Don't forget to tip your servers...
because they need tips more than teachers. We don't make more than minimum wage or get summers off. We don't have health insurance, dental plans, and 401Ks. We don't even get the satisfaction of knowing we have a job that makes a difference. That we are irreplaceable. Nope. We are dispensible. Anyone who breathes and can even kind of spit out the words "are you ready to order or do you need a couple minutes" can take over my job. And I like to think I'm a little better than the others because my opening lines aren't canned: "Hi, my name is [insert awful waitress's name here] and I'll be your server today. [No pause for air.] Can I get you some appetizers today, maybe some onion rings or ultimate nachos? [No pause after table shakes head.] Can I get you beverages then? We have Coke products: Coke, Diet Coke, Mellow Yellow, Mr. Pibb, and Rootbeer." I swear there is an invisible cue card she reads off at every table. And I like to think I'm better because when I come to work in the morning TO OPEN THE RESTAURANT, I work. Unlike the 10:30 opener who walks in, ten minutes late, clocks in immediately and heads to the bathroom to do her hair and other things that take ten minutes. When she comes out and I've gotten all the chairs down and most of the tables washed, I suggest she take the booths because, frankly, my hand is about to fall off by this point and I'm sweating because the heat is on superhigh because the managers in charge of important things like temperature don't actually work hard like I do. They sit in an office. With coffee. Anyway, 10:30 server declares: "Let someone else do it" and moves to the bar for a ten minute conversation with the bartender. "Someone else" becomes me because there is no one else there and this shit needs to be done before we open.
Though we have yet another new person telling us what to do, I like her because she lets me pick my own section as the first one there (and the one who does all the work). I'm not dumb; I take the section comprised entirely of booths. People like to sit in the booths. Little did I know that I'd just fucked myself. This day the booths were filled with people with kids, people who let their elderly fathers pay for the meal (with a $50 that wiped out all my change!), and old ladies. All people who believe a 5% tip is more than fair. Thank you ma'am. Your 93 cents will go far in paying my: A) house payment B) car payment C) electric bill D) school loans (yep, those were a good idea at the time. As in, I thought by getting a master's I would actually get a real job at some point). Do these people think I am a waitress for the fun of it? Because it's enjoyable to serve other people all day long, making minimum wage and hoping I was helpful enough that someone really thinks I deserve a bonus for my hard work? And the guy that actually does give me a 20% tip only acts to balance out all the shitty tips, so that when I have to claim all the money I made today it really isn't so wonderful anymore. Crappy tippers are really just a burden on good tippers.
I had a thought mid-week as I left with another $8 in my pocket after a shift full of demanding people who leave 7%: restaurants should take after airline companies. There's a first class for those willing to shell out the extra cash. They get bonuses: more attention, pillows that have been cleaned since the last flight, liquor. Why can't restaurants be the same way? There should be signs that distinguish 20% tippers from 10% tippers from 5% tippers. The 20% tippers should get the section where the temperature is regulated, where chairs have soft cushions. They should have drinks immediately and the best servers. The 5% tippers should be relegated to the back of the restaurant. A long walk from the front door and the bathrooms. The heat should be broken, along with every fifth chair. They should get the servers who just broke up with their boyfriends or stayed out too late last night or have unprecedented cramps that day. They should get what they pay for--bad servers, bad food. Because that's what they do to me. Bad tippers make me crabby. They make me long for a position as cashier at Wal-Mart where customers are gone as soon as they purchased emergency tampons and frozen pizza. I, of course, would be a server in first class. I am good. I can manage more than two tables at one time. I can smile and talk to your children and offer balloons and my soul. My responses are not direct quotes from the training manual, and I don't try to upsell everything you order because if you wanted an appetizer and ranch dressing and a large order of onion rings, you would have asked for it.
On a happy note: I sort of have a sort of job lined up at South Central College as an outside training consultant. The hours are unknown at present, as are enrollment and content. But it's a start. And my thesis is finished. Sort of. And I recognize that there's a lot of "sort of" in my life. That makes me a little sad. That makes me cry when Panko asks how work is. Wait a sec, this isn't turning out to be a happy note. Must be time to stop and go back to a life where I am certainly not a writer. Or someone who believes there are happy notes.
