![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7There is a long-standing awareness in the waitressing world that Canadians tip poorly. This past week having been Canadian Thanksgiving's holiday week, I can safely say that it is neither so widespread nor eggregious as has been reported-- there was a bit of it, but I think it was more on an age bias than a nationality one. I know on other occasions I've been heartily stiffed by entire roomfuls of Canadians, but it wasn't so bad this past week. So obviously there's some other demographic in play-- perhaps it's that the Spring Break Canadians are less wise than the Thanksgiving ones. I really couldn't say. There was almost none of the "keep it, eh darlin?" with $42 on a $40 tab that nearly killed me this past spring, but I don't have any scientific data to explain that.
I also recently learned, to my distress, that "Canadian" is slang among some waistaff circles for "minority", because it's acceptable to bitch about Canadians being shitty tippers but really quite appallingly politically incorrect to bitch about how black people (or "Patels") never tip. I assure all my readers that if I have a beef with blacks I'll say it, because I am rather appallingly insensitive at times. And to that I will say this: I have been horribly stiffed by a lot of black people, but I have also been very well tipped by them-- including yesterday, when I think I had a total of two customers of probable African descent. One left me nothing: she was young, she wasn't buying alcohol, and I didn't expect her to. People who get their food to go almost never tip, and if it's under $10 I don't even roll my eyes-- I wouldn't think to tip either. At least this girl was very polite even though she'd had to wait because it was busy. The other was a man who sat at the bar and drank two bottles of Heineken, and he left me $1.50 on a $11 tab. Which is right in line with my other customers, and even more generous than most of them. And the day before, I had a group of four Indian men ("Patels") who showed all the signs (eschewing refills, ordering one thing at a time, carefully scrutinizing the prices on the menu, refusing free glasses of water) of being the sort who'll take their change and leave, and on a tab where the tax amounted to $3 they left me $9, which is extremely generous and well beyond what most of my tables left me. That's usually how it goes: you only notice the eggregious offenses, and you're more likely to dismiss the bad ones as being "because [customer] was [demographic]" and hang onto it as if it were a statistic. The good ones always get filed away as special cases.
And so I don't think it's that any particular demographic are universally shitty tippers. I had a tiny old man leave me $2 for a single glass of wine; he'd struck me as the Depression-era survivor who pinches pennies pretty tight, but I was wrong. Old people tip, often. It's just the affectionate and condescending ones who leave you pocket change that stick in the craw.
The only demographic I'm pretty sure of is Southerers. Of course, at the moment, it's my bitterness talking, and they're just like all the other groups: it's not them, it's individuals of their demographic. But the ones with an utterly impenetrable accent, with a certain manner about them-- they're the ones who'll leave you $.04 on a $35 tab after eight free drink refills, like my table yesterday (they sat at the bar, I told them there was table service, they opted to order from me, and then they moved to the farthest part of my coworker's section after I'd placed the order and couldn't transfer it so I had to run back and forth across the entire room for the hour they were there getting them another fucking sweet tea one at a fucking time), or, like that barely-21-year-old girl buying ridiculous fruity drinks for herself, her mom, and her dad, they'll stand there and wait for their six cents back on $40 and then come up and do it again. (I wished so hard I could bring myself to spit in that smug little bitch's drink but I have never tampered with food or drink and can't make myself do it. I guess it's a line I'm better off not crossing.)
So y'all redneck fucks* can rest secure in the knowledge that while I know you're going to stiff me, I won't spit in your drinks because I really just don't know how to be that evil. Have fun, but Jesus is watching you too.
___________________
* Politically correct side note: Obviously this is aimed at redneck fucks and not at all Southerners. (I had a pair of Virginians, the man a Marine and the girl barely 21 (see, I know all these things cuz I ID'd 'em), leave me a 25% tip on an alco-pop and a shitty pizza last night. Obviously, they are sweethearts and not redneck fucks. See my scientific logic?) So anyone who is offended by this must first categorize themselves as redneck fucks, and you know, if you want to put the shoe on and loudly complain that it fits, then I'm sort of having trouble considering that my problem.
