Guy's Work Blog

The George Clooney Story

2014-12-10T12:13:00.009-05:00

George Clooney and Grant Heslov, (heyuguys.com) They ummmm,
didn't exactly win any Oscars for the movie they were filming when I served them.

I was thinking about making you buy the book for this one too, but just in case there is no book, it's a story that needs to be told, I figure.

BUT there's also a catch: some fairly exhaustive backstory. You really won't be able to appreciate the first words that came out of my mouth when I met Mr. Clooney, unless you have the backstory.

So about a month before "George Clooney walks into a bar" ...

I'm serving dinner and drinks to these three guys from out of town at the bar - which was quite normal for me in Roswell (at Cattle Baron - it was "my bar" Monday-Friday for about seven years, and we had arguably the best hotel in town for business travelers right next door. We were un-arguably the best place to eat in town, so it turned into a very mutually beneficial relationship).

And yeah, in whatever inane chitter-chatter I might've made or overheard with these guys, something about filming a movie probably came up. That too happens in Roswell (I've been in a few myself). These guys were more in the "scouting out the town" stage of whatever it was they were into.

So at some point Randy comes in, sits on the other end of the bar, and orders dinner as well. He of course orders The Millionaire's Steak, so named because ... Oh haha, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Again.

I know, "Who's Randy?" right?

Long story short, Randy used to serve and bartend here with me, got fired, then won a chunk of over $200 million when his family hit the Powerball after going in together on lottery tickets at Randy's niece's third birthday party.

True story.

Randy's a good regular now, tips okay (20%). I'll tell you about all that some other time maybe. That would be "The Randy Miller Story" however, and this is "The George Clooney Story" ...

Time passes.

One of my three gentlemen (pictured above) announces his pending early retirement across the way to his hotel room and "tabs out" with me. The other gentlemen order two more drinks. As I'm making them, Randy pops up with "I recognize him ... He's an actor ...

"What's the movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis?"

"True Lies?" I offer.

"Yes!" Randy exclaims. "He was the helicopter pilot who got shot."

Sounded like a longshot to me actually, that Randy would remember that small a part after that much time. Seemed unlikely, but just to be congenial and to make conversation (among the other things I do, besides making drinks and serving diners) I check back with the two guys, leading with "Hey my friend made your friend. Says he was a helicopter pilot in True Lies."

"Yeh, he was. Grant Heslov. He's a producer now."

I act sufficiently impressed enough to pass for sincere, and report back to Randy to offer him his kudos for nailing the mystery guest. And to check on his steak.

And then I forgot about it.

Time passes.

The town's all abuzz with the news that George Clooney is somewhere, filming a scene for some movie. Nobody seems to know the what and the where, and various local sites are being debated by those pretending they know something about where "the best place to actually see him" will be. Personally I can't help but pondering while in the shower "Well, we are right next to the best hotel in town ... and we're the best restaurant in town ... everybody winds up here eventually."

But now it's been hours since my shower and it's loud. I'm quite busy, and all the musings of whom I might see at work tonight are forgotten ... lost to the tyranny of the urgent. I'm constantly prioritizing and re-prioritizing two or three times per minute, as I accomplish one thing, or something or someone new comes into the picture suddenly.

Like that moment when you hate to have to leave the bar for any length of time, but it's busy all around tonight and it's almost past time for me to go check on some food I've ordered for a guest that seems to be taking a moment or two longer than I'd expect, and nobody else is running it out to me so I need to go check myself and when I return to the bar with his still hot food (I have this sense of timing that sometimes just goes off when someone's food is ready, like my own personal "Spidey-sense" ... it also tingles when I'm being seated a new table yet I'm not within eye-range of the hostess) in my hands, when I do my usual re-entry scan and notice two new guests way down at the end of the bar so I drop the food off hoping to get away quickly without any conversation so that I can greet the new guests and hustle over there and now I'm eye-to-eye with the first of the two guys and holy shit that's George Clooney, and suddenly I have no idea what to do or say.

I don't have a box for this situation in my brain, or know what to do next. No SOP. If Mr. Clooney were an old lady who's oxygen tank had run out, I would know what do to. I've dealt with that before. If he were almost dead and surrounded by paramedics on the ground in front of the salad bar where people are walking back and forth I could step in to direct traffic, and just do the same thing I did the last time a man died in front of me at work.

But this isn't those stories. This is George Clooney, now smiling back at me - and you know what's more? He's looking like he'd like to order a drink ...

Well, in that respect he's just like any one of the other countless thousands of people I've made drinks for. With that, my fear of the unknown dissipates, and muscle memory kicks in. I've got this. Instinctively, I turn away from Mr. Clooney without speaking, because making eye contact and welcoming ALL new guests is a top priority and so, turning to Mr. Clooney's left / my right, my gaze falls upon the face of a man I've seen only once before.

Now, you and I know good and well that he and I didn't exactly get down to a first-name-basis the last time he was here ... heh, not by any means. Nonetheless, there he is, and suddenly my most immediate problem is solved.

Beaming, I stretch forth my open right hand to shake his, and even muster the gaul to say ... "Hi Grant!

"Thanks for bringing me in some new business."

Grant responds by kind of playing along with my vibe for just a second ... even shaking my hand maybe just to see where this is going. Before I lose any momentum, I close the deal - again on instinct - by leaning in saying "What can I get for you?"

Looking back to Mr. Clooney now, I see that he's still turned towards Mr. Heslov with this look that says "Oh, and just how do YOU rate?"

or, "So, you're a bigger shot than me now?" It was quite funny, for improv.

Mustering my focus enough to just casually ask "And you sir?" Mr, Clooney requests a "vodka/cranberry." Surprisingly, he settles for Absolut. Despite my obligatory upgrade effort, he's old school, not a chance.

"Yes, please" he says to the lime, and I get to slide away from this first round knowing that I nailed it. He'll be eating out of my hand from here out.

However, looking back now on the three nights in a row that I served these same gentlemen, I feel remiss that I actually don't remember what Mr. Heslov ordered. Heck, I can still tell you exactly what Mr. Clooney ate even, but not even what Mr. Heslov replied to me in that moment.

And altho I know I sound like I came off pretty smooth in that George Clooney moment, I feel a genuine loss reporting to you that just two nights later, when Kevin Spacey and Jeff Bridges also came into the bar (filming a scene for the same movie), I completely failed to simply hand Mr. Bridges a White Russian saying, "Here ya are, Dude. On me." I still regret not thinking of that.

Man, this has been quite a long blog entry, hasn't it?

You're staring at me. What?

Three nights I waited on him? What happened? What'd he say? How'd he tip? What DID he eat? What's he like?

Details, details ... looks like all of that will have to wait, for what I guess I'll now have to (quite incorrectly) call "The Grant Heslov Story."

Perhaps that can be "Next, on Guy's Work Blog."

Unless I decide to go with "The Randy Miller Story."

Honestly, I rarely know what's next.

The Return of Guy's Work Blog?

2014-11-11T03:43:00.000-05:00

Well, Yes and No.

It's more like The End, actually, but please don't let me get ahead of myself again.

So Hello my peeps. It's been awhile.

He said, somber, and rather overstating-edly.

That's a word I just made up. It's something we servers have to do from time-to-time. My absolute favorite is making up policies on-the-fly, when I don't want to do something. But again, I'm already ahead of myself. I'll tell you more about that in "Let Them Eat Cake" though, so stay tuned.

Many changes have taken place in my life since last we spoke, most of them not easy. I'm feeling my age, my people, I'm feeling my age...

More recently, a random encounter got me talking a little bit about this blog, and long story short now she's a reader, and I need to finish this. For myself that is... And for you as well.

It's not like I've forgotten about you tho - no not at all! (I did forget about a couple on their anniversary back in August and ummmm, that didn't really turn out all that well for me... but) YOU I have definitely been thinking about! I have in fact saved titles and drafted notes for about a dozen more entries (listed below) that I want to include for you.

I've even written "The End." - By that I mean I've already written what I've long considered to be the last and closing chapter to complete this as a book - over a year ago - and can I tell you something...?

It's amazing, that's what. It literally brings a tear to my eye. I picture maybe delivering it on-stage for a Ted Talk or something (shout out to The Moth) and trying not to cry.

It's that damn good, I shizzle you nizzle.

It too, was inspired by a random event while I was serving a family in town shopping colleges for their boy. But you'll have to wait to read it. And it'll only be in the book.

Here, however, is what you can expect to look forward to while you're waiting. I feel it's important because you've been a part of me, and I wanted to let you know that there's still more to come :

The One Where I Had to Wait on the Manager to get the Job

Let them eat Cake - but I’m not cutting it!

The George Clooney Story (Yes, I really did serve him)

A Box of Your Finest Cabernet

Why Luigi likes me

Don't Quit Your Night Job - some day jobs I’ve had

The Time I Cried

86 Oxygen

I Watched A Man Die Tonight (Yes, for realz. At work.)

I Finally Figured Out What You’re Paying Me For

Dirty Word Spoiler Alert

Meanwhile, back at the "We don't carry Ranch"

I Hate This F#$%ing Place

Sound like I've got some pretty good sounding stuff planned ahead for you?

Well thank you, I do try.

"But wait!" you say? "You're NEW to Guy's Work Blog??" "Well, just what in the world have you been missing?" - you might still be wondering?

For the answer to this perplexing question, and more, let's hear it in my afore-mentioned random encounter's own words (which she texted me) :

Guy's Work Blog is

"... funny and down right nitty gritty.
It calls out both sides - servers and guests.
Love it!" - Meryah, Dave & Buster's

That's what she said.

And y'see, that's the kind of quote that sells books, my friends. And if I have that, all I need now is the book to sell to go with it. So back to work! Sure, with the way things are in my life now, I certainly can't promise you a time-table, but at least know that I'm feeling inspired and that I'm still always thinking about you, okay?

And yes, I know I've played the "Almost finished" song for ya while cranking out a series once or twice already. But admit it - it was a pretty good ride, am I right? I didn't much expect it to be at first either, but none leave turn unstoned... right?

For that matter, I've no idea where this series will take me, so it looks like we're all on the last leg of this journey just learning together. Thanks for hanging with me this long - or, if that's not you - enter your e-mail at top to subscribe, and let's see just how much deeper this rabbit hole we can all go.

Oh, and speaking of shizzle - Why does Snoop Dog (aka Snoop Lion) carry an umbrella?

Fo' drizzle.

And just HOW does Snoop Dog get his shirts SO white?

(Answer below...)

He uses bliotch, baby! Bliotch!

Gluten Allergy, My Ass

2013-05-18T03:37:00.001-04:00

Look lady -

Do NOT tell me you have a gluten allergy, and then ask me whether or not the mashed potatoes or the ice cream contains gluten.

#1) I am neither a pharmacist nor a certified dietitian. At my current level of education, I earn two dollars an hour, and I am worth every penny of it. Which - if any - of our foods contain gluten was not on any of the tests I had to pass to get this job, okay?

#2) We both know damn good and well that anyone who is allergic to anything knows good and well what they can or cannot eat when out in public.

The truth is, you're NOT allergic to gluten. The truth is, you heard from a friend over cocktails somewhere that eating gluten-free is healthier, so now you're going through a phase of reading cereal boxes, and asking wait staff lame questions which they don't know the answers to, to indulge your current fantasy of becoming a better You.

And I'm okay with that ... good for you. You go girl, and all that ...

But DO NOT LIE TO MY FACE about it, and tell me you're "allergic" - okay???

I agree that if you seriously were allergic to something, it would be worth my time to try and save your life by wondering around trying to find some kitchen person or manager who may or may not actually know the answer to your question. But you're not allergic, and therefore it's not worth my time to find this out for you. Even if you're "gluten-sensitive" then you're going to have to do your own research on the internet, or maybe pay a dietitian to give you a list of approved foods and places to eat, okay?

Wait staff however, are not generally going to be qualified to get this right for you. Wait staff are generally the kind of people who give you "regular" coffee when you ordered "decaf" because nobody's made decaf yet tonight and we're not about to start now. I'm not like that personally, but it does happen. Wait staff (on average) are about a thousand times more likely to have smoked a fattie right before they came to work, than they are to have "boned up" on their food allergies before they came to work. It's because I love you, that I'm telling you that wait staff are just overall not the type of people you should trust with such important things, okay?

What I can tell you for certain is that we have flour and flour-based batters in the building, because we cook bread and we fry things here. Lots of things. Flour therefore floats through the air at times because of the air conditioner and the fans, and could potentially cover every surface and dish in the entire kitchen at times. And when the air conditioning and fans are not performing well, then sweat - (yes, as in perspiration - dripping off of some cook or waiter's flour-tainted forehead) may be the last ingredient that landed in your dinner just before it got walked out to you. Therefore, nothing in the building can be certified as gluten-free - just "gluten friendly" at the absolute best. Therefore - no matter what I or any other tragically under-educated person in this building tells you - if you really are allergic to gluten then you might die if you eat in this restaurant, period.

Now if our menu, states in writing, that something is gluten-free, then - and only then - can you be certain enough about the gluten content (well, the lack thereof) to order it. If it's in writing then I'd say that someone who cared enough and who actually has the credentials to say so, got paid a lot of money to say so, and to attract gluten-allergic and gluten-sensitive eaters to our business. And if the answer to whether or not you can eat this particular item is a resounding "YES" then you should order it, based on what the menu says, but NOT, NOT, NOT based upon what your server says. Because they don't really know.

But if any of that were the case, AND you really were allergic to gluten, then you'd be ordering it with confidence, without asking your $2 an hour waiter about it.

And if whoever wrote the menu somehow got this wrong, then perhaps you could sue the restaurant for what they incorrectly stated in writing.

Sue them posthumously, I mean.

All I'm saying, is do not trust a restaurant server with this question, and definitely do not lie to them about it either.

Because if you do, then you probably deserve whatever happens to you.

Did I just say all that outloud?

Sorry, didn't realize you were standing there.

Will New IRS Ruling Spell "The End" of Automatic Gratuity?

2013-04-30T15:11:00.000-04:00

More about Restaurant Tipping & Automatic Gratuity

In the future, more restaurant debit/credit slips will look more like this,
to meet IRS regs ensuring that customers can choose how much to tip,
so that the restaurant does not have to deal with the new
"Service Charge" definition of auto-gratuities.
Image: Flicker & Manny Hernandez

Well just in time to interrupt the publishing of this "tippng series" as a book, I should report to those of you who are still (despite my best efforts ;) 100% opposed to seeing an automatic gratuity added to your bills, that you may indeed get your way after all.

Compliments of your friendly Internal Revenue Service.

There's a new IRS ruling that I'm not happy about at all. Now, I'm not grumbling as if this new rule will somehow mean that I/we owe MORE taxes on our tips and gratuities, as you might suspect. It doesn't mean that at all. It's an intense new cluster of paperwork that I can clearly see will make many restaurants drop the practice of auto-gratting, solely to avoid the hassle.

I can already see where all of this will result in less taxable income to me overall, which is why I don't like it.

The gory details are spelled out in many recent articles, like "Restaurants May Have to Change Tip Reporting Systems," "IRS Says Auto Gratuities Are Treated as Wages, Not Tips," and most telling of all "Say Goodbye to Automatic Gratuities."

These articles are rather technical, so boiling things down for you, as I see it the new ruling creates at least two distinct sets of problems for restaurants with an auto-grat policy, in order to remain compliant with the new IRS regulations:

1) The ruling means that the IRS is forcing restaurants to create new (as in extra, not merely different) classifications for reporting servers' income. The new and different columns will revolve around instances of whether the gratuity you pay still fits the old definition of a "tip" or the newer one of a "service charge." If you the customer did not solely determine the specific amount of the tip (as is the case with an auto-grat, which again started as the servers' protection mostly against exceptionally huge losses on large parties) then it is deemed to be a service charge, not a tip.