Though we have yet another new person telling us what to do, I like her because she lets me pick my own section as the first one there (and the one who does all the work). I'm not dumb; I take the section comprised entirely of booths. People like to sit in the booths. Little did I know that I'd just fucked myself. This day the booths were filled with people with kids, people who let their elderly fathers pay for the meal (with a $50 that wiped out all my change!), and old ladies. All people who believe a 5% tip is more than fair. Thank you ma'am. Your 93 cents will go far in paying my: A) house payment B) car payment C) electric bill D) school loans (yep, those were a good idea at the time. As in, I thought by getting a master's I would actually get a real job at some point). Do these people think I am a waitress for the fun of it? Because it's enjoyable to serve other people all day long, making minimum wage and hoping I was helpful enough that someone really thinks I deserve a bonus for my hard work? And the guy that actually does give me a 20% tip only acts to balance out all the shitty tips, so that when I have to claim all the money I made today it really isn't so wonderful anymore. Crappy tippers are really just a burden on good tippers.
I had a thought mid-week as I left with another $8 in my pocket after a shift full of demanding people who leave 7%: restaurants should take after airline companies. There's a first class for those willing to shell out the extra cash. They get bonuses: more attention, pillows that have been cleaned since the last flight, liquor. Why can't restaurants be the same way? There should be signs that distinguish 20% tippers from 10% tippers from 5% tippers. The 20% tippers should get the section where the temperature is regulated, where chairs have soft cushions. They should have drinks immediately and the best servers. The 5% tippers should be relegated to the back of the restaurant. A long walk from the front door and the bathrooms. The heat should be broken, along with every fifth chair. They should get the servers who just broke up with their boyfriends or stayed out too late last night or have unprecedented cramps that day. They should get what they pay for--bad servers, bad food. Because that's what they do to me. Bad tippers make me crabby. They make me long for a position as cashier at Wal-Mart where customers are gone as soon as they purchased emergency tampons and frozen pizza. I, of course, would be a server in first class. I am good. I can manage more than two tables at one time. I can smile and talk to your children and offer balloons and my soul. My responses are not direct quotes from the training manual, and I don't try to upsell everything you order because if you wanted an appetizer and ranch dressing and a large order of onion rings, you would have asked for it.
On a happy note: I sort of have a sort of job lined up at South Central College as an outside training consultant. The hours are unknown at present, as are enrollment and content. But it's a start. And my thesis is finished. Sort of. And I recognize that there's a lot of "sort of" in my life. That makes me a little sad. That makes me cry when Panko asks how work is. Wait a sec, this isn't turning out to be a happy note. Must be time to stop and go back to a life where I am certainly not a writer. Or someone who believes there are happy notes.
posted by KC in Katoland at 9:34 AM
3 Comments:
Yes. I would agree with that last part (um, I suppose I also would agree with the lesbian part, too, but anyway.)
There should be velvet ropes seperating the Very Good from the Good, and barbed wire seperating the Good from the Shitty too. Just a little visual to really drive home the point.
Man, you know who I love? The Secret Surprising Good Tippers - the ones who come in, sit quietly, order two expensive drinks each, salads, and two steaks, are pleasant enough when spoken to but require nothing of you, so you end up not really waiting on them, and the bill comes to $50, and you think, There's no way they'll leave me twenty percent, even if ten dollars is technically twenty percent, because they're going to think I didn't DO anything and then they do and they're gone before you can say Thanks and there is a special place in heaven for them, and you want to bring them over to your crabby five-top whose children are throwing crayons at each other, opening all the sugar packets, jamming crusts into the cracks of the booths and generally being the biggest pain in the ass ever and BECAUSE YOU'VE WAITED ON THEIR WHITE-TRASH ASSES BEFORE you know they're going to leave $1.17 on a $50 tab and you want to say, You need to meet this people and have a little talk about what "ten percent" means, let alone "twenty percent," and by the way if that fails I am going to punch you AND your bratty children in your ugly trashy faces.
Hang in there. At least we're not working at the Fredonia Ponderosa and required to wear hairnets.
Um, your blog ate my post, except when you click on "post a comment" it comes back.
Blergg.
Or today, when I had a five minute conversation with a lady about how good our cheesecake is (I hate cheesecake but lied through my teeth about how I absolutely would have to try it after work) and she and her husband left me seven dollars. I think it calculated out to be 24% or something. They win for best tip yet.
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