So anyhow. I am a zombie, but a mobile one: I slept with a heating pad strapped to my back and am suprisingly spry, now I've had a bit of a warm-up and some coffee. The other bartenders are all carefully agreeing with my sentiment that it can slow down a little bit any time now but come slow season I'll cheerfully put ketchup on those words and scarf them right down. We're all making good money, but we're all tired as hell. And I'd arrange to give one of the junior people who got shafted on hours some of my days, like temporarily, just so I can get a rest, but I am innately too greedy and cannot stand the thought of missing a really good money shift, except that I'm so tired I just want to sleep, and also none of the junior people who got shafted on hours are actually reliable, so I'm afraid to exacerbate that problem lest I be blamed, and also I don't want to appear ungrateful, and also I was right yesterday about New Girl calling in except that she didn't even bother with the phone, she just didn't show. Ick! Sucky.
It wasn't horrible yesterday, and wasn't real super-busy, but it was steadily exhausting, and I had to stay late because that goddamned Charlotte flight just wouldn't take off.
Last night as I was trying to unwind enough to fall asleep I reread some of my old entries from March of this year. Man, things were bad then. Man, I am ungrateful. I should eat my words about being busy and having too many hours right now! But I think I won't, because I'm not hungry just now. Maybe a little later, towards the holidays.
Oh, Z spent yesterday working on an Automated Kringle System to manage his family's gift exchange tradition online. They have a gift-swap thing, and there are complex traditions, but he's just got a nifty little website-based interface that will randomly pair people so we don't have to find a neutral party to draw the names out of a hat and pair them up, and then it will provide a place for people to post and manage their Git Lists. There'll be a Nag button, so you can anonymously tell your giftee that they need to post some freaking items on their Git List already. And you can check off items on the Gits, so that others can see the item's already been purchased, but when you're logged in as yourself, you can't see what's been checked off or not.
It's not sophisticated, and the way you log in is simply by clicking your name-- no passwords-- so it's based not so much on the honor system as on the "if you peek you'll get your ass kicked" system which has always been in effect. But it's pretty damn cool nonetheless.
Of course, now I'm depressed because I know I won't be able to see my folks for either Thanksgiving or Christmas. But I'm still clinging to hope that I can get the 26th off and see them for a couple days right after Xmas. I'm going to scrutinize the schedule and start hoping now.
Ahh. It felt good to write a long lj-post just now and not be thinking of what else I really ought to be doing. Of course, it's not that there wasn't anything else I had to be doing, it's just that i wasn't thinking of it. So there.
Well, this is going to be the first weekend I actually have off since... well, let's just say I've pretty much worked the past 20 consecutive days, having spent my last two almost-entire weekends pretending to be a reporter. So... there's a lot to do that's piled up. This weekend I have to:
* clean up the backyard. Dismantle the bean trellis?
* do laundry. There is always laundry.
* go down to Shoefly on Elmwood and try on Docs. Z did get in touch with them and ask and they said they'd gladly special-order me some Docs and let me figure out my shoe size. Maybe they'll have some kind of delectable little black heels for me too. I do have a burning need for shoes, given that I own, mm, 3 functioning pairs that aren't work sneakers (need new ones of those too) or flip-flops.
* clean the living room, and clean off the sunporch, and basically dump everything from the sunporch into the living room.
* put down the storm windows. If the heat's going to be on (sigh: wusses) then the storms have to be down.
* set up the Garden Room in the basement. Beans are already too tall in their transplant containers; the vines need to be trained somehow. I think I need twine and an Elaborate Plan.
* put together packages for Katy and for several other people. Also, those postcards. I still remember.
* email the people I owe emails to. I don't even remember who that is at this point.
* clean the house to the point where I can invite people over. A couple people are overdue for social calls, and I don't want to fend them off because I'm ashamed of my housekeeping.
* scrub the whole bathroom. We have this beautifully tiled shower and my method of cleaning it of late has just been to rinse it, which isn't doing much for the soap scum...
* take a fucking nap already. I'm beat.
I worry there's more than 48 hours in there, but I guess I'll worry about that later.
I also recently learned, to my distress, that "Canadian" is slang among some waistaff circles for "minority", because it's acceptable to bitch about Canadians being shitty tippers but really quite appallingly politically incorrect to bitch about how black people (or "Patels") never tip. I assure all my readers that if I have a beef with blacks I'll say it, because I am rather appallingly insensitive at times. And to that I will say this: I have been horribly stiffed by a lot of black people, but I have also been very well tipped by them-- including yesterday, when I think I had a total of two customers of probable African descent. One left me nothing: she was young, she wasn't buying alcohol, and I didn't expect her to. People who get their food to go almost never tip, and if it's under $10 I don't even roll my eyes-- I wouldn't think to tip either. At least this girl was very polite even though she'd had to wait because it was busy. The other was a man who sat at the bar and drank two bottles of Heineken, and he left me $1.50 on a $11 tab. Which is right in line with my other customers, and even more generous than most of them. And the day before, I had a group of four Indian men ("Patels") who showed all the signs (eschewing refills, ordering one thing at a time, carefully scrutinizing the prices on the menu, refusing free glasses of water) of being the sort who'll take their change and leave, and on a tab where the tax amounted to $3 they left me $9, which is extremely generous and well beyond what most of my tables left me. That's usually how it goes: you only notice the eggregious offenses, and you're more likely to dismiss the bad ones as being "because [customer] was [demographic]" and hang onto it as if it were a statistic. The good ones always get filed away as special cases.