Which does make sense, I realize. It's kind of like the "labor" you pay for when you get your car worked on - it's a fixed amount that the establishment sets. However, being that it's an actual charge, many states are going to collect sales tax on it, meaning the customer loses out because of higher prices. Oh, and since it's now a charge that's paid to the restaurant (not a tip paid to the server) the restaurant can legally KEEP all of it they want to, and pay their employees whatever they deem appropriate, so long as it's above minimum wage. I can't help but see greedy corporations and dishonest business owners skimming portions of the "service charge" right out of the servers' pockets and into their own. Adding insult to injury, many servers will get their share of these "service charges" on our paychecks now, not on the night you dined. So the waiters lose in this new math as well as the customers.

"The State," meanwhile, will now require separate and additional types of accounting to make the restaurant compliant with FICA laws. I'm always taxed on all tips already, and it's not clear whether this would mean even more taxes owed by me or not (not the point), but it will require much more complicated and headache-inspiring diligence by the restaurant's accountant or accounting firm to keep straight. This obviously will cost them time and probably money to sort out.

2) The auto-grat - now called a service charge - creates all sorts of implications for payroll purposes, requiring near-incomprehensible micro-divisions and sub-categories of wage and taxation classification. This ruling creates new and difficult calculations of what our true "hourly pay" actually is - which could now change on any given day or shift! This creates additional complications in regards to computation of our over-time pay (which we rarely are allowed) becoming even more costly for the restaurant.

The worst part is that if a server has one or two auto-gratted tables on a given night, then three or four which are not, he or she would in effect be working at two different pay-scales simultaneously! This would be a nightmare to keep straight, and downright impossible for a restaurant to correctly track and report, thus inviting the IRS to get on their backs and all up in their business in new and creative ways. And who wants that?

Net result of these factors being the probable elimination the auto-grat entirely by many small businesses and large chains alike. They'll just naturally wish to avoid the paperwork headaches, additional accounting and taxation costs, and probable fines for getting it wrong (because it looks really hard to ever get this new system right).

The only other way to avoid the confusion would be for a restaurant to auto-grat EVERY table, regardless of size. It's possible that only this method could guarantee complete consistency and elimination of errors in their payroll. This would be simple, but definitely not popular, as I'm sure you can agree. That's the way things are done in Europe, and Americans customers don't like the service we get from most European waiters any more than American waiters like the way European customers tip.

Am I right, or am I right?

The losers are many in this system, and the only clear winner I can see is big government. The restaurants lose as operating costs increase and good help goes elsewhere, if they don't both keep the auto-grat and comply with confusing and costly procedures. The servers lose personal income at the places that drop the auto-grat just to avoid dealing with the whole mess. The customers especially lose as the additional labor and accounting costs increase and get incorporated into meal prices.

What I don't think the I.R.S. sees coming however, is that they are just creating anew the very problem they've been trying to solve for decades ... Many, many years ago you see, the I.R.S. became aware that many waiters and waitresses weren't reporting all of their cash tips as income at the end of each shift. Since the 1990's (in my experience), I've witnessed restaurant owners and managers increasingly "tighten the nut" on making sure their waitstaff claims their tips by stricter and stricter policies, to avoid being open to I.R.S. audits and intense scrutiny on their business practices.

This problem has all but gone away in fact, with the rise of Debit Cards however - 95% plus of tables I wait on today pay via debit or credit, and how much they tip is recorded in writing and entered into the computer. All that meaning that the numbers of servers who are accurately and honestly reporting their tips is probably higher today than it has ever been. Not to sound all Ron Paul on you, but this occurred because "the market" itself created the solution (debit cards), not big government or legislation and paperwork.

But these new rules on auto-grat and service charges, I think, are going to have unforeseen results. How so?

Simple - I think more and more people are going to return to tipping in cash. As word spreads, and it becomes common knowledge that the restaurants you eat it are possibly keeping a portion of the service charges and credit card tips to line their own coffers, and that your servers aren't even taking home much of what you *thought* you tipped them, but are now having to wait on their paychecks and hope the employer actually gives it all to them ... I simply think that a new generation of former restaurant people and sophisticated diners who know such details are going to respond with sympathy, and with cash tips, to make sure that the person who actually waited on them actually receives the tip they actually left. My personal thanks to you if this is your choice. I'll still claim it like I always do anyways, but under this new way of doing things, the service charge has a lonnnnnng way to travel before it hits my bank account, and tipping in cash really will again become the best way to reward good service.

So how did these new rules get started anyways? I can only guess, but I'm willing to bet that some IRS agents went out to eat somewhere as a group, their table got auto-gratted, and they were miffed about it.

Perhaps they vowed revenge, and secretly plotted the best way to make sure it would never happen again.

Whatever the case, the IRS may well have succeeded in bringing a near-end to the auto-grat as we know it, as restaurants deal with the practical repercussions of this new legislation, effective January 2013.

So, have my labors of these past few months been in vain? Is this book obsolete before it even sees print?

Nah. For one, many of you readers are becoming better tippers to your servers, or so I'm hearing from you. I do additionally hope that you'll take the time to perhaps be more scrutinizing over your choices of where to eat as well. I hope that you'll reward (with your presence, and discretionary dollars) the places that keep their auto-gratuity, despite the hassles they're going through to be fully IRS compliant.

And just if and when you actually do have a choice of where to eat, it's still my personal opinion that you will generally receive a much higher level of service and professionalism from the waiters and waitresses qualified to obtain, and keep, jobs in restaurants that include auto-gratuity, largely because they want to retain long-term skilled servers.

The old addage says "you get what you pay for..." I believe that the distinction in service levels will become even more apparent to you, both as this new ruling plays out, and as corporations and chains make their choices as to whether or not to include an auto-gratuity in their billing.

What Time Do You Close?

2013-04-28T19:33:00.001-04:00

Not MY face - I'm thinking "YES! Party of 10 equals BANK!!"

Some fellow servers and I are just going to have to part ways on this one, as today's post does not reflect the opinions of most restaurant people.

No doubt most waiters and waitresses will tell you that one of the top most annoying things a customer can ever do, is to walk in five minutes before the restaurant closes for the night expecting to be served.

I saw the question posed on an online forum recently, which read "How long before closing is it acceptable to come into a restaurant for dinner?"

Service (and I'm using the term loosely here) Industry people had definitely taken over the conversation, many arguing that "about an hour" before the posted time is the "appropriate cut-off time" to be seated in a full-service establishment.

I chimed in, and basically told them to get over themselves.

At five to fifteen minutes before closing time all across America, things are definitely being cleaned up and put away. The cooks are breaking down the grill and taking their pots and pans to the dishwasher. Servers have taken apart and cleaned the cappuccino machine, the tea machine, and polished their silverware. Bartenders are pouring hot water over the ice bins and wiping everything else down. The manager is waiting for the last table to pay so that their closing paperwork can begin. Everybody's just counting off the final seconds before they can clock out and go home. I know this all too well my fellow restaurant people, and whilst you or I might never walk into a restaurant five minutes before closing ...

The truth is, we're still open.

No doubt, servers absolutely hate it when they think they're about to leave, then two people stroll in asking "What time do you close?" (... as if the sign out front didn't already answer that question. You're not fooling us with that one, you do realize?)

Anyhow, allow me to be the bad guy who tells these servers that "In five minutes..." is not the correct answer.

I know you've worked a double and have been on your feet for twelve hours. I also know what time you have to be here the next morning. And I know you're pretty sure that your chances of getting drunk or laid are diminishing the later you stay here tonight. I know. The customers don't know this though, and - Newsflash! - they don't want to know either. All they know is that they're hungry, this is a restaurant, and your lights are on.

Unless your restaurant's policy clearly states otherwise (via a sign or consistently observed policy) the only correct answer to these nice hungry people's question is "We don't stop seating for another five minutes, so you made it! Right this way..."

Sorry, I know you were thinking how nice it might be to get off "early" for once, but alas, such is not your fate tonight. Your fate is to work a little harder on that degree (or whatever your thing is) so that one day, when you own a business, you get to decide when it's okay to turn people away. Until then, you're in the "Hospitality Business" which requires one thing of you above all else - some hospitality!

If you really need to get off at a specific time each night, you can always take your people skills and go work at Wal-Mart. We both know good and well however, that your significant other knows by now that you don't get off (or home) at the same time every night - "It all depends on how busy we are" right? Well guess what? You just got busier. So hate me if you want, but I'm just telling you that right now you've got people to wait on. You need to suck it up, be appreciative that they're spending their hard-earned money in your section, and get ready to maybe wash that coffeepot out one more time.

You can argue that "one does not simply walk into" an auto mechanic's business or a dentist's office five minutes before closing, and expect them to stay an hour later for you. You'd be quite correct in that argument. But you're not a dentist, you're a waiter.

In some businesses, the posted closing time is indeed when the last person has to leave the building. Not true in American culture, in the restaurant business however. Here, the cultural norm is that people can come in - and be seated - up until the posted closing time. That's just the way things are, so if you can't play by those rules, then quit asking your boss to give you the money-making closing shifts anymore, and go back to getting "cut" when the newbies do, okay?

Now I am reasonable, and there are limits. The guests need to know this as well. It's okay to politely convey that "Because the kitchen is closing, I do need to get your order in to them in about five minutes." Or two, whatever the case is. That absolutely should be made clear. This is not a case where they're going to be able to enjoy two cocktails and appetizers before ordering. No, not this late. The kitchen staff is already going ballistic in fact, but this should not be conveyed. Nor should it be compounded.

The food will probably come out pretty darn quickly too. They need to eat it, and pay fairly promptly. I don't think the guests in this situation need to feel that it's okay for them to linger, either. I'll gladly take any table that comes in five minutes before closing (or five minutes after, if management is agreeable and the kitchen has not already been broken down) BUT there's a huge difference between closing a place down, and thinking it's alright to still be there when it opens again.

People can come in at the last minute, and I will feed them. They are not permitted to order a third bottle of wine and make out in the booth however, while the waiter, busser, bartender and manager are waiting for them to leave. Nope, that's expecting just a little too much, Romeo and Juliet. I will cordially feed you a great dinner (I will not offer desert), and I'll give you "about an hour" - tops - after the posted closing time before bringing the check.

I will then politely but kinda firmly say "Hey folks, I'm glad we got you in just under the wire, but my manager has to have the books closed out now, before the computer something something something..."

So that's my take on it. When there's still time to be seated, we need to wait on you, and not complain about it. And because we did, when your food is gone and the restaurant really is closed, you need to go.

Fair enough?

Hard to tell just who's side I'm on sometimes, isn't it?

Stereotypes, and Why I Didn't AutoGrat tonight

2013-04-22T04:36:00.000-04:00

Image - PBS Documentary "Black Folk Don't : Tip"

Hey, I've got a joke for ya :

"What's the difference between canoes and lesbians?"

"Canoes tip."

If that offends you, sorry, but it was told to me by a male gay server... which makes it okay, right?

All that was just my way of saying "So, let's talk stereotypes!"

You know, like "Black people don't tip..."

Because just when I think I've successfully argued the rationale and my right to autograt every table I can, along comes a group which gives me pause. Much to the chagrin of my co-worker (and financial partner in tip-sharing for the evening) and after much deliberation, I finally chose not to autograt a party for the first time in memory.

Stereotypes played a large role in this decision.

Late on a slow night, I'm alerted by the manager-on-duty of a new 5-top whom she's just seated in my section. Any optimistic hopes I may have had that this will be the table that "makes my night" (financially) dwindle as I walk into the main dining room and notice that it's a table of five black guys.

I'm sure that sounds quite racist, but it's not. It's common knowledge in the restaurant business that black people - on average - don't tip as well as white people do, on average. Am I stereotyping? Yes I am. We all do, but it's a stereotype supported by my years of experience, and the experiences of many other servers.

Today, there are published studies which explore the statistics behind this stereotype, and even a PBS documentary entitled "Black Folk Don't Tip" by Angela Tucker (who is black, btw). Turner interviews several black people in her video, who generally affirm the truth of the stereotype, and cite possible reasons. One posits that black people have less "tipping history" to draw from, because they were denied entry into restaurants for so long in American history. Another, saying it's perhaps "a throwback to slavery" where black people were forced to work for white people for nothing, and so today when we work for them, we get nothing in return. However, Cornell University's study says that black people "tip less than whites even when the server is black" so maybe that's not it.

Ask any black server if you don't believe me. They will affirm that their experience is the same. As Lawrence (whom I worked with years ago at The Prime Cut) liked to say "I love my people. But I don't like waiting on them."

Now many problems come into play when servers respond to this stereotype as if it were an insoluable fact, the largest perhaps being that servers (black and white) don't really want to wait on black parties. It would be correct to say that our optimism of getting a huge tip wanes, and we walk over to the table hoping we'll make maybe 15% anyways, secretly dreading that we might get stiffed. The black server who wasn't seated this group smiles knowingly and says "Good luck with that" as we go to greet the table. However, in certain cases of being seated a black party, a more unprofessional server will withdraw entirely, purposely giving inferior service because they're not expecting to make much money. This of course creates a truly vicious cycle - or a self-fulling prophecy, if you will - of the black people tipping poorly not because they're black, but because they got poor service, and the stereotype continuing.

I learned my lesson years and years ago on this topic. As a newbie waiter at Ruby Tuesday's (in Knoxville Tennessee, where not a lot of black people live) I was seated a black couple on a Friday night. I was still developing into a server who could handle a busy station at that time, but wasn't quite there yet, and was somewhat aware of the mantra "black people don't tip." Because of the volume levels, I came to one or two points in the hour where I had more to do than I could really execute, and made an internal decision to give worse service to the black couple so that I could give better service to my other three tables, who were all white and presumably would tip me better. Yes, I'm admitting this.

By "worse service" I mean that they didn't get re-filled on their drinks as often or as timely as my other tables. They sat there with empty, dirty plates a bit longer as well, until I was "caught up" enough to take them away. I didn't chit-chat with them as much as I did with my other tables either.

So when all was said and done and I'm picking up my books from the empty tables, guess what? The black couple left me $5. That's five 1980's dollars. Five 1980's dollars at a Ruby Tuesday no less. That equates to about twenty-five modern dollars at the more expensive type of restaurants I work at now, and it was well over 20% of their tab. In fact, going by percentage, they tipped me better than any of the other three tables of white rednecks whom I'd given the preferential treatment to.

I felt shame. I realized that I was a lousy human being, and definitely not a professional server either. Like I said, I learned my lesson that day, and then and there resolved to give the best service I can to everybody, because you really don't know - plus it's my job so I need to just do it as best I can. That day, I experienced what others in Turner's video point out, that some black people actually over-tip in order to make up for the stereotype. They are in effect purposely "buying" a better reputation for their entire race, and sacrificing personally to make things better for other black people and their own children, perhaps. Over the years I have received some truly awful tips from black people (and of course white as well), yet I've also been blatantly over-tipped several times as well, from certain black guests.

(Up until now, I've really not wanted to tackle the "black people don't tip" idea in this blog because I know it's controversial. As evidence of my intent and attitude however, I remind you of "Miss Virginia" from my "Worst Day Ever" entry, where I quite purposefully mentioned that she tipped me 30% that day, as my subtle yet intentional effort of not perpetuating the more common attitude. Did ya even notice I did that?)

So anyways, five black guys, right?

Our restaurant's website encourages guests to dress in "business casual" attire, but apparently these guys didn't get that memo. Not a problem, as not everybody that comes in here dresses up, but all I'm saying is that their outfits weren't chosen to help me feel like they were big tippers. There were many bright colors, some loose jeans which were showcasing some really stylish underwear, and not all of their jeans were blue for that matter. Whether these guys were looking "gangster," "ghetto," "styling and profiling" for going to a nice club later or for shooting a hip new music video was not immediately apparent to me. At this point in my life, I'm just too uncool to tell the difference anymore. So maybe I'm generalizing, but the idea that these guys are the "over-tipping type" of black folk doesn't exactly enter my head.

Now, judging solely by their voices and speech patterns, something else becomes apparent as I'm greeting the guys and getting their drink orders. These guys are gay. Well call me sheltered, but the thought occurs to me that "Hey... I don't think I've ever been in the company of five gay black men before..."

