This post was not written by me, rather I found it on the net and thought it was great and needed to be shared:
As to the perception that a given customer only gets “a few minutes” of our time.
Before you arrived we rolled your silverware. Before you arrived we set your table.
We brewed your tea/coffee, sliced your lemons Set up whatever “complimentary” foodstuffs our restaurant offers, etc.
When you arrived we greeted you. Brought you drinks, rolls, chips, relish, tortillas, biscuits, scones, creamer, a few more napkins, the fresh salsa not the 15 min. old crap, and strawberry preserves, not just grape jelly.
We took your entire party’s order, easy if it’s off the menu, harder if it begins with “All I really want is….” and we convert it from what makes perfect sense to you into something our cook will be able to glance at prioritize and properly prepare, even if what you want never thought of being on a menu.
We get your third refill, and of course there’s no problem with bringing more biscuits.
We bring your food. Find out what you really wanted, which may look remarkably like whatever your friend, or the table next to you ordered.
We return with your new order (our fault entirely, happens all the time, evil menus)
Refill. Bring dessert.
Accept your payment, making change from our own money and taking the financial risk on ourselves that you’ll skip.
All while dodging your kid, waiting for you to interrupt your cell phone call to talk to us, and paying a percentage of your bill out to hostesses, busboys, bartenders and food runners whether we get tipped or not so that management doesn’t have to pay minimum wage to any of them.
And we get to do it for four + tables at once.
And we get to clean up afterwards!!! Wheee!!!!
Assuming you’re going tip at all (and the IRS assumes you are, also, so they just go ahead and tax me on the amount of your check whether you do or don’t).
Yeah I guess 10% sounds more than adequate.
P.S. If we all got better jobs, no one would be there to wait on your crabby ass, and if you wanted to get it your own damn self you’d be having a hungry-man ™ right now.
“Thank y’all for coming in! You have a great evening!”
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[...] It’s been a long time battle for American restaurant staffers to extract tips from certain foreign tourists. We know they know our culture before even leaving their own countries. Most of them, anyway. But still it seems that a lof of them come here and play the un-savvy traveler role with their servers. We feel that if you can afford, financially, to travel to another country, then you can afford to tip in bars and restaurants. Why don’t they, then? Well, most tell me that they don’t see why they should tip. I guess the answer to that is: for the same reason why, when asked for directions to Radio City Music Hall, a server doesn’t direct these unsuspecting tourists to the south Bronx… because we have a conscience. We should look out for strangers, even if just on a human level. If you have an inkling of what a server does to earn their tips you’d gladly fork over the 20%. If you don’t, then I suggest you read Why Tip the Waiter. [...]
Isn’t it the restaurants job to pay their employees? And you can’t play the “feel sorry for me because I’m a waiter” game. There are other jobs that you could get that pay a salary.