And so I don't think it's that any particular demographic are universally shitty tippers. I had a tiny old man leave me $2 for a single glass of wine; he'd struck me as the Depression-era survivor who pinches pennies pretty tight, but I was wrong. Old people tip, often. It's just the affectionate and condescending ones who leave you pocket change that stick in the craw.
The only demographic I'm pretty sure of is Southerers. Of course, at the moment, it's my bitterness talking, and they're just like all the other groups: it's not them, it's individuals of their demographic. But the ones with an utterly impenetrable accent, with a certain manner about them-- they're the ones who'll leave you $.04 on a $35 tab after eight free drink refills, like my table yesterday (they sat at the bar, I told them there was table service, they opted to order from me, and then they moved to the farthest part of my coworker's section after I'd placed the order and couldn't transfer it so I had to run back and forth across the entire room for the hour they were there getting them another fucking sweet tea one at a fucking time), or, like that barely-21-year-old girl buying ridiculous fruity drinks for herself, her mom, and her dad, they'll stand there and wait for their six cents back on $40 and then come up and do it again. (I wished so hard I could bring myself to spit in that smug little bitch's drink but I have never tampered with food or drink and can't make myself do it. I guess it's a line I'm better off not crossing.)
So y'all redneck fucks* can rest secure in the knowledge that while I know you're going to stiff me, I won't spit in your drinks because I really just don't know how to be that evil. Have fun, but Jesus is watching you too.
___________________
* Politically correct side note: Obviously this is aimed at redneck fucks and not at all Southerners. (I had a pair of Virginians, the man a Marine and the girl barely 21 (see, I know all these things cuz I ID'd 'em), leave me a 25% tip on an alco-pop and a shitty pizza last night. Obviously, they are sweethearts and not redneck fucks. See my scientific logic?) So anyone who is offended by this must first categorize themselves as redneck fucks, and you know, if you want to put the shoe on and loudly complain that it fits, then I'm sort of having trouble considering that my problem.
So anyhow. I am a zombie, but a mobile one: I slept with a heating pad strapped to my back and am suprisingly spry, now I've had a bit of a warm-up and some coffee. The other bartenders are all carefully agreeing with my sentiment that it can slow down a little bit any time now but come slow season I'll cheerfully put ketchup on those words and scarf them right down. We're all making good money, but we're all tired as hell. And I'd arrange to give one of the junior people who got shafted on hours some of my days, like temporarily, just so I can get a rest, but I am innately too greedy and cannot stand the thought of missing a really good money shift, except that I'm so tired I just want to sleep, and also none of the junior people who got shafted on hours are actually reliable, so I'm afraid to exacerbate that problem lest I be blamed, and also I don't want to appear ungrateful, and also I was right yesterday about New Girl calling in except that she didn't even bother with the phone, she just didn't show. Ick! Sucky.
It wasn't horrible yesterday, and wasn't real super-busy, but it was steadily exhausting, and I had to stay late because that goddamned Charlotte flight just wouldn't take off.
Last night as I was trying to unwind enough to fall asleep I reread some of my old entries from March of this year. Man, things were bad then. Man, I am ungrateful. I should eat my words about being busy and having too many hours right now! But I think I won't, because I'm not hungry just now. Maybe a little later, towards the holidays.
Oh, Z spent yesterday working on an Automated Kringle System to manage his family's gift exchange tradition online. They have a gift-swap thing, and there are complex traditions, but he's just got a nifty little website-based interface that will randomly pair people so we don't have to find a neutral party to draw the names out of a hat and pair them up, and then it will provide a place for people to post and manage their Git Lists. There'll be a Nag button, so you can anonymously tell your giftee that they need to post some freaking items on their Git List already. And you can check off items on the Gits, so that others can see the item's already been purchased, but when you're logged in as yourself, you can't see what's been checked off or not.