Then another thought immediately creeps into my head. "Hey, gay men are usually fantastic tippers. This could turn out well!" It's just another stereo-type I know, but also one that proves to be true when averaged out in the long term.

So while I'm waiting on the guys (and giving them my normal friendly, efficient service I might add) I can't help but wondering how these stereo-types will work together. Will they cancel each other out, or will one trump the other?

"If racial stereotype equals matter, and orientation stereotype equals anti-matter......?" I'm pondering.

Wait, the plot thickens. Another friend joins them, and then another, making seven gay black men that I'm waiting on now. Gay, black, or not, that's seven people Bucco, and our menu states that 20% gratuity will be added to parties of 7 or more.

My tip-pool partner and I raise our eyebrows optimistically and with a hint of relief, knowing that all elements of chance and universe-shattering paradoxes have disappeared, because now we can auto-grat. And if there's any question, even James (a fellow waiter, who is black) says "Do it."

Not that there's any question whatsoever, if you know me.

But then A SNAG comes up. One of the "joiners" isn't eating. Or drinking anything. He's really just there to meet up with his friends before they all move on to somewhere more exciting than this place. I did bring him water, but he didn't ask me to.

So how does that figure in to the auto-grat equation? The number is right, but one's not eating. In fact, two others aren't eating either, they're just having drinks while their friends eat, before all going out together.

I know what you're thinking .. "Well of course you can't auto-grat if one of them didn't even order anything!" I'm sure you're thinking this, right?

But that's just you, and this is probably the first time you've ever pondered the situation. Plus, if your income has never depended upon how you answer such questions, then you might even call me biased (or other, more choice words) but this ain't my first rodeo. I've made this call a dozen times easily, and even had to answer for it a couple of times.

Once, I had some customers (white folk) "call me" on auto-gratting them when one of their party was an infant who didn't order an entree, but that little baby made the table reach the magic number. The menu doesn't say how many entrees result in an auto-grat, it says people. Your little tyke is a person whether he orders from our menu or not, and that counts. Even though little tykes usually graciously tip by leaving 20% of their Cheerios behind for me, I can't spend Cheerios, and the fact that you brought him or her out took up space that I had to clean up afterwards, and they count as a person. Every time.

Black, White, Hispanic, Foreigners, Christians (I love my people, but I don't like waiting on them) - doesn't matter, I will auto-grat when the restaurant's policy says so, and you know this about me, right? And you still love me...

But this... tonight... this table launches me into some truly new territory. This one I have to really think about, and I now appreciate them coming in for that reason alone. They've turned my otherwise mundane night into one of exciting mental gymnastics and ethical and moral dilemmas and stuff, that require me to actually THINK about what I'm doing, for the first time in Oh so long!

All they had was appetizers and a few drinks. My partner expects me to auto-grat them, and it's his income on the line as well as mine if I don't, if the group doesn't tip. The restaurant's policy is to auto-grat. So why am I hesitating?

Well, because they're black. That, and I have a soul. There's a chance they'll challenge the auto-grat based on the fact that one of them didn't eat. I've politely stood my ground on that one before but in this case, I feel like they'll think I'm pushing the policy beyond what is reasonable simply because they're black, not because of my personal policy on people and numbers. Maybe they'd make a scene (no more or less of one than pissed-off white people would, I mean) but whether they would or not, in my heart I just know... they'll be offended.

I'm not in the business of offending people, but I do expect to be paid for what I do. My partner for the evening makes it known that he expects me to grat them, and the manager (white girl, who dates a black guy) has already told me that she will authorize doing so, based on the number of people at the table.

I'd be "in the right" but only in a very debatable way.

Oh, decisions, decisions...

"Black people don't tip."

"Gay men are great tippers."

The moment of truth arrives, and I go to James (the black waiter, and our "senior server" that night) for one last opinion. I have every confidence that what James will say will match what he'd do if it were his money - and his personal integrity - at stake. He asks me "How much is the tab up to?" I show it to him - just $74. His words echo what I've already decided, but man it's good to get a second opinion from a server more professional than my snot-nosed young partner for the evening.

"Don't grat that shit," he says, and I don't. I can't. Acting within my rights somehow doesn't feel right this time. $14 ($7 to me) just isn't worth offending people over.

So for the first time in over a decade, I don't grat a table that I could have, and decide to earn my money (or not) the old-fashioned way this time - by leaving it up to the customer.

I split the checks up as they've directed me, and spin the wheel to see what happens.

Curious? Admit it. You are...

Well, if it were a poker hand, I just hit a straight - of stereotypes.

One guy stiffed me on his beer. The two that ate left me $3 on $42, for about a 7% tip. One left me $2 on a $10 cocktail. And the one that had an appetizer and a coke left a ten-dollar tip on his $16 check.

Every so-called "black stereotype" possible, all at one table.. the stiff, the crap tip, the industry standard one, and the over-tipper who evens out the bad ones.

The auto-grat would have been about $14.80. Without it, we made $15, kept the peace, and I slept well. If not for the over-tipper though, Id've owed my partner a few bucks - and would have gladly paid it because part of being a grown-up means that every now and then you just have to take one for the team.

The human team, that is.

If you're like me, one question remains however :

If they were seven heterosexual black men, would I have taken the same risk, or would I have gratted them?

Well, I can't honestly say off the top of my head. Every situation's different, and you never know what you're going to do sometimes. All I can say for sure, is that if having a bisexual roommate in college who dragged me along to Academy Award winning movies by Spike Lee taught me anything, it would have to be

"Always do the right thing."

Attack of the Coupon People and Gift Certificate Users : Waiters Tremble

2013-02-18T16:27:00.000-05:00

"It's the most, wonderful time, of the yeeeeeeear!" I'm lying again.

So it's mid-February as I write this.

I, and millions of other servers, are breathing a long collective sigh of relief, as we've FINALLY gotten past what can be our most trying time of the year.

I'm speaking of the dreaded January - which for us lasts from New Years' Eve through Valentine's Day.

For servers, the "month" of January is bracketed by the two "Amateur Nights" listed - noteworthy for the large number of cheap unsophisticated diners and poor tippers who only get out on such holidays whom we've just churned through. These rough nights are connected together by weeks in-between that are filled with possibly the slowest and least income-producing weeks of our lives (because people are broke from holiday spending and not eating out as much). Making matters worse, January is painfully dotted with people redeeming the gift certificates they received over the holidays.

All that, and our landlords knocking loudly, and our bills coming to us mailed in increasingly fluorescent colors, and using increasingly stern language.

As I was saying...

"Possibly the biggest sign of cheapness, unsophistication, and us receiving a poor tip from a guest would be the use of a coupon (or these days, a Groupon)..."

Add to that list, gift cards.

"The restaurants take a loss when promoting these deals in the hopes of bringing in new customers who otherwise might not ever come in, to try out our restaurant so that we can "wow you" into becoming a regular. A regular who will pay the regular price on future visits, that is. It works to a point and there's nothing wrong with taking advantage of a deal, but we've noticed that these promotions tend to bring in the pickiest, cheapest, stingiest, most demanding people as well, who won't ever be back unless they get another deal, or a gift card..."

My advice to you (if you like attentive service, that is) is that unless the deal specifically states "render coupon when ordering" that you DON'T disclose this to your server until it's time to pay. (Just make sure that it's not expired when you do so.) We've had way too many bad experiences with "coupon people" and gift-card redeemers that you don't want us to put you in that mental box from the very beginning, if you can at all avoid it.

So here's how to get around being treated as "coupon people" by a jaded server ...

First, let's identify the actual problem, so that you'll know where we're coming from and why there even is a problem to examine. The problem for us is that way too many people tip on the after-discount price of their meal, instead of on what they actually ordered. This really makes us want to break things.

I know that you may not know this (and so I'm all too glad to tell you) but we still get taxed and pay tip-out to our support staff on the WHOLE amount of your check, BEFORE your discount gets figured in. Appalling, I know. This often has the practical effect of eating up whatever tip you leave, if you tip based only on the discounted total we present to you. Much to your surprise I'm guessing, your "method of payment" - cash, credit card, gift certificate, or coupon deal - does not change how much food and beverage we rang up for you (nor the amount of work we did, for that matter). THIS dollar amount is still reflected in our "total sales" at the end of the shift, and again, is the dollar amount we tip out and are taxed on.

Using the formula I did earlier when getting stiffed, it goes like this : A $100 tab that's half food and half alcohol could result in about $5.50 in tip-out for me. Let's say that you redeem a $50 gift card or coupon, getting a bill of only $50, and then you tip 20%, or $10. At least you think you tipped me $10, but really I only received $4 after tip-out and what Uncle Sam keeps. If you tipped only 15% ($7.50) on the $50 check you received, guess what? I'm still paying the same in tip out and taxes, and you just tipped me $2 on $100 worth of food and beverage service.

And them's fightin' words, pahdner.

I think people more instinctively "get it" in cases where their bill comes to $105 and they are presenting a $100 gift card, for example. I'd like to believe that not one in a hundred people are calloused or stupid enough to honestly think that tipping 20% (or $1) on their $5 balance is appropriate. However, what I'd like to believe and what I've observed as reality over the years (and past several weeks) are miles apart. Some people really are like that, and in "January" it seems like we wait on them all several times each week.

I know full-well that you've probably never looked at things this way, and I'm not complaining. Much. I'm merely filling you in on how coupons and gift cards work from our perspective. Knowing this now, do you want to be waited on by a server who thinks from the very beginning that he or she could possibly lose money because you came in tonight and sat in their section? Perhaps now you see why our eyes roll back into our heads a bit, or our bodies tense up a bit, when you break out that $100 gift card, or your coupon deal. It is the extremely rare server indeed who sees these and thinks "Oh Boy! Here's my chance to impress first-time guests so much that they'll come back and spend real money with me one day in the distant future! I can't wait to tell my kids and my landlord about this!"

No, that guy's non-existent in fact. When we see these, what we're really thinking about are the ninety people before you who used these and tipped on the discounted total and left us $2 or less, practically speaking. And the nine people who were gone when we came back to collect, who'd put their coupon and some cash in the book and dashed out, only to realize that their deal had expired or was somehow invalid. And the one we had a confrontation with in the parking lot over this, because the restaurant illegally makes us pay for walk-outs and payment shortages.

THAT'S who you are to us when we see these.

You're the couple who thought they'd left me a "very generous" 40% tip this week. After their $100 gift certificate, their tab was $30. Up until the moment they broke out the gift certificate, I'm thinking (like we all do) that I'll maybe receive $26 or more on $130 worth of food, wine, and service with a smile. Thankfully, they were generous (from their perspective?) and left me $12. In my reality though, their 40% was less than 10% - minus taxes and tip-out. I did of course tell them my name again, and to please ask for me when they return.

After all, it's not like they redeemed $200 worth of gift certificates all at once and tipped $7.50 on the balance of $50 (15% to them, 3% to me, minus tip-out). No, that would be the "Joneses" who told me that this was the first time they'd been here in almost 20 years. Maybe I'll get lucky, and it'll be another 20 years before they return... Yup, that's jaded server talk for you! I did not repeat my name to these Joneses, nor invite them to ask for me ever again. Sorry if it disappoints you to know that about me

So finally, I'm just curious if maybe you're the guy who doesn't understand what "No Cash Value" means on a gift card? If that's you, it means you can't render a $100 gift card on your $82 meal and tell us to keep the change. All it means is that the restaurant profited an additional $18 from the transaction, and your server got stiffed if you left this card in the server book and ran out the door.

"No Cash Value" means that you're going to have to plan ahead on spending $15 or $20 in real cash if you mean to leave a tip, and then come see me again to redeem the remaining $18 in food and beverage. It's not rocket science.

I'd go on, but that could get whiney. Whining's not the point. The point is telling you how not to be seen as "that guy" from the outset by your server, and to help you get better service.

My totally sage advice is that at the very second you present your deal, in order to prevent us from wincing and checking out mentally on you, you must say to your server "Hey (name), can you print me out a copy of our bill before the discount gets applied, so that we know how much we're actually tipping on?"

Just like I advised the foreigners earlier, you do that, and you'll see a server who will bend over backwards and maybe do cartwheels through the dining room, ignoring all the other coupon people in their section to make sure you get the most preferential treatment they're capable of.

Like the "Smiths!" They too redeemed $200 in gift cards last week. I pick up the little black server book after they're gone, and - braced for the worst after so many weeks of this - I see that they've tipped me $20 on $220 total. I walk through the dining room keeping my composure and not breaking anything valuable because I'm a professional, only to discover once again what happens when I don't wear my glasses.

At the computer now, first I'm squinting, then my eyes open wide. Wait, that two is actually a seven. Awwwwww! The Smiths KNOW how to use a gift card properly! At least they use it like a server would.

The Smiths left me $70, sharing the gift they'd received with the server who waited on them. THAT my friends, is how to properly redeem a gift card or coupon!

Don't say I never gave you a happy ending.

More Tips for Getting Good Service

2013-02-18T14:03:00.000-05:00

You can be assigned "a good waiter" but if he or she senses that you're "a bad diner" then your service may still be somewhat lacking. But even a bad waiter can step up and deliver incredible service from time-to-time, if you just know which of our buttons to push, and which not to push. Part 1 of my Tips for Getting Good Service had more to do with helping you understand a few key things from our side of the table, and you should totally read it before reading this page, which is actually Part 2.

Aside from cues of sophistication (as I explained last time, and the time before that) which can help you get better service when dining in a restaurant, we're just as likely to pick up on cues of unsophistication from you of course, and one of the biggest red flags for us would be obvious indicators of "cheapness" on your part...

Like I said, we're judging you from the very beginning.

Things that convey "tightwad" to us sometimes include ordering "Water with Lemon" or the sharing of entree plates. I'm personally probably a lot more understanding and less judgmental about these decisions than many, many servers are. Just because you choose not to blow a ton of money routinely on frivolous charges does not automatically mean to me that you're going to tip poorly mind you.

However, it does tell me (and other servers) that your total check is going to be less than a table who orders alcohol, $3 soft drinks, big appetizers and full entrees. Ordering frugally, even when tipping 20%, obviously results in a smaller net tip for us overall. Seeing this coming admittedly does prove a little de-motivating for us in general, plus at this point we've no idea of how well you do or don't tip; we just know that our odds of us retiring after you leave have dwindled based on the size of your total check.

I'm certainly not saying never to do these things (you're entirely within your rights to do so and it's my job to bring them to you) but the simple fact is that we earn our living off of other people's excess, and so early signs of frugality can be a little discouraging to us. Unfortunately for you, some servers really will "check out" on you over things like this and perhaps become less attentive, and I'm sorry, and I agree that such is wrong.

However, you can earn a lot of positive points no matter what you're ordering with this ONE little trick : use our names. Most likely, I told you my name, and if you use it, it's a sure sign that you were paying attention to me and actually DO view me as a human being after all. It also suggests that you're experienced enough at dining out to be comfortable and casual in the experience, and more likely a sophisticated diner. I'd recommend using your server's name once early on, then maybe once again. (Three, four, five times gets a little creepy however.) A simple "Thank you Guy" when I deliver your drink or "Hey Guy, we have a question...." goes a long way.

Here's another secret. If we didn't tell you our name, or even if we did, you should ask it, or verify it early on. Why? Acknowledging our humanity aside, many restaurants (corporations especially) use "mystery shoppers" - people who eat for free or perhaps even get paid just for filling out a very detailed report on their experience at the restaurant. The server's personality, proficiency, timeliness and all sort of things are being graded and reported back to the corporation in these instances, and can affect our standing with our bosses very much sometimes. If for some reason we think you're a "shopper" then we're likely to be extra attentive and on the ball. Try it sometime, just don't try it and then tip poorly okay? Servers everywhere will hate me if I give you this information, and then you "fake us out" without tipping 20%, so don't get me in trouble or I will find you.

