including my coworkers and staff at the Village. And I have so many customers I love to see week after week. But I do wish some common courtesies and messages would get out to the general public and people would remember that we are all human beings. Some of us just get to be human beings in an apron.
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