It's not sophisticated, and the way you log in is simply by clicking your name-- no passwords-- so it's based not so much on the honor system as on the "if you peek you'll get your ass kicked" system which has always been in effect. But it's pretty damn cool nonetheless.
Of course, now I'm depressed because I know I won't be able to see my folks for either Thanksgiving or Christmas. But I'm still clinging to hope that I can get the 26th off and see them for a couple days right after Xmas. I'm going to scrutinize the schedule and start hoping now.
Ahh. It felt good to write a long lj-post just now and not be thinking of what else I really ought to be doing. Of course, it's not that there wasn't anything else I had to be doing, it's just that i wasn't thinking of it. So there.
Well, this is going to be the first weekend I actually have off since... well, let's just say I've pretty much worked the past 20 consecutive days, having spent my last two almost-entire weekends pretending to be a reporter. So... there's a lot to do that's piled up. This weekend I have to:
* clean up the backyard. Dismantle the bean trellis?
* do laundry. There is always laundry.
* go down to Shoefly on Elmwood and try on Docs. Z did get in touch with them and ask and they said they'd gladly special-order me some Docs and let me figure out my shoe size. Maybe they'll have some kind of delectable little black heels for me too. I do have a burning need for shoes, given that I own, mm, 3 functioning pairs that aren't work sneakers (need new ones of those too) or flip-flops.
* clean the living room, and clean off the sunporch, and basically dump everything from the sunporch into the living room.
* put down the storm windows. If the heat's going to be on (sigh: wusses) then the storms have to be down.
* set up the Garden Room in the basement. Beans are already too tall in their transplant containers; the vines need to be trained somehow. I think I need twine and an Elaborate Plan.
* put together packages for Katy and for several other people. Also, those postcards. I still remember.
* email the people I owe emails to. I don't even remember who that is at this point.
* clean the house to the point where I can invite people over. A couple people are overdue for social calls, and I don't want to fend them off because I'm ashamed of my housekeeping.
* scrub the whole bathroom. We have this beautifully tiled shower and my method of cleaning it of late has just been to rinse it, which isn't doing much for the soap scum...
* take a fucking nap already. I'm beat.
I worry there's more than 48 hours in there, but I guess I'll worry about that later.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-10-17 02:11 pm (UTC)Signed,
paranoid
no subject
Date: 2005-10-17 02:31 pm (UTC)As a customer, I can't do the math to get 20% off the top of my head. I look at the bill, look at the tax, double the tax, and round up, and that's 16%+ in this state, because our taxes are so fucking high: I consider that perfectly reasonable, and if the waitress was charming I add $1 or two (I dont' usually have a very big tab anyway). The other thing I do is calculate 10%, which is easy enough, and then don't quite double it. 20% is a standard level of generosity, and usually indicates that you're happy with the waitress. If she did something exceptional, like accomodate very special requests, or deal with a loud and rowdy large group, then 20% might seem cheap. But for the most part, really, you're doing very well.
Inflation?
Date: 2005-10-17 02:51 pm (UTC)No offense intended, but every time I read something about tipping (do a search for it in threads on metafilter) I think more and more that I hate the entire concept. Usually, when I'm out with friends, they take care of the tip (as I until recently had the cash to almost always pick up the tab). When I'm by myself, I usually just drop a $10 to cover the meal (which is most often between $8-$9) because I hate carrying change. When someone asks me to calculate a tip, I just estimate 15% (which really isn't that hard if you learned your multiplication tables past 12). Sorry if I've ever gypped you! (Gyp is a bad word, too; as it derives from "gypsy").
I have never worked in waitservice because frankly, I can't take all the posturing that surrounds tipping. I can't work in a position that depends on the generosity of others to make minimum wage. "Gratuity" means just that; it's gratuitous. So understand that when people leave you nuthin' for a tip. It's not done in all parts of the world, and some people don't see it as necessary (the opposite of gratuitous) or an entitlement. The hypocrisy of the whole thing makes me quite sick.
Again, this probably sounds like a personal attack, but it's not. Just understand that different people have different beliefs and if servers who can't handle that should unionize, find another job, or just flat out call someone on it when they leave a shitty tip.
Re: Inflation?