Possibly the biggest sign of cheapness, unsophistication, and us receiving a poor tip from a guest would be the use of a coupon (or these days, a Groupon)...

The restaurants take a loss when promoting these deals in the hopes of bringing in new customers who otherwise might not ever come in, to try out our restaurant so that we can "wow you" into becoming a regular. A regular who will pay the regular price on future visits, that is. It works to a point and there's nothing wrong with taking advantage of a deal, but we've noticed that these promotions tend to bring in the pickiest, cheapest, stingiest, most demanding people as well, who won't ever be back unless they get another deal, or a gift card...

So sorry it's taken me over two months to crank this little entry out. I've had it drafted for ages but didn't know how to wrap it up. Now I do, so stay tuned for "Coupon People." Meanwhile, maybe you should Google "waiters hate Groupon" just for fun.

You Don't Have to be Rich to Rule My World

2012-12-06T18:08:00.000-05:00

Not that YOU'LL ever own one of these heavy chunks of metal,
but Spock is not impressed even if you do.

In relation to my last post about sort of basing my actions on cues from my customers - I thought I could share a few minor tips with you that may help you to receive slightly better service when you eat at a sit-down restaurant. Perhaps much better service even.

This one's particularly long, and not particularly funny by the way...

I know that when you dine out, some of you perhaps put more than a little time and thought into judging your server than others. Some people hardly acknowledge our existence, while for others of you, talking about your server actually constitutes a significant part of your conversation for the evening.

I think it will serve you well to know that quite often, we're judging you as well. And in most cases, talking about you too.

You're judging us by certain criteria, as we are you. You're adding and knocking off points ... and guess what? We're doing the same.

Being wealthy or well-dressed are not among the factors that most readily come into play for us when sizing you up, by the way. Most servers can attest that many rich people are also among the stingiest ("... they obviously intend to stay rich by not giving me their money" we often sarcastically say, after bitterly wincing at a 15% tip from a holder of a legendary Black American Express Card for example). Racial stereo-types, while admittedly rampant amongst some servers, fail us as well, and a server with much experience at all will have learned their lesson and moved past such thinking (I'll tell you my story on that soon).

Auto-grats on larger parties aside, waiting tables is a crap-shoot, as we really have no idea or set formulas for knowing whether putting "extra effort" into offering great service to you will pay off or not. Some of us may think we do when we're young at this, but over time we realize there are very, very few reliable indicators to go by on exactly "who" will be a great tipper or who will be a crappy one.

Many of us will say that we have learned "to give the exact same level of good service that we can to everybody, and treat everybody the same, because you never know, and just can't judge..." and I'd count myself among the number of servers who operate from that general philosophy.

Yet my last entry brought to my mind that that's not exactly true, no matter how convincingly I lie to myself about it, or wish it were true. I do in fact base at least some of my actions on some overall generalities I've picked up on about guests' behavior that I've observed in nearly twenty-five years of waiting tables and bartending. And Surprise, Surpise... to me it's safe to say that YOU as a customer have much more control over how much attention any particular server is going to pay to you, and how we're going to prioritize you over other guests in the restaurant (if a choice is called for on our part, that is) - than I think you will ever realize.

And here (BIG SECRET!!!!) is exactly what we're looking for : Have you ever even eaten out in a restaurant before, or is this really your first time getting out of the house? Are you a "very experienced diner" who eats out regularly, and therefore most likely knows the culture and norms of the restaurant experience -OR- or are you the type who maybe only gets out on your birthday, Mothers' Day, Valentine's or maybe New Years' Eve? ...The shifts we routinely refer to as "Amatuer Night."

If you do happen to fall into the latter category (and I'm not judging you for this) I'm here to tell you how to be treated as if you don't, because most even semi-experienced servers are going to react and treat you according to this scale, and we all eventually become quite proficient at picking up on even the subtlest of cues from you that answer this question for us.

As a public service I'm just telling you that quite often your behavior - from before you even sit down sometimes - plays as much into the quality of service you're going to receive, as does how "good" your server really is, or isn't.

So in case you haven't picked up on this from me yet, the amount of Politeness and Respect guests display towards us are quick indicators to us on where exactly you fall on this scale.

To wit, if I greet your table warmly and say "How are you doing tonight?" (which I never ask, but for the sake of argument) and you answer "Iced tea" you have already gotten off on a really bad foot with me, and with every server in America.

Answering a server's greeting with your drink order is neither polite nor respectful. Doing so goes a long way towards telling us that you don't exactly view us as human beings, and are probably not going to be inclined to treat us as one either. And by "human being" I mean someone who works hard for a living in a respectable profession, who deserves to be well paid if excellent service and phenomenal recommendations are rendered to you.

No, what you're telling me is that you're probably the type who takes for granted that people everywhere are supposed to cater to your every whim, and that the whole world must bow down to your greatness, owing you their subservience based solely upon... um, nothing. You don't VALUE people's humanity or their labors on your behalf, and you probably won't pay for such either, succinctly sums up what I just heard from you. So with just this one little rude and dismissive failed interaction on your part, you've begun a process of detatching your server from your table - emotionally for certain - and quite often physically as well, perhaps right when you want them around the most.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not looking to make a new best friend out of you or anybody I wait on. It's just that we're taught and instructed to greet you in a welcoming manner and to make eye contact. If dining out often and tipping well is part of who you are, then you know this. You expect it, and you'll play the game.

These initial moments are also crucial to us "reading the table" in our attempt to figure out exactly what you want from us today. If you want us to make ourselves scarce so that you can talk amongst yourselves without lots of interruption, we'll figure that out on our own usually, based upon how little you talk to us in an initiating or engaging way. And that's fine, we're glad to oblige. If you get out much, then I know I'll be rewarded financially by you for figuring that out and for respecting and meeting that need, rather than smothering you with my charm and personality and ability to make small talk with complete strangers. Nonetheless, for job security if nothing else, I may have to go through a "special" or two at the beginning of our interaction while also trying to sell you an appetizer. If you're anywhere near being a sophisticated diner, you'll know this too, and patiently let me do my thing.

How you respond and interact (or not) with our little spiel at the beginning of the meal - and during the routine process of delivering drinks and taking the rest of your order - often has a great impact on the type of service you're going to receive the rest of the meal. If you're polite, attentive, and even just somewhat respectful to your server, expect it to come back you. These are very positive indicators to us that you dine out frequently enough to understand the norms of the profession so well as to expect them as part of receiving what you know is good service. When we observe this, we're most likely going to act as if that level of understanding will be reflected in your understanding of tipping norms as well. In short, we will be optimistic enough about our chances of being tipped well to want to work even harder to earn it.

If you're rude, short and dismissive though, we'll feel unwelcome and unwanted at your table, and eventually make ourselves scarcer and scarcer to avoid the whole Pavlovian having our feelings hurt thing. The questions we might want to ask to help us know what will make this a truly great dining experience for you will go unasked, and our service levels will start to wane. Dramatically. Why would I want to bother asking a guy if he'd like fresh cracked pepper on his Caesar salad or New York Strip steak, if every time I approach the table he glares and makes me feel like I'm interrupting something?

Because it's my job.....? Seriously, don't make me laugh.

There's a world of difference between doing my job, and "interrupting" sir, and I do know where the line is. If you do also, I'll be able to tell, and I will be able to offer you a better dining experience than if you plainly show me you don't "get" where that line should be drawn. I don't even have to "ask you" about the pepper, per se, or talk every time I approach your table. I'm fine just walking up with the grinder in hand and offering it to you non-verbally, but to benefit from my offer a little eye contact and at least a nod from you would be required... y'know, unless acknowledging my existence is just somehow beyond you.

Or maybe you'd enjoy trying "a free taster" of some really superior craft beer that you didn't know we carry, but from what you ordered initially I think you'll really, really love... but if I'm being treated as an intrusion to your life maybe I'll just keep quiet instead. Then later, I'll just let you wander aimlessly around the building to find the bathroom yourself rather than being nearby and available each and every time you might possibly need me.

We waiters can be somewhat passive-aggressive like that.

Or maybe I'll view that moment as my chance to finally connect with you and offer you great service. Who knows?

Dude all I'm saying is that many of my co-workers and I are a wealth of information. Beyond being lowly hourly chumps who can't hold "a real job" (as some of you say), we are resources you could really benefit from tapping, if you'd just take a second to consider that many of us are indeed highly trained professionals with years of experience who happen know a lot more about a very few things than you ever will.

For instance, I happen to know that for just $5 more than the bottle you picked out, you could instead order the Cabernet that won the Double-Gold Medal award at the San Francisco International Wine Competition last year, and is therefore now completely sold out on the internet and extremely hard to find. BUT we've got three bottles left and one of them could be yours ... priceless information which I'm all too glad to share, if I think you respect my opinion enough to allow me ten seconds to tell you about it.

Of course you might wonder "How" could someone who makes $2.13 an hour know much of anything about so many different $100+ bottles of wine? If you're thinking that surely I can't afford enough of those myself to have tried them all, then you'd be absolutely correct. However, we do have wine classes and tastings from time-to-time. The liquor reps or restaurants invest a little time and a few bottles so that the staff will know their product and be able to sell it for them with enthusiasm and authority. Simple. That's not how I know so much about this one however. Last month a table left about three ounces of this yummy goodness behind (because "TouchDown" is a phenomenal salesman who got them to order more than they really needed or could responsibly enjoy) and so we tried it ourselves in the kitchen. Loving it, I spent close to half an hour Googling this particular wine on a slower night for reviews and descriptive information, just so I could convincingly recommend this particular slice of vino heaven to those few lucky future guests who might value my opinion. So, do you feel lucky punk?

Lest ye think I'm venting about someone in particular, I'm not. I'm channeling my - and thousands of other servers' - collective frustrations just to illustrate for you exactly how my experience can help you to get better service and preferential treatment for the rest of your life when you go out. You can thank me later.

Well maybe all of this hoity-toity wine talk on my part isn't your cup of tea however. Maybe you mostly dine modestly at the same places regularly on your lunch break, and you've already figured out what you like when you go there. So why should you look at your unskilled labor-pool server as anything other than an order-taker, who eventually will be replaced by an automated computer system anyways, right? Well, unlike computer touchscreens, we eat here too. A lot. And we experiment sometimes too, because eating the same thing has gotten old for us. Some eye contact, politeness and respect, and a willingness to acknowledge your server's humanity could be rewarded in unexpected ways.

For example, that college-girl single mom that waits on you all the time, eats the same sandwich that you order all the time. However, she's figured out that it's SO much better if you change this cheese for that cheese, add some of this sauce, and get the cook to pan saute the bread with garlic butter rather than simply toasting it. Have it her way for once, and viola! You've just received a masterpiece for lunch that left your co-workers drooling, just by being slightly more personable with your waitress than the last twenty times she waited on you. Turns out she has a brain and is good for something other than just tea refills after all.

At times we're admittedly going to be too busy to really let our true personalities and gifts shine through for you, but there are also plenty of times when you can get much more "service" out of a server just by being polite enough to want to find out what this particular human being can bring to your dining experience that a robot can't. The trick to learning just what that is lies in understanding that anybody who can earn a living in this profession is in part a "people-pleaser" by nature. Tips aside, there's just something in us that actually motivates us from the inside-out to want to do right by you. Of course we're here to make money, but we also like to go home feeling like we nailed it, and did a really good job today. Feeling like we stretched ourselves to do something unique for someone who appreciated it, plus having a neat story to tell to our significant others or our co-workers, actually gets us off in some strange way.

In my case, way back when I wasn't all hoity-toity, didn't take my job or life that seriously, and was just slugging my way through shift-to-shift existence at Ruby Tuesday, I was still "that one guy" who would make you a salad so that you didn't have to get up to go to the salad bar. The stipulation was "You are not allowed to tell me what you want on your salad. If there's anything you hate or are allergic to then tell me, but otherwise you're eating what I eat. If Guy is making you a salad, then you're getting a "Guy Salad" and you're going to love it."

Whatever it is, most servers do have something unique to bring to the table (pun intended) that can make your dining experience so much more memorable and enjoyable than the last ten times you ate out, so long as we pick up somehow from you that you're worthy of showering you with our best.

Now, we're just as likely to pick up on cues of unsophistication from you of course, and one of the biggest red flags for us would be obvious indicators of "cheapness" on your part...

Even more whining from me, and more tips on how to get better service coming up soon.

But first, this true story from around 1989, back when if you worked in a restaurant, you could get served alcohol in one, no matter how old you were :

We're off work and sitting around enjoying cocktails at the "other" Ruby Tuesday in town.

Kim joins us, downs a shot, and then says "I've got a bone to pick with you Guy Malone."

"What's that?" I ask quite insincerely.

"I had a table tonight, that wanted me to make them a salad (hiccup) thanks to you."

"So did you?"

"No!" she says "We have a Salad Bar" I told them.

"Well Guy makes us a salad" they said. So I said "Well maybe you should have asked for his section."

"And you know what they said to me? They said "WE DID. But his section was full. Yours is empty. Maybe that should tell you something!"

"Oh yeah" I reply, smirking. "I said Hi to them at the Salad Bar. They told me they were going to call ahead next time and make sure I was their waiter. They're great tippers. It would have been worth your time to make them salads."

"Well they stiffed me. I hate you Guy Malone." she says.

Well Kim probably went on to graduate college and is now doing fine in some profession of her own, and I'm still waiting tables more than twenty years later.

I guess it's hard to tell who got the last laugh, but I still think it's funny.

So whether I've wasted my life or am doing exactly what I'm best at and was born to do, I don't know.

Either way, I'm hoping you're benefiting from my experience.

When & Why I DO Tell People the Tip is Included

2012-11-19T00:22:00.000-05:00

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While I didn't state such, previously, I was speaking to you largely from my mindset of 10 and 15 years ago.

This is partly because I began this most recent portion of the series with an example of my emotional reaction to a situation that happened while dining out with friends 15 years ago. I also know that I'm addressing experiences you yourself may have had in the past, as a diner who was not "told" (I mean verbally) that gratuity was included in your bill.

Additionally, I am well aware that I'm not telling you just my story anymore, but also the story of many other American waiters and waitresses. Not going out of our way to bring attention to an auto-grat is no doubt part of our collective history.

The times they a'changing however. My industry evolves over the years, as does what guests know and expect. I too have matured, and have been afforded years to try out many different angles while observing guests' reactions, and the net effect on my income that different approaches to various situations have. Of course there are no one-size-fits-all "magic bullets" to fire in given situations because all guests are different and the scenarios are always somewhat unique. Still, certain patterns become observable to us servers over time, and the more experience a waiter has, the more we tend to develop certain default actions and even "lines" to help assure professional behavior on our part, overall guest satisfaction (delight, even) on your part, and a steady, reliable income to us overall.

I might even say that the age of servers occasionally getting double-gratted has arguably come and gone. One does not have to be a sophisticated diner these days to know that auto-grats are quite common, and to be watching for them. In fact it's probably appropriate to say that many diners are somewhat on the defensive about this today - about the possibility of getting "taken" by what they feel could be a dishonest server - which I find completely understandable as well.

Heck, I know I am. That's part of why I always read the details of my check.

I also know that whether I'm waiting on 2 people or 20, one of the keys to me earning a great tip lies in distinguishing myself from the other 500 people who may have waited on you in your lifetime. There are many, many ways in which I try to do just this, as providing you with a unique and exceptional experience unlike any other time you've eaten out equals much more money in my bank account. At least it's supposed to anyways, but alas, you are the final arbiter of the bottom line, not I.

So in talking this over with many co-workers in recent years, and myself being in the position of laying down a large party's check routinely, I'm starting to default more and more to verbally disclosing to some guests when an auto-gratuity has been included. The trick for me lies partly in determining what type of guest you are, and whether or not doing so could be to my advantage, or not.

Read on to see if you qualify.

Last week I had the pleasure of waiting on a party of eleven in town from Chicago for an NFL game. The adults included (I'm guessing) two siblings in their late twenties or maybe early thirties, their spouses, five young children between them, and finally a more senior couple (i.e., the grandparents). The group had made a reservation (equalling "points" already - you'll see what I mean by that soon), and I of course knew I was going to receive an auto-grat because of size of the party.

Very early on, my fellow waiter "Gorgonzola" informs me that the eldest male (i.e., the grandfather) approached him on the way to the restroom, and asked my co-worker to convey to me that he was to receive the entire check. Moments later, at the table, the wise grandpa made eye contact with me and began to quietly ask me while I was at his end of the table "Hey, did ummm ...."

"Yes he did," I interrupted, nodding, and saying "You got it," thus ending the matter and assuring him that his instructions were understood and would be carried out, with neither he nor I bringing any more attention to the topic in front of everyone else. Obviously, if he had wanted to discuss the check in front of everyone else, he would not have approached Gorgonzola privately, so I did my best to settle the question for him discreetly as well, which I'm pretty sure he appreciated.

This by the way (going off-topic now) is hands-down one of the best ways to pick up a large check, if ever you are so inclined. Far too many waiters including myself are forced to undergo watching grown-up people fight and compete like complete imbeciles right in front of us when a check gets delivered at the end of a meal. As if you're honestly expecting the poor server to make the decision as to who pays, almost always ensuring we're making one person or another angry at us, while you continue to express transparently feigned bravado by taking it out on us as your friend/relative/associate pays the check, just as you really wanted.

So, if you're ever going to "insist" on picking up a check, I'd like to recommend that you either do exactly what this wise grandpa did and discreetly let your server (or another staffer) know your intent as early as possible, or just come out and say so out loud at the beginning of the meal. If a fight must break out over this issue, I'd rather you settle it as I'm walking away to get your drinks, rather than having to stand there at the end of your meal while you work it out.

But having found myself stuck in the middle of this exact situation too many times, my default rule for over 20 years has been "Whoever asks first gets the check." End of argument, and I won't involve myself any farther than that if you try to make me decide. There may be a little wiggle room for debate on a 2-top or other small table, where I might think twice and try to guess who seems more likely to tip well, but when there's an auto-grat involved, no way. I don't have time for ego-stroking or pissing contests amongst grown men. Having such a policy and sticking to it seems to be the only way I can remain professional and neutral in the debate, and not waste a lot of valuable time standing around at tables hearing all sides, or playing moderator to decide who has the better argument ("But they're our guests..." "No, they paid last time..." "Well it's a business expense, I can write it off...") Actually, if you're visiting guests or it's your birthday, I might let the other guys pick up your check, but generally speaking, if you want the check, you'd better be the first to speak up is all I'm saying. If you do so, and then someone else tries to later pick up the check, I'm going to get myself off the hook quick-like by saying simply "Actually, the check already been taken care of."

Like the young woman earlier this week at the bridal party of ten, who approached me privately (also while she'd allegedly excused herself to go to the restroom) and gave me her debit card to hold, to pay the entire bill with. Near the end of the meal, I slipped it to her under the table - literally - and the matter was over and done with, without me ever revealing her identity to the group, which was exactly what she intended. They all objected at first, wanting to pay separately, then of course tried very hard to badger out of me who had paid, but I wouldn't budge, saying only "It's already been taken care of, by an anonymous benefactor." Since the check was auto-gratted, I didn't even try to have her to sign it (just told the manager the situation), yet I was delightfully surprised at how she later made a separate sneak trip to the hostess stand to do so, adding an additional $30 for me.

That kids, is HOW you pick up a check - by being discreet and classy, opposed to obnoxious and showy, or putting us hourly chumps in the position of making such decisions for you. If you are the person making the reservation, you could settle it right then if you desire, and odds are your instructions will be carried out.

Otherwise, speak up first or hand your card to a staffer early on, if you are genuinely insisting on picking up the check for the entire group. But please keep us out of it otherwise.

Hmmm, again I digress... I was talking about reasons I would disclose the auto-grat. Sorry for the mini-lecture.

Anyways, back to the 11-top family. The very fact that grandpa took the time to find a staffer - early on - told me right off that this wasn't his first rodeo, as the old saying goes. He's dined out enough in his life to know how to pick up a check correctly (the points continue to build ...)

Also quite relevant to this story, one of the sons (or sons-in-law, I'm not sure) ordered a $110 bottle of Pinot Noir right off the bat, while we were discussing appetizers. The table did obviously default to him as their group's wine expert, so I didn't initially think much of this at first. Given all that we offer, he made a quite excellent choice of wines in fact.

Later however (well after I'd assured grandpa that he would get the check) Sonny-Boy asks me for another bottle of the same wine. At that point I have to glance over at grandpa, who doesn't wince, bat an eye, or suffer a heart attack at the seeming extravagance of the bill he was going to be picking up. This told me a great deal, as well as the fact that grandpa let - encouraged me actually - to keep pouring him a very large glass of this yummy good stuff (possibly setting the stage for a third $110 bottle to be needed).

Lest I forget, the behavior of the children (all under age ten, I'd wager) told me perhaps more about this table (OOPS - I mean this "group" of people ;) than all of the adults combined. They said "please" and "thank you." They remained seated, and were not loud, nor messy. The parents were respectful of my time by expediting the ordering process and ordering for their children, but when necessary, the children spoke to me, and quite clearly. When they wanted something, they asked me politely, and they waited patiently. One little girl really didn't like the meal we served her, and she told me so, herself, and she graciously accepted the alternative I offered her, then waited several minutes for it to arrive without making any fuss at all.

One little boy wanted more salt and pepper on his noodles, and there was just something in the way he said it that made me willing to move heaven and earth to bring it to him. Whenever I asked the children, individually, at different times throughout the meal, if they were done with their plates, they answered me kindly, one way or another. I'd be hard-pressed to say whether I've ever been more amazed by or enjoyed serving any group of children in my entire career in fact. I'm kind of tearing up now, even just thinking about them...

Back to the point of this posting, the grandfather exhibited generosity to his family, a polite and respectful demeanor towards myself and our entire staff, and apparently he was not at all concerned about the expense of the outing. In short, he was not just the typical a foodie whom we generally love to wait on, but the ideal customer whom we all dream of serving. He more than fit the exact profile of those whom I've observed might be inclined to tip much better than 20%, if he felt that my service was indeed excellent.

Of course I auto-gratted anyways. Even though my service was excellent in this case, I don't take such risks anymore, having learned the hard way. I'll always claim my "minimum gratuity" when I know that I've earned it, and keep working even harder to get some extra Awesome Sauce smothered on top.

Presenting the check went off without a hitch, and without any argument from his family (back 100% on-topic now, this was an important cue to me, that apparently they were expecting, or accustomed, to this from him). So at the end when I'm returning his card and vouchers to sign, right when he's making eye contact to receive it from me, I speak the words "Our service charge is itemized on the bill, for your review" and thank him by name, and the entire group once again for choosing our restaurant and invite them to please return and ask for me by name if they get the opportunity.

After all I just said earlier .. "Why would I do that? you might ask.

It was a simple matter of taking note of all of the observable cues I'd witnessed about the fact that he and his entire group were very experienced restaurant diners. I knew good and well that he knew good and well that gratuity was going to be included on a table of that size, because apparently he's eaten out more than once or twice since the 1950's. He knows about auto-grats, and if anything I'm guessing is true, he's eaten at even nicer places than mine and doesn't worry about the expense.

So dealing with such a sophisticated diner, I took one last opportunity to distinguish myself from the 500 other waiters he's had before me, and did the exact opposite of what he's observed over the years - waiters hoping he wouldn't notice the auto-grat and taking him for a fool, trying to get double-bumped.

Gorgonzola and I discussed our mutual strategy that very evening. In situations like this, we both know that we stand to gain a lot more - both in respect from our guests and in financial reward - by verbally disclosing auto-grats to more sophisticated diners. We're both betting that the guest will view us as "stand up fellows" for doing so, and that their respect for us will transfer to the bottom line of the voucher.

In this case it did. The bill was over $700, the auto-grat was $132, and the gentleman wrote in an additional $35 (totalling over $900, and equalling roughly a 25% tip). Maybe he would have tipped extra anyways, but in this case, my verbal disclosure of the auto-grat was just one more little way of icing the cake, showing him that I'm the kind of guy that someone like him can truly appreciate being served by, and he's the kind of guy who showed it.

Exactly as I was betting on.

It's not that you have to be in the routine of picking up $900 tabs to be treated well by average waiters or waitresses, by the way. No, not at all. Sometimes rich people are among our least favorite customers to wait on in fact, and can be among the worst tippers as well. When you go out to eat...

Nah, this has been long enough already. More about how we judge you and some tips on how to be treated well by wait-staff regardless of how much you're spending or tipping, next time.

"Why Didn't You Tell Us The Tip Was Included?"

2012-11-12T14:38:00.000-05:00

"Indeed, the tip was included, you ignoble savage."

I love it when a table asks me this!

How *I* handle that question is way below, but first ...

Back to Petunia, that no good such-and-such who asks outloud in front of everybody else at the table "Is the tip included?" It probably seemed quite harsh of me, months ago, when I wrote to you that when Petunia asks this, I have to "politely refrain from punching her in the face."

Not that I ever would, but for that second, the impulse to do so does rise up within me, and most other servers as well. All of the ones I've personally asked, or spoken to, about this, that is, I mean. Ever. I can't say that I speak for us all though.

You see people, it's like this: just once on every third blue moon or so, we will still today wait on a larger table who somehow doesn't notice that gratuity was in fact included on their bill, and they'll tip us AGAIN on top of the final amount. The technical term for this rare occurrence would be "Double-grat" but more commonly most of us might just say "Yes! I got Double-bumped!"

It's like Christmas and your birthday and a winning Lotto ticket all rolled up into one. If the credit card voucher were a football, we'd spike it.

Once again my sincere thanks to you Dear Reader for having come with me this far. On top of all the instances that you've to-date graciously taken the time to hear me out on - nevermind the foreigners - do you have any idea how many 60 and 70 year-old women I've had to kiss on the mouth on their birthdays in my line of work? And speaking for my female friends and co-workers, how many times they've been grabbed, pinched, and slapped on the butt as an un-enjoyable yet routine part of their profession?

The indignities certain people inflict upon us while we execute what should otherwise be a simple matter of bringing you your food and drink are occasionally beyond belief.

Not himself prone to whining, David Hayden writes "Serving will give you reason to doubt yourself, your restaurant and your guests. Your very faith in humanity will inevitably be called into question. Some nights you will have a hard time finding a reason to smile. Waiting tables is a difficult profession, and there will be shifts where all signs point to you walking out with empty pockets... The only way to be a great server is to be optimistic anyway." - Tips Squared : Tips for Improving Your Tips

90% of the time (depending upon where one works I'd say) things go fine and most of us "somewhat to sincerely" enjoy our work and our interactions with the guests we wait on. Then there are times when we put up with various types of abuse and almost don't care, because we're getting paid. You can run us back and forth, speak rudely to us, perhaps grab and grope us, and we will still speak well of you and perhaps even fight and finagle our way to wait on you when you return, so long as you tip us well. We're whores and we know it, and how you tip is the only criteria by which we judge you.

Conversely, if you are nice as can be and tell us "You're the best server I've ever had..." (the dreaded "verbal tip" we call it, because we know that's almost a sure sign of a bad tip to come) we will rat you out to other wait-staff telling them to not waste their time giving you their best service, and many will curse out loud when you are seated in their sections, if you tip in the 10-15% range routinely.

(Actually, I won't personally rat you out if you tip poorly. I've matured, I know it might have been me or a mistake I made, and I think every guest deserves to be treated well without their server being pre-disposed to ignore them. I also view it as a challenge when a server tells me this right before I approach a table, and I'll tell you now that I've been rewarded many times for doing so with a good tip and an astonished look from the server who's attitude apparently played more into how that particular guest tipped them "the last time." Speaking in generalities though, if you're a bad tipper, word will get out to the staff, just fyi.)

But if we get paid, we'll suppress or somehow deal with our emotions when people are awful. But to deal with the downsides of our worst customers on a (non-gratted) table of four for example, then to find out that you got drunk and left without filling out and signing your credit or debit voucher - or walked out of the restaurant with the TOP COPY that you did fill out, leaving us the bottom one blank and with no tip at all for our hard work - can dang near break our spirits into tiny shards, at times.

So of all of the times when we literally lose money for having waited on you, and the times where we have no income to show for our work, we (the survivors among us, I mean) suppress all normal, healthy, human reactions to these instances and just breathe deeply when these things happen, in order to hold on to our sanity and our jobs ...

"How do we do that?" you might ask...

By saying to ourselves "It all evens out on the end..."

So here's the newsflash - that rare day when somehow, someone, actually double-tips us - is in fact THE WAY that it finally evens out for us! We've been consoling ourselves - and one another - over and over that things will even out for us, and today's the day it finally did!

Not even numerically mind you, just emotionally.

This is the moment when we finally look up to the heavens and declare "There's justice in the world after all! Yes! Yes!! YES!!! There IS a God! And He hasn't forgotten me!!!"

Okay before you judge me, first off it's not like we lied, cheated, or deceived you to make this happen, okay? Generally speaking, we just did our job and obeyed company policy while doing so. Of course we're secretly hoping it will happen every time we lay down the check, sure. But auto-gratting has become so commonplace today, that getting double-bumped rarely happens today. In the old days, you might not have caught that a tip, or an "auto-grat" (as I've been calling it) or a "Service Charge" (as it's now becoming referred to) was indeed worked into your bill. So maybe you're still angry about that one time, from years back. I understand.

Yes, I am aware that restaurant checks of the past somehow managed to obfuscate this detail, and that back before computers some server might've gotten away with illegibly scribbling this detail on your check in hopes that you'd miss it, and that 10 or 15 years ago, you might've gotten taken.

But the way it is today, every restaurant has heard your cries, taken your angry phone calls the next day, fired the parties responsible if and when you were indeed duped, doesn't want to receive any more such phone calls, and today, makes sure that any auto-grat or service charge that may apply was disclosed both up-front when the reservation (?) was made, and then again in easy-to-understand ways on your check and then (at most places) even once again on your credit/debit voucher, so that REALLY Petunia, it's totally on you if you somehow still miss it.

So don't be a Petunia. At least read your bill before asking the question out loud, willya?

Put simply, when an auto-grat has been included, this information is readily available on your check. If you don't see an auto-grat or service charge itemized however, then I'd say you're free to ask, just to keep yourself from getting taken. That's definitely fair, I'm just asking that you look before asking.

Petunias are almost never the ones picking up large checks for an entire table anyways. Petunias rear their head mainly when it's a group with separate checks. Just as the server is sneaking away after laying down those checks, she pipes up with "Is the tip included?" dashing our hopes - however miniscule they may be - of getting a few extra dollars and perhaps a much-needed emotional rush from the one person at the table who missed that detail. Petunia may think she's gaining favor with her friends, but as I've detailed, there are almost certainly one or two people dining with her who are going to think much less of her for years to come.

Now, many of us servers have all played around with creative ways to answer you if you ask "Is the tip included?" that perhaps won't reveal our disappointment, while still angling for a little more, if you happen to be so inclined (and many people are, believe it or not).

About fifteen years ago for instance, I heard my past co-worker TIMMY keep a straight face while smoothly answering "Yes ma'am. The 15% minimum. You're allowed to leave more though, if you feel that my service was better than the minimum."

To which I thought "Note to Self : Steal that line!"

Another co-worker, Pistachio, had taken his schmoozing and levels of shamelessness to new heights by often delivering his perfectly rehearsed "Yes ma'am, the 18% minimum service charge has been included, which is split up between the bartenders, busboys, food-runners, hostess staff and myself, but there's a line there for you to include additional gratuity if you thought the service was exceptional, and that would be all mine to keep. While it's of course not required, it is always appreciated." I don't know how he managed to spit all of that out of his big cheesy-mustached-toothy grin so regularly - and I almost can't believe he never got fired for such a spiel - but I can tell you that he did receive extra gratuity about three out four times he said it. Good luck trying that one out my fellow servers, and do so at your own risk.