Date: 2005-10-18 12:48 am (UTC)Actually I *am* in a union*, and so I *do* make minimum wage, it's just that my bosses find all kinds of ways to make sure I don't get paid for all my hours. Which is a different story. The thing is, no matter what your wage, you don't see much of anything in your paycheck because your income is taxed at the rate of your assumed tips-- they take your sales per shift, calculate 10% of them, and tax you because they expect that's what you've made in cash. You can try claiming that back, but good luck convincing the government you didn't make that.
So, from the government's standpoint, tips are certainly not free money. I'm paying taxes assuming I make about $15 an hour, when my company's only responsible for $6 of that. Now, most people leave 15%ish, so I'm generally ahead on that, but it just makes it that much more painful when someone stiffs me because I know I'm getting dinged for income tax off that sale regardless. Like the four cents on the $35 tab: the government expects I made $3.00 off that and is withholding my income tax assuming that $3, even though I got $0.04 in real cash. Ouch. So no--- in the eyes of the state and the Feds, that "gratuity" is not gratuitous. That gratuity is expected, and the burden of proof is on me to declare otherwise.
There's more to come. I've given this a lot of thought, obviously. And I don't think you're entirely wrong, and haven't taken this as an attack, I just have a lot to say. :)
________
Hotel Workers' Local #4, part of the AFL-CIO but the upstart bit that's planning on breaking off. I know 'cuz I just got a really dorky magazine from them with an announcement about it and a bunch of poorly-posed photos of line cooks and janitors.
Re: Inflation?
Date: 2005-10-18 12:49 am (UTC)I think a lot of my coworkers are pretty arrogant about tips. I tend to be a lot more forgiving of the shitty tippers, because I know sometimes it's just them being bad at math, or they didn't like me, or they don't have tipping where they come from (Oh, I know that one very well, working in an airport). In other countries, however, where there isn't tipping, there also isn't the same standard of service. Either "gratuity" is included in the check (Germany, Italy) or service is shitty (Britain-- they'll charge you 50p for a cup of water because they have to wash that cup, you know).
But the thing I keep forgetting to stress (and people on places like bitterwaitress.com keep forgetting to stress) is that a bad tip is such a bitter thing precisely because most people tip well. I almost never bring home less than 14% of my drawer for the night (by which I mean, if I ring up $100 in sales, I bring home $14-15--- and I usually ring up $600 or more in sales, so you can do that math). My customers are almost always polite, friendly, personable, and generous. The vast majority of the smiles I give them are genuine, as is most of the laughter. I work hard, I run my ass off, and I deal with a lot of hassles, but for the most part, I am very well-rewarded. And that is why I do what I do.
And that is why it is still so painful, even after almost a full year (the anniversary is next month), when somebody is mean to me, or stiffs me, or is in any way unfair to me in my perception. The job is generally such a pleasure (at least the dealing with people part of it)-- it's high-stress, sure, but again, people are usually kind, and you get the instant-gratification boost of cash. So a rude person really, really stings.
As far as calling someone on it, usually by the time you've figured out the change, they're gone-- and if they're not, you really never know whether they've left you something on the table that you'll find when you pick up the glass. And there is nothing stupider and ruder than calling someone cheap and then seeing that there's a fat tip sitting under their beer glass.
It's pretty universal that servers never mention tips to customers except to thank them. It's just considered rude. Most of my coworkers won't even pick up the money left on the bar until the customer has stood up to leave, because it seems grasping.
But one last important thing to remember about tips is that for most people, they feel good to give. Sometimes I get a good tip when I've hardly earned it simply because the person wants to feel generous, or to show off for his friends, and they usually smile bigger than I do, because they like it. I like leaving a nice fat 20% tip for a friendly bartender because it makes me feel like I've done the right thing. But your mileage obviously may vary on that: if it doesn't feel like the right thing to you, then obviously, you're perfectly free not to do it. I won't curse you out-- certainly not to your face, and I may whine to my coworkers but that's sort of all we do in the back room anyway-- at least you've given us something reasonable to complain about. But really-- $10 on an $8 tab is perfectly reasonable, $10 on a $9 tab isn't bad, and a smallish tip on a smallish tab doesn't sting as much as the $2 on a $40 one does-- because of the income tax thing. I shrug my shoulders at getting left pocket change-- it adds up, and as long as it's from someone who was polite, I won't grumble.
It's just the ones who come up to me, stiff me, and then come back that make me fit to spit. But even then-- I don't call them on it, because sometimes after the third or fourth round they'll get up to leave and throw a $10 on the bar for you. It is never wise to whine until after they're gone, because you just never know.