My answer nowadays usually falls somewhere between the two, depending upon my read of the person asking, my own assessment of how well I served them, how I feel at the moment, and just how much self-respect I'm willing to sacrifice for a possible five or a hundred more dollars in "Additional Gratuity."

So these are the types of things we've invented as our own little "auto-replies" when asked. Of course we're hoping you don't ask, and now you know why we don't go out of our way usually to tell you that the tip has been included (unless the restaurant's policy requires us to - that's a different story). We're simply kind of hoping that today will be our special day. Multiple bad experiences over many years prior have made many of us jaded enough to where we don't feel even one bit bad about this. And I'm sorry for that, but hey times are tough; if you can afford to eat where I work, I'm just not that inclined to feel a lot of sympathy for your financial situation.

All of this of course is my "long answer" to the original question which I'm disclosing to you as my reader, but none of this is anything akin to what I'd tell you as my customer. If you were to look up and ask me as my customer "Why didn't you tell us the tip was included?" ... well, when that happens, for me, it's showtime.

First, I will attempt to let all of the blood rush from my face, in hopes of turning completely white in front of you, as my eyes grow wide. Then, I will appear genuinely shocked - hurt, even - at the question. (All of this in less than two seconds.) Then, regaining my composure, I summon my best Alfred the Butler impression and say simply ...

"Well... Sir ... (I cough, shake my still-reeling head a bit, and then lower my voice so that the neighbors won't hear how you're embarrassing yourself, and continue) "...At any place I've ever worked it's grounds for termination for me to mention the tip in ANY fashion. We're not permitted to bring up the topic with guests in any way. But the service charge is stated on the menu, and it's itemized again on your bill to make sure you know this. And I'm glad to answer any questions, but me bringing it up is in really poor taste, and might even get me fired."

Which usually shuts the ignoble savage right up.

The ones it doesn't shut up all say that same thing - "Well, I woulda tipped you more if you hadn't included the tip already." And you already know my answer to that one.

If you're new to this site feel free to catch up by reading Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 and Part 7 on tipping and auto-gratuity, and subscribe to this blog for the final installments.

You'd Better Be Good To Me

2012-10-27T14:14:00.000-04:00

"...How others treat the waiter is like a magical window into the soul."
Source - USA TODAY : CEOs say how you treat your waiter can
predict a lot about character which you should totally read after this

Okay, okay ... I get it.

I really do "get" that you might consider it a bit odd - or even excessive, perhaps - how I just confessed to you that I do - and forever will - judge all of my friends and associates by how I observe them treating wait-staff, when dining out with them.

I in fact do totally get that this statement could seem, well... probably a bit eccentric... to you. However, for every reader who might respond thusly, I'll "fire right-back-at'cha" that "If you feel that's strange, then it's obvious to me that you've never waited tables for a living."

Because - as I also tried to make clear - it's not just me that does this. As I communicated in my last post "Once a restaurant person, always a restaurant person."

It just doesn't matter how long ago it was that any person in particular waited tables for their living, whenever they go into a restaurant today, they are still (even 40 years later perhaps) judging the experience they receive in any given restaurant, as "a restaurant person."

And more to the point, they too, are judging YOU, by what they observe of your behavior when you are in any given restaurant.

Clergy and Military aside (and please insert your favorite applicable profession that I left out, here) I can't think of any other job or career path outside of restaurant work which leaves such an indelible stamp upon the world-view of the person that has done so for many years. Believe me or not.

I've heard it said before - altho darn it, I Googled this really hard tonight and still can't find a reliable source to back me up on this claim - so please don't quote me Wikipedia - but there's this statistic stuck in my head from some time ago that at least "1 in 4 American adults have waited tables for a living" at some point in their lives.

So IF that's actually true, and IF you're NOT one of these four, for now I want you to picture yourself dining out somewhere as part of a 4-top.

A "4-top" by the way, Mr/Ms Unitiated, is simply restaurant lingo for "a table of four people."

So you're sitting at a table of four, and you perhaps have never waited tables before, okay? What I'm trying to impart right now - largely for your benefit, not mine - is that it's quite probable that at least one of the three other people you find yourself sitting with, HAS waited tables for a living at some point in their lives. And even if they haven't, it's still to your benefit to hear me out on this.

(Enjoy this little sidebar by the way. I'll pick right back up where I left off previously, next time.

It's just that while I was at work earlier tonight, Eugene and I had a party of 17 that never showed up nor called to cancel, so I had about four income-less hours to jot down these additional thoughts on my order pad, which you might find really useful to know.)

" .. 'Cos while you're judging your server, it's a pretty safe bet that someone else at your table is also judging YOU.

"So you're a salesperson out to lunch with that corporate Vice-President that it took you six months to finally get a face-to-face appointment with? Naturally, you've Googled him, you know all of his "hot buttons" related to your mutual industries, and you made a really great presentation. But here's what Google didn't tell you. Did you happen to know that his Dad left the family when he was really young? And that his Mom waited tables his entire life to put him through college? When he (Mr Corporate VP) was still a little boy in fact, he had to rub his Mom's feet in a tub of hot water when she got home, and listen to all of her stories about rude customers and what went on at work tonight, because she had no one else to talk to. And then after she fell asleep, Mr VP had to clean and polish his Mom's work shoes for the next day, as part of his 50 cent allowance.

"So, while completely unbeknownst to you as to why, that snide remark (the one you thought was really funny) that you made about your knocked-up waitress, just cost you the biggest account of your life.

"Oh, and that pretty young lady you've taken a shining to? So you're finally out to dinner with her parents for the first time, and you're thinking that you're really going to impress them by "insisting" to pick up the entire check. Okay, that's cool. What you didn't know, is that her folks met while working together at the same restaurant when they were younger. Like I've described myself, and kind of like Superman under a yellow sun, restaurant people (even former ones) are endowed with amazing super-powers of observation whenever they find themselves in a restaurant.

"So even though they needed reading glasses to view the menu, they both noted (thanks to their telescopic and X-ray vision that enables them to read upside-down from across the table in a darkened corner of any restaurant) that you tipped the waiter a lousy 10%. Meaning that all your charm and pulling chairs out has been for naught, because they've seen through your veneer, and now feel that they know all they need to know about you. They now officially don't like you, and they never will.

"By the way, her Mom didn't really have to go to the bathroom again on the way out. She was just going back to drop some extra cash on the table for the waiter, whom you pretty much stiffed. So I've got a newsflash for you Romeo - you're never coming over to their house for dinner, and they will bug their daughter from here on out to drop you like a bad habit, because they know what a cheapskate you are, and they definitely don't intend to spend their golden years cleaning up your financial messes."

So sure, come on in tonight with three of your closest personal friends or business associates, and let me wait on you.

If you're rude or insulting to me, I'm not even going to remember you (well, you might wind up in one of my blogs, but that's about it). I'm just saying, that someone else at your table - who's opinion you care a lot more about than mine - might feel quite differently about how you treated me than I do, is all.

You can even tip me 10% if you like. Times are slow .. fine dining's in a rough patch right now, and I'll take your $20 over nothing, I suppose. That, and the table next to you might leave me 30%, and it'll all even out (I tell myself). However, I want you to know that whoever you're eating with might not feel as magnanimous about the way you tipped me, as I do.

You DO know that I write these things for your benefit more so than my own, right?

If you don't want someone you care about still hating you three or fifteen years from now, I'm just here to tell you - you'd better be good to me.

But I digress.

My well-polished answer to "Why Didn't You Tell Us The Tip Was Included?" is still to come.

Divided Loyalties

2012-10-25T14:54:00.000-04:00

Not really my friends. Just some random Brits. - Image Source

Fifteen years ago...

I'm out to lunch with a large group of friends one Sunday afternoon. One of those groups you and I hate to wait on above almost all others, that is. A church group - with 12 or 15 separate checks. Lots of waters with lemon were drunk on that day, and quite a bit of plate-sharing was had by all.

You might rightly imagine that in my mind I'm experiencing this Sunday lunch partly from my server's point of view, and not just as a happy-go-lucky diner.

It's a tad surreal, but it's something we really can't help - or just "turn off" either - not even decades after being out of the business, I'm told. Every current or former restaurant worker is still a restaurant person whenever we're dining out. It's therefore difficult sometimes just to relax and to enjoy our meals and our friends, while not simultaneously both critiquing and empathizing with the restaurant staff, sizing up the experience with "other eyes" as we go. That towel on the floor in the bathroom, or that light bulb that's burned out four tables away, bugs us way more than it does you, for instance. And seriously ...? The server actually greets our table while chewing gum? Minus several points, already...

Yet conversely, while I'm feeling understandably miffed that my drink re-fill hasn't happened yet, I'm possibly the only one at our table not asking outloud "where is our waitress?" That's because I know the answer already. While yes I am listening to you my dear friend whom I'm dining out with today, I also happen to know that our waitress got stuck running and serving the food to another server's table not twenty feet from us, opposite the partition. I can see her nodding her head and promising to get something for those guests way over there, way out of her section. You mean you can't?

So on this fateful day fifteen years ago, my group and I have had our fun, and our server dutifully passes out our checks. I alone perhaps also note that she manages to stealthily sneak away before Petunia (you remember Petunia, don't you?) asks the dreaded question. Well played, lass. Now I'm already assuming that the tip has been included in our group's checks - y'know, because it said so on the menu - which I happened to read. A quick glance at my check confirms this. We were auto-gratted. I and others reach for our wallets and pocket-books, when all of a sudden my so-called friend Patti decides to make a point of informing everybody at the table that "the tip has already been included."

I love Patti, and in many years of friendship I've had nothing but respect for her, but at this particular moment I really want to smack her.

In this moment, my loyalties are clearly divided, in case you hadn't noticed. I'm torn between siding with the well-being of my friends, or my fraternity (so to speak). I know Patti's just watching out for our mutual friends' interests and I can respect her for that. Kind of. But forgive me Patti, for also hating you just a bit at the same time. It's not personal of course.

For instance there's this other fellow, whom I generally respect and like in many, many ways. Yet one time, three and a half years ago, I sat across from him at dinner with another large group, and not only was he a pain-in-the-ass to wait on in general, he was also incredibly hyper-critical of our waiter (who did make an initial mistake by bringing this guy the wrong drink .. whoopie). So this guy spends the rest of the meal making intermittent disparaging comments about the service - although everyone else seemed happy enough - and yes at the end, he also whined about the auto-gratuity. To this day I still hold it against him. He has no idea how much respect I've lost for him as a result of his behavior when dining out together, and how it still affects my ability to be close to him. His loss or mine, I dunno ... You tell me - should I try to talk this out with him perhaps, and finally move past it?

Well anyways ... did my eyes just roll back into my head for a second there when my friend Petunia - I mean Patti - took it upon herself to announce to our table that the tip had been included in our checks? Maybe my body tensed up, or my fingers slowly tightened and crumpled my check a bit. Perhaps a deep guttural snarl emanated from the fiber of my very being...

I don't know what it was really (heck, maybe she was just curious) but that's when my friend Ariel, whom I'm sitting next to, turns and asks me

"You tell people when the tip is included, so they don't leave you too much, don't you?"

"Oh no. I long ago got over the moral dilemma of that one" I reply without even thinking twice about how it might come across to her.

So fifteen years later, do I now care how it might come across to you - you readers of my confessional? Or have I maybe changed my mind on this a little, to side with the customers who might accidentally leave me too much as a tip?

Yeah... that would still be a big fat "NOPE!" to both of the above.

Don't judge me. When the Double-Bump happens, we call it Justice.

(And by the way Silly Rabbit, there's no such thing as "tipping me too much.")

But lest ye think my morals have somehow flown out the window, allow me unpack this one a little bit more please. "Why Didn't You Tell Us The Tip Was Included?" is already half-written, and will be coming up ...

Next, on Guy's Work Blog. Subscribe below.

Why American Servers Hate Waiting on Foreigners

2012-08-25T04:35:00.162-04:00

If you can handle the F-Bomb, Naomi sums up in this 11-second
video clip how we all feel. Yes, every single one of us.
Sorry.

In my first couple of months (working at the restaurant where most of this blog takes place) Pistachio throws me an honest question:

"Hey Guy, do you feel that you ever kind of slack off on your standards of service when waiting on foreigners?"

I think the question itself was an admission of guilt on his part, and that he was just making conversation, assuming that I'd relate.

Had I not been so new there, I think I would have given him a much more honest answer than I did at the time. I didn't really know him well, nor care to trust him with my innermost secrets (like I do you guys). Nearly two years later though, I think it's time for me to finally let the truth out.

To all of you foreigners planning on dining in the U.S., I think you should know that we American restaurant servers really, really, really hate you. For the most part anyways.

(Disclaimer : I'm using the word "hate" here rather loosely, as true hatred is against my beliefs and my nature. But it is a word that gets thrown around over and over when servers are discussing foreigners, as the videos I'm including testify.)

We don't hate you because of the color of your skin, your ethnicity, or for your religious beliefs. You may be of the same persuasion as your server on one or two of those items for that matter, but we will still hate you even if we're actually the same on all other checkboxes. It's not your accents we can't stand, that's just work. It's not the way you smell - although that, and your hygiene - could arguably use a little work, from our perspective.

It would probably be more accurate for me to clarify that we don't hate you personally, because we don't really get to know you of course. But by and large, we hate *waiting on you* because you don't tip.

90% of the time or greater, you don't tip well (or even sufficiently for services rendered) and many times you don't tip at all. We have learned from multiple experiences that you are more likely going to cost us money out of our own pockets because you sat in our section, than we are going to earn money from you. When seated a table of non-U.S. customers, our hearts kind of sink, and quite often the hostess apologizes to us for "giving you" to us. I'll bet you didn't know that did you? Your very presence often requires an in-house apology to be offered among co-workers.

Now, the spirit of my blog has always been that I don't complain about my job, my customers, my tips, etc. Rather, I share funny things that happen, life lessons I've picked up over the years, and the like. And just because my readers trust me and know that I'm often "on their side" as a professional who strives to offer my guests great service, they enjoy hearing me explain things to them which they did not know, from my inside perspective.

So lest you think I'm making an exception to my rules just to complain about foreigners, let me tell you a somewhat amusing story about "Mark from Denmark."

Mark's in Orlando for a large conference of veterinarians being held at the Convention Center (a few minute walk from our restaurant). We have these events all the time here, and we wait on customers from all over the world regularly. Well, Mark from Denmark is dining with two other guests and he pays me in cash for the lunch. To the penny, with no tip at all.

Now usually I let this go, but after over a year of putting up with this behavior routinely, I uncharacteristically decide to speak up. I don't think I would have, except for the fact that I was standing there as he counted out the bills and then handed it all to me. If I had picked up their payment after they'd left, it's not like I would have followed him out to address the topic, but he just counted the money outloud then handed me the book.

My frustration with this ongoing situation has somehow exceeded my capacity to keep my mouth shut, today it seems, and I calmly state "There's not gratuity included in the bill, like some places sir."

"What?" he asks me - probably not too thrilled that I called him out in front of his associates. (The truth is I know I'm moving from Orlando shortly, and just maybe the risk of losing my job for opening my mouth holds less weight for me on this particular day.)

I state even more matter-of-factly this time, "The tip isn't included."

Much to my surprise, he explains that this is a business trip (duh, I knew that) and to get reimbursed, he would need for the tip to be detailed on the check. Wow, that's completely understandable, and now I'm kind of liking this guy! Maybe he's not a total jerk foreigner after all, who doesn't care if I have to pay for the honor of waiting on him, he just wants to see it on the bill. I mean he was going to stiff me and it's not like he couldn't have explained all this to me up front if he were genuinely concerned about tipping, but since I brought it up at least he's willing to not be a complete jerk after all.

Not a problem. I just have to go to the manager and explain that Mark needs to have the tip itemized on his check. I know we can auto-grat this on the computer, print it out, and we both get what we want out of the situation. Great!

My mistake was opening my mouth again. Once was risky enough, but after explaining to him that I can do that, I mess up by actually asking him "The standard 18%?" to which he replies "No, ten."

I stare, and thankfully it's at this point that I finally, finally succeed in keeping my mouth shut. But I'm still staring, and with this quizzical (I'm sure) look on my face while clenching my teeth.

Wait for it ... because this is the part that I thought was funny ... Mark points to our policy, and says to me with all seriousness "18% is for parties of eight or more. We are only three."

Bwah, hahahahahaha!

Believe it or not I actually understand his logic! So I walk away FAST before truly embarrassing myself by trying to take this any further. The crazy thing was explaining to Mike the manager why I needed a 10% auto-grat, which of course he's never done before. We're not even sure if the computer will do that, but he figured it out. As to the guy's reasoning, Mike good-naturedly says, "I guess it's a good thing for you he wasn't eating by himself."

Like most foreigners, Mark from Denmark doesn't understand that a 10% tip is actually an insult to American servers, but moving up from nothing I'll take it - and the funny story - in stride this time. Mark from Denmark could at least be reasoned with a bit.

Unlike Sven from Sweden.

Family of eight. Tourists. Auto-grat. But I made one mistake. Sven orders the "black and blue" steak but wants the blue cheese on the side. I failed to type that in, and long story short, we had to fix this, which took all of ninety seconds.

Everyone else loves the food and the service, and I take him the check. Sven from Sweden actually has the nerve to challenge the auto-grat because of my mistake. I tell Mike about the problem. We're both dumbfounded, but he removes the auto-grat, saying "What a jerk." Mike actually goes out to the table himself to present the check and apologize for our error, just so he can stare the guy down and see this jerk for himself. I wish I had been quick enough to suggest to Mike that we remove the auto-grat from just the one steak, but leave the rest, and take the check back to him. I honestly think Mike would have gone for it if I'd thought of it sooner, and man, that could have been fun to watch unfold!

So, bottom line ... Sven from Sweden - like Mark from Denmark and so many other foreigners before him - pays his family's bill to the penny, leaving me no tip at all, costing me about $12 in tip-out that night, out of my own pocket for "the pleasure" of giving good service to him and his smelly family.

"It all averages out ..." I lie to myself, while dispelling images of spitting in his food if I ever see him again. (I'm not going to lie and tell you I've never done it before in my 25 years of restaurant service, but I'm older now, and overall much more mature about these things.)

But listen up Sven. We know good and well that you would have found something to complain about if I hadn't made this small mistake, and that you most likely came in knowing about American auto-grats, intending to find a way to get it removed if at all possible and stiffing your server no matter what. I'd bet good money that you do it all the time. Or that you at least try. And we hate you for it.

It's stealing, Sven. In America, it's our "social contract" that waiters get 20% tips, otherwise a $4.99 burger costs you and everyone $7.99, if we completely change the system to where the restaurant pays us a decent wage. Nobody really wants that, so just cough up the dollar tip for every five you spend or just stay home.

Sure, we're glad that our overall economy gets a boost when millions of you foreign tourists spend millions of dollars here annually. The problem is that we servers don't get any of it. Those who wait on you get shafted most of the time. You not only fail to pay us for services rendered, you often cost us money just for sitting at our tables. We wait on you, you stiff us, we pay tip-out and taxes, and you take up the space that a table who would have tipped could have had that we'd actually make money on.

And that is why we don't like you. And that is why we will auto-grat you every chance we get.

We servers all know that in your country tipping 20% for excellent service is not the custom. We also know that you know it IS the custom here. We know your travel agents told you, and that you have brochures and "Tips for Travelling in the United States" that explain it to you. We know you have the internet and learned all about this yourself before you even came. (Below, I'm providing yet another video for you, from "Wolter's World : America Explained" series. Wolter's a world traveler and he's not a waiter, but he knows that we hate you, and he is trying to help you.) I've been to Russia myself in fact, and our group had to study for nine months on how not to offend you when over there, so I'm sure you did nine minutes or more of research before you came here.

We know you're just pretending to be ignorant of the fact that tipping is expected here, and we don't forgive you for it.

It's foreigners like you, Sven, that make us American waiters hate waiting on you. All of you. Many of you don't tip, most of you don't tip well if you do at all, and we hate you, plain and simple, because of it. For my American readers, if you want to know why restaurants auto-grat so frequently these days, I want you to know that it's not your fault, most likely.

Sure there's plenty of Americans who don't tip well and we've addressed that here. They are in the minority I've found, however. The problem, is that the overwhelming majority of foreigners don't tip, unless made to. I'm willing to bet even more good money that by and large, that the sheer volume of foreigners visiting America as tourists - often concentrated in cities like Orlando, New York City, and Los Angeles - then stiffing their servers, is in fact how the auto-grat probably got started, and takes the form that it does today. Servers were crying and walking out and breaking things, remember? And restaurants needed to find a way to keep their good staff. But if you know one thing about business in America, it's that businesses don't typically want to piss off their customers, right? We don't do this auto-grat thing lightly. But it simply had to be done, because of the foreigners.

And now you know. And now that you know, perhaps I can sleep a little easier, having gotten all this off of my chest. I'm just one more entry (Petunia, remember?) and one appendix away from being done. It's going to make a great book that we can ship in bulk to foreign embassies and put in airport bookstores perhaps.

But back to Pistachio's question before I sign off for tonight.

"Do my standards of service ever get a little slack when waiting on foreigners?"

I'm ashamed to say... Yes. Sometimes.

You Svens from Sweden and you Marks from Denmark and you Europeans with your espressos and you Brazillians with your American holidays and you crappy-tipping Canadians and you French guys that leave quarters ... have honestly "gotten" to me.

I told Pistachio a year earlier that I know that some foreigners don't tip well, but some do, and overall it always averages out so I just try to give the same service to everybody. That was a lie then, and I'd be living a lie to say so here.

There. I admitted it. Happy?

I'm a damn good server who takes pride in my work - my profession, my craft, my ART if you will, but you cheap foreign &%@$#s have ruined me. I've taken so many different types of abuse at my job, and have seen many ups and downs in my work, yet I keep coming back and giving great service to people day after day believing the best about almost everybody and not caring about the worst as best as I honestly can.

But you people ... you foreigners ... you've beaten me. I can't stand you, and I can't stand myself sometimes knowing that I can't stand you. But you've finally won, and you've made me a lesser person for it.

If you're part of a foreign 2-top or a family of four that's not being auto-gratted, you MAY not get my best. If I'm busy, and I have to make a choice between giving three of my tables great service and yours maybe kind of bad service, or risk giving all four tables just "average" service to make sure that you get taken care of "equally" well ... Well Sven, I'm sorry, but it's just honestly not going to happen.

I'm not going to tell you much, if anything, about the specials, for instance. Figure out what's good here by yourself, and I'll come take your order after you've sorted it out on your own. If you ask my opinion about anything on the menu, I'm going to tell you "it's good" rather than be honest and waste a lot of my time telling you what I really like the best. Because you won't pay me for my time and expertise.

I'm not going to do anything at all in fact to serve you that takes up any more of my time than absolutely necessary to get you out of my life, because you're not worth my time based on how you're most likely going to treat me at the end. Tell me what you want and I'll bring it to you because I have to, that's how this works. If your drinks are empty and so are the drinks at table next to you, guess who gets a refill? Not you.

Don't dare ask me questions about "what's fun to do around here" or for directions either. Because if you do, I'm going to have a three-second internal debate with my passive-aggressive side about whether or not to send you to the absolute lamest place that I know of, or give you directions that will leave you lost and out of gas somewhere.

All that's on a bad day for me of course. Otherwise I'll probably try a little harder for you if there's time, because it's my job and I have to live with myself. But if I'm even a little busy, hundreds of foreign customers before you ever came along have already ruined things for you. As soon as I hear your accent, it's like I don't see you so much anymore, as I see "them" - the ones who have stiffed me so many times before I ever met you. Therefore, you might get a little ignored, maybe. Then again you might not. But it's a lot more likely that you will, if there's a choice to be made.

And I'm sorry for that.

It's just that feeding MY family is why I work here. Feeding YOUR family is just my job and a means to that end, but it's not my ultimate responsibility in life. So again, anytime there's a clear choice to be made, guess who wins and guess who loses? I sometimes hate myself for having to make this choice, and to be honest it kills me a bit inside when I do, but I'm here to tell you, the last time I felt I did have to make a choice between giving foreigners good service or Americans great service, I catered most and I catered best to those who were paying me cold, hard American cash for my time and efforts.

And I'll do it again.

And you know what? I actually CARE about my job and my performance and my guest's satisfaction. So if I'll choose to ignore you, you can bet that Pistachio and millions of other waiters and waitresses are probably going to as well, without even thinking twice or feeling bad about it. They've told me so in fact.

So what can we do about this problem Sven? What can you do, if you're planning on making a trip to the U.S., and you don't want your servers to ignore you, or give you anything less than their best service?

Well, you're reading this, and that's a start. Of course you can tell yourself that you're going to tip 20% for great service (which always surprises us servers, when you foreign visitors do so). But your server won't know that, so how does that help you, on the front end?

Hmmmmm ... how can your server know not to give you worse service because you're foreign, and that you're likely to tip well for good service? That's a tough one ...

Hey I know!

HERE'S how you can really ensure better service, if your server knows you're not from the U.S. and will be inclined to believe from the outset that you're a lousy tipper, not worthy of their best performance, or their time.

TELL THEM to auto-grat your check.

Seriously. Do it at the very beginning, while they're asking for your drink order, and possibly still inclined to be making a little chit-chat with you until they realize just how foreign you are.

Just say "Hey we'd like to ask you a favor... The tipping customs are different where we live than I've read they are here. But we want to make sure you get paid correctly. Could you auto-grat our check for us so that we can see it on the bill, and don't have to figure it out for ourselves?"

You do that ten different places while you're dining in the U.S. and I'm guessing 8 out of 10 waiters will cheerfully say "Yes sir/ma'am I can do that" and you will want for nothing. You'll receive possibly the best service you've ever received in your life from a server, who now genuinely appreciates you being there in their section. They'll be blown away that you cared enough to say that on the front end, and they will work very hard to make sure that you're very happy.

Two out those ten times however, you'll have a less experienced server who might seem confused by the concept, and maybe feel obliged to ask you to clarify. Tell them "Just whatever your restaurant's policy is on larger tables, please go ahead and add that amount to our check, even thought there are only (two, three, four, five...) of us."

Say it out-loud with me Sven... let's rehearse this together in fact. I want you to say, "Can you add 20% gratuity to our check please?"

Out of those ten servers, I'm guessing that you might possibly see one of them cry when you say this.

Because 30 seconds ago they were cursing life and God and you for sitting in their section, and you just made their day.

In all cases, you win. You'll get the great service you deserve for choosing to spend your money at our restaurant, and the server will get paid the amount he or she deserves for a job well done.

It's win/win ... everybody's happy ... international crisis averted.

Group hug!

You've just enjoyed Part 11 in my series on restaurant tipping and auto-gratuity. Here's links to Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8 - Part 9 and Part 10 so you can catch up. The final installment (plus an appendix on The IRS) are coming soon.

Don't miss it! Subscribe for the last chapters via the e-mail link below, or the box at the top of this page.

P.S. Here's a little more "food for thought" for all of the unrepentant Svens out there ... I'm not saying that I agree (entirely) with what happened here below, but you don't want to let the chance of it happening ruin your vacation, do you?

I'd Auto-Grat My Own Mother

2012-08-14T01:14:00.000-04:00

EXHIBIT A :
This doesn't happen every day, but every now and then an
Auto-Grat gets smothered with a little extra Awesome Sauce!

My blogs have been rather lengthy of late, so I left this story out of the last one...

But I really have to let you know about one of my all-time personal favorite "Hall of Fame" actions that any server I've ever worked with has ever pulled.

It won't be that big of deal to you really, but it does perfectly illustrate the point I was making in my last post (on Why Restaurants Add Automatic Gratuity and especially, HOW this either attracts or repels superior waiters to or from working for those that do)...

On my way up to "the bigger leagues" of more expensive fine dining (i.e., higher tabs and higher-end clientele, for whom tipping 20% and above is their norm, when service warrants) I quit the local Olive Garden and worked for about 3 years at "The Prime Cut" Steakhouse located near 2nd & Broadway in the heart of downtown Nashville, Tennessee.

The steaks there were around twenty 1997 dollars, and for me this was the big league finally. That's one thing I learned later in life than I wish I actually had - that like all sales jobs, if you have the skills to do the job well, you need to be where the big tickets are. It's simple math my young Waitron friends .. you will earn more money serving up $20-$50 dinners (where salads and sides may even cost extra) to people who can actually afford such, than you ever will running back and forth re-filling $8.99 Soup & Salad combos to people who struggle with tipping 15%.

Well "TIMMY!" joined our wait-staff at The Prime Cut at some point after I'd done so, and by then I was one of the servers who helped to train him. Turns out TIMMY! had also worked for an Olive Garden before, and I remember telling him about the differences in what to expect, especially in relation to our clientele.

"At lower-end places," I snobbily pontificated "it sometimes seems like YOU are "the entertainment for the evening" for a lot of the people that you're waiting on, especially on Friday and Saturday nights. Dining out's a big expense for some, maybe they don't get out that much, and they're not so much going anywhere else this weekend. So for them, the waiter is "the big show" for the weekend."

(As a note to my readership - some of whom I can feel myself quickly alienating as I type this - I have since repented of and long ago gotten past my elitist-snob waiter stage ;)

"But here it's different in lots of ways. We gets lots of business travelers on the weeknights who are on their company's credit card, and mainly they're talking to each other. It's not like you have to entertain or impress them with your life story and tell them all your dreams and desires to pass the time. You tell them what's good, bring 'em their food, be polite and professional, and they're happy.

"And even our two-tops who are here on a date : generally speaking, they're on their way somewhere else after this... dancing, a concert, a play or an opera maybe. Point is, their waiter's personality is not really supposed to be their evening's highlight either. Plus, if some guy's dropping a hundred (1997) bucks on dinner with a lady, the last person he wants to talk to for any length of time is YOU. He's dropping that hundred bucks for face-time with HER. A lot of chit-chat from you can actually be annoying, and hurt your tip. So, you basically just serve them well, and you're good."

Man, did I really think I was the stuff back then or what? Haha!

So anyways, TIMMY! proved himself be an excellent server for us. He always remained very polite and professional even with his more "troublesome" guests, and only ever talked about them behind their backs, not to their faces. As far as facial expressions, body language, and the words he said at his tables went, he was among the best I've ever witnessed in the business about not letting his guests have a clue as to what he really thought or felt about them. What a champ, huh?

And apparently TIMMY! was on his way up the food chain (get it?) much more quickly than I, because when

Oops, I'm getting ahead of myself.

At The Prime Cut, we added 15% gratuity on parties of 6 or more. Yeh, that's important.

It's also important to include that in addition to the higher-end folks we sometimes catered to, the place also had live music and a fairly hopping lounge on weekends. It was something of a local hot-spot in the 1990's, and therefore we certainly received our fair share of local rednecks who came out more for the great steaks and cold draft beer we offered, not so much for the fine dining ambiance we tried to pull off downstairs, when things were quieter.

The 15% auto-grat was perhaps a little radical back then I suppose. While I can't remember for sure, it was maybe there that I first heard the words "Well, Id've probably left you a lot MORE if you hadn't already included the tip!"

Yeh right buster. We've all heard that one before.. and a few times since. And we know darn good and well that you're lying.

We know (and these days, I even empathize) that the truth is you're suffering from sticker-shock at the price of the tab you just picked up for all of your buddies, business associates, or extended family. They maybe ate and drank more than you anticipated, and who knew that three $40 bottles of wine would come to $120??? Maybe the martinis you started with clouded your judgment on exactly how much food and alcohol was actually "in the budget" for you to order, or maybe you just fell for our finely-honed sales tactics where we get you to order way more than you would have on your own.

This can happen - especially when we know you're being auto-gratted - and personal income aside, it actually turns into an internal competition for bragging rights with the other waiters over whether or not we can get you to order the hugest appetizer platter (or three) and some expensive wine. Waiters are by no means Real Estate brokers or car salesmen, but sales is a huge part of our culture, and just like those hard-workers from the last post, restaurant managers will also default to turning their best sale-people loose on the larger tables too!

In any event, you asked me what I thought was good, and I told you. You all loved it and now here's your check. Maybe back when you arrived sober you were hoping to make everyone happy and get out for $250, and now you're stuck taking deep breaths while staring closely at the $600 tab you ran up, wondering how it all went so wrong. And in this moment, the fact that $100 of it is gratuity, well, erks you a little bit, and that's understandable.

Not to be harsh, but that's also not my problem. My problem is rent. That, and the fact that the manager sat me down last night with a long computerized print-out of my sales report from last week and talked to me about how I'm not selling half as many appetizers as "corporate" projects that I should be, and asks me do I want more shifts or less next week? Hint, hint. So I sold you some. And because of the situation you're now finding yourself in, if the tip isn't automatically added to your bill at this important juncture, human nature dictates and my experience shows that tipping 10% is about the only way some people have left to feel okay about what just transpired here.

So you're buzzed and feeling remorseful about how much you just spent, and NOW you're telling me "Well I woulda left you more if you hadn't of added the tip."

Uh-uh. Sorry. We're just not buying any of that today. You're not the first to tell me that and you won't be the last. However, in your passive-aggressive fog, you don't realize that the only worthy response to that is "Well you still can. There's an empty blank on the voucher we leave just for those who feel the service was better than the __% minimum."

Bluff called.

You see, we in the business have learned that people who are prone to tip more than 15, 18, or 20% when service is excellent, still will. (See Exhibit A, above.) But leaving off the auto-grat in hopes that you'll tip more, just because for some reason I'm convinced that you're "really cool" and that we're such good friends now and that you just loved me so-o-o much... therefore it would somehow be WRONG of me to include the gratuity... is a total fool's mission, I've found.

It generally takes a few trials and errors before a server finally figures out that doing so will back-fire wayyyyy more often than it's worth when they don't auto-grat, but we all eventually get it. The last time I "gambled" and left the auto-grat off of a check was circa 2001. I even knew better by then, but I was just so convinced that these people loved me and they were awesome. We connected, we laughed together, they told me how great a server I was, and when it was all said and done they left me $15 on a $400 tab.

Maybe they thought the tip was included already, and the $15 was meant to be a bonus for me. I'll never know. But ever since then, I've always told my fellow (younger or less experienced, that is) servers who are thinking about leaving the auto-grat off of a check, "Nope. I'd Auto-Grat my own mother if she were in here tonight." They usually laugh, then I'll finish with "And she WILL still tip me extra."

Sometimes they go ahead and gamble anyways. 3 out of 4 times they come walking back into the station, with the little credit card book in hand and with this look in their eyes that tells me the story before I even hear the same words come out of their mouth that I spoke in 2001 ... "Never again."

Folks it's not personal when you see the tip included on your bill, mmmm-kay? First and foremost, lets not ever forget that this is a business transaction for starters, mmmm-kay? Most of us have tried it the other way, and we've just been burned - burned badly, and too many times. That, and these days the server may not even have any choice in the matter. At my last job we got some serious "memos from corporate" that we servers were not ever allowed to pick and choose which large parties to auto-grat or not. They were smart enough to know that some type of ethnic, racial, or other types of "profiling" could come into play, so they nipped it in the bud. 8 people, 18%, period. That's what the menu said, that's the policy and we were to stick to it. Yuppers, if you and seven of my best friends came in together and I waited on you, I'd actually be written up if I DIDN'T auto-grat you.

I'd auto-grat TIMMY! if I waited on him and all of our old friends from The Prime Cut tomorrow night, for that matter.

Were you worried I was going to forget to get back to the story?

Well at some point we at The Prime Cut learned that the owner had decided to reverse our auto-grat policy. As in eliminate it, entirely. We weren't told why - maybe someone called him who thought the service was bad one night and resented the auto-grat, I don't know. But there we are closing up on (let's call it) Wednesday night, and out of nowhere we have to stuff new inserts into the menus that no longer mention the auto-grat. The policy has been changed and none of us feel good about this at all.

But what can you do?

Thursday rolls around. It's almost 5pm, and TIMMY! hasn't shown up yet, which isn't like him. We find out he no longer works here? Huh? Why? We're not told.

I get TIMMY! on the phone the next day. That son of a buck had the cojones to do what none of the rest of us did. He called the owner, and quit via voice-mail!

TIMMY! told me exactly what he said too - that he wasn't going to work for someone that didn't value his services enough to pay him what he was worth, and so he wouldn't be back in tonight, or ever.

My hero.

Remember my argument that good servers gravitate to places that have auto-grats, and away from those that don't? Well, non-related, but about a year later I moved away from Nashville. Approximately two years later I was back visiting, and went downtown to meet my brother for dinner at The Prime Cut. When I got to the front entrance, there were chains and a padlock on the door.

According to the Public Notice taped inside the window, they'd been evicted for failure to pay their rent.

Coincidence?

You've just enjoyed Part 10 in my series on restaurant tipping and auto-gratuity. Here's links to Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8 and Part 9 so you can catch up. Part 11 is either the conclusion, or the penultimate installment. Either way, you won't want to miss it! Subscribe for the last chapters via the e-mail link below, or the box at the top of this page.

The Auto-Gratuity's Effect on Service, Part 2

2012-08-11T16:54:00.654-04:00

Folks I'm working a double today - on the blog that is!

Here's another thrilling installment of my series on restaurant tipping. If you're new to this site please read Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 and Part 8. Part 8 is actually Part 1 to this entry, which could more appropriately have been titled ...
"Why Restaurants That Don't Auto-Grat Suck."

IMHO, it's in your best interest to avoid them actually. Here's why...

Image Source - Menu PDF from Ruby Tuesday on NorthShore, Kroger Pike, Knoxville TN

Hey I'm going to pick on a Ruby Tuesday today, partly because I used to work at Ruby Tuesday in Knoxville TN (not this one, but in stores #1 and #20), and partly because of what this ONE Ruby Tuesday's menu states about tipping. From what I've researched for this post, what you see above is not Ruby Tuesday's "overall corporate policy" and many of them DO include gratuity on large parties.

One more thing before they try to sue me : I'll also say that Ruby Tuesday was my first job waiting tables ever, and in my three years as a server (and later bartender) for Ruby's, I learned quite a bit about how to give great service, and much that I employ still today. The training was quite sufficient (and I'm not just saying that because I was a trainer for them at one time) and the "by the book" standards of service for their "Waitrons" (seriously, the manual at the time called us Waitrons) set the bar pretty high as far as knowing what was expected of me a server.

With that said, back to real life.

As we discussed earlier, when you see an auto-grat on your bill for a large party, it generally means that you're being assigned one of the better servers which that restaurant has to offer you at the time... at least to whatever extent the selection of which server you get, falls under the reasonable ability of the manager or hostess to pick and choose for you.

GO READ that whole story now, before proceeding here.

And hurry up, you're holding up the line.

Now that you understand how that concept plays out in the restaurants you go to every day, the key to following me here lies in taking that same logic, then seeing how to apply it to a much larger picture. The picture not so much being the restaurant you walk into and the waiter or waitress they choose to give to you, but rather "the picture" being the town or city you are in, and the restaurant(s) you choose to walk into.

You'll also need to allow me to take you out of your point of view for today - as a customer who (hopefully) has choices about where to eat - and now enter my world as a waiter who (hopefully) has choices about where to apply for work. Sound like fun?

Cool. Now, with the table being properly set ...

Tonight's Special begins with a few words from my fellow server/bartender/blogger Steve Nicolle, who has also tackled the topic at hand in his article "Automatic Gratuities and The Continuing Free-Fall of Fine Dining." First quoting, then building upon his revelation...

Steve writes

"Corporate restaurants serve to the masses... It is a business decision plain and simple. In and out pay the bill and next please. It is all about volume..."

Because of this, he correctly (to my mind) argues that many corporate giants are moving away from auto-gratting large tables, simply because they know that "the masses" are cheap (Hey blame the economy if you want to). Large chains are starting to snap to the idea that if they DO NOT auto-grat, they will be perceived by the population as a whole as being less expensive places to dine, and therefore more people will choose to go there to eat, and therefore the corporation will make lots more money.

To my mind, Steve is 100% correct. People are more strapped these days, and many are understandably looking to pay less. I've no problem with this reasoning, but as I get back to your point of view in a moment, you also might be interested in seeing how this business model negatively affects you, and makes the quality of service you receive at these places worse and worse and worse as this trend continues.

Here's why. If you've been following me since the beginning, you've seen me get stiffed on both a $200 tab and a $600 tab, which literally costs me money out of pocket. You've seen a girl cry over getting stiffed on $300, and you've seen my friend almost get fired for his reaction to a table that tipped him poorly. While not covered here in such detail here to date, I've witnessed many other servers either walk out of their shifts - and their jobs - over this factor, and many others get fired for confronting or cussing out their customers who didn't tip.

It's hard to keep good help that way people. As I've detailed, the automatic gratuity is one of, if not THE essential ingredient in retaining good staffers, long-term, who genuinely want to work hard and be known for giving exceptional service. Because otherwise, human nature will eventually over-ride our calmer selves, and we would all walk out or get fired from our positions. We may regret it later, but it is indeed what happens in places that don't include the tip on larger parties, leaving their waiters to earn nothing for their shift. It's insulting, it's degrading, and we can't forever just take it. It HURTS having our hopes for a $100+ night dashed when bills are due, by some redneck, foreigner, or all around Cheap-O who thinks it's okay to stiff us for no good reason.

But the above ugliness doesn't happen with even 1/10th of the frequency (I'm guessing) in restaurants where the server gets their autograt. We can happily and productively move on with our shift to the next round of tables and be pleasant to them, knowing we've already had a decent night.

So if I - speaking as a very experienced server - have any choice in the matter, I will not apply to work in a place that does not have an auto-grat policy in place. Neither will most other experienced, excellent servers. Our experience shows us already that we're going to earn considerably less income there, and who wants to work for a place that so clearly cares so very little about their employees' overall well-being? Have you, dear reader, ever had to make perhaps a similar choice in your own professional life?

Getting back to the Northshore Ruby Tuesday in Knoxville Tennessee, I'm not *only* not going to work there, I'm reluctant to eat there as well. And mostly not because I'm offended by their policy. I am a bit, sure... But Hey, this is 2012. Nobody boycotts or chooses a restaurant based on things that have nothing to do with the quality of the food, right? Ummm....

It's just that in this case, because of knowing about this particular policy, I wouldn't expect to get near as good of service as I might at any of their nearby competitors, that do auto-grat larger tables.

I can surmise this because I know the secret code required to translate the policy stated on their menu!

"... and unlike other restaurants, we don't add an automatic gratuity. We believe the amount you reward your server should be your choice."

That sounds reasonable at first, and I'm sure many Knoxvillians go there for that very reason. They can leave $5 on their hundred-dollar tab and not feel guilty about it, because the menu said it was their choice. This implies a belief by the owner and/or management that there are no industry standards to go by, and that there is no right or wrong to go by when tipping. Well hopefully you know better by now reader. How this statement actually reads to me, goes a little more like this :

"... and unlike other restaurants, we don't care so much whether our staff takes home any money, just our corporate owners and officers. Our staff is mostly college kids who don't have much experience waiting tables, and probably won't be here next time you come in, because they've either graduated or moved on to a restaurant where they will be treated with more dignity by both the company and the customers, and will make more money.

"We know good and well that you come here for great food, and if you honestly expected or demanded outstanding service, you'd be willing to pay for it elsewhere. Sure, if you complain about the service, we'll take it seriously and might have to fire the kid... But that's okay, because we know that we have thousands more inexperienced workers coming in every year to replace them with. So feel free to come leave your money in our cash registers, without thinking twice about how much you leave in your servers' pockets. We know they matter even less to you than they do to us."

But maybe that's just how I read it.

Not to single out this one restaurant, I just want you to know that any place that offers sit-down service - whether they call it "fine dining" or not - has made an important and key decision about their service levels, one way or the other, which will be quite apparent by their auto-grat policies. If there's an auto-grat, they'd prefer to retain their more experienced and skilled employees by meeting their financial needs, and believe that enough people will come in for both their food and the superior service which their experienced staff provides, to make up for the value diners they lose. If there's not an auto-grat, they're probably courting less sophisticated diners who care more about saving money than paying for top-notch service. And they're betting that these days, there's more people like that than those willing or able to pay for top-notch service.

So that's another way that an auto-grat actually works in your favor - even if you're not part of a large party but are just wanting a nice dinner out for two. The more skilled and experienced servers will tend to gravitate towards working for restaurants that have such a policy (and those that generally demand more experience to get hired). Just as the less experienced servers who are getting stiffed on 10-tops will tend to cry, break things, and walk out in the middle of their shifts - perhaps leaving you and your date waiting for some other server who already has 4 or 5 tables going - to be told by the manager to add you to their workload.

I'm speaking solely in averages and probabilities based on years of observation and experience here, of course. I'm sure this Ruby Tuesday (and many other non-grat restaurants) have some fantastic servers on their payroll. I was one, so to speak. But I'm equally sure that the good ones who are there now, who are still waiting tables a few years from now, will have taken their skill-set somewhere else, just like I did.

You have the same choice of course, and I respect you either way. Take your money where you like, but I will caution you to not take expectations for the best service to places that don't auto-grat large tables. The servers most likely qualified to meet those expectations for you... have left the building.

"Oh yeah, smart fellow? Well, as a matter of fact I woulda tipped you a lot MORE if the tip hadn't been included!"

You sir, are a liar.

Next, on Guy's Work Blog.

The Auto-Gratuity's Effect on Service

2012-08-11T15:46:00.001-04:00

Welcome back friends and enemies alike!

Working 2 jobs has it's ups and downs, and one of the downsides is definitely a shortage of time to blog. But I've finally got a couple of days off, so I'm squeaking out yet another thrilling installment of my series on tipping (and the auto-grat) today. If you're new to this site please read Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 and Part 7, and subscribe to this blog for the final installments.

For you cool kids in the know already ...

Source : TheAtlanticWire.com
"Please Welcome the Rise of the Automatic Gratuity"

The word "Auto-grat" (which I'll be using from here on) is simply restaurant servers' affectionate term for the "automatic gratuity" that in many places gets included on larger tables. Generally, groups consisting of around 8 people will get auto-gratted, and possibly on parties of as few as 5 or 6 people - and occasionally even less - depending upon the establishment's policies.

For example, where I currently work the menu reads "20% Gratuity will be added for parties of 7 or more."

Maybe it's (an archaic) 15% where you like to dine most, and just maybe 20% seems a little bit steep to you.

Over the years I've worked at restaurants where the auto-grat was 15%, 18%, and now (finally!) 20%. What this means to me actually (I'll get to you soon enough) is simply that "I've moved up" in the past several years. I can say this most especially because I've also worked in places where there was and still is NO auto-grat for large groups... and you know what? By comparison, these are the crappiest restaurants you can choose to frequent. I'll explain why later, but just know that I've found the longer I'm in this business, I finally see how the auto-grat actually benefits the paying customer now, not just how it benefits me.

"OH RE-A-L-L-L-Y?" you may be thinking.. "But I thought automatic tips just produced lazier waiters, who don't work as hard because they know they're going to get paid no matter what! HOW can you say such a preposterous thing, young man?" Read on John...

I'm with you, to a point anyways, as I can freely admit that occasionally the guarantee of getting a tip does cause some workers to slack off a bit. More than a bit in rare cases, conceded. And as I've already made clear, you the customer have every right to speak to a manager and have that charge removed or reduced if you don't feel the service was adequate. But as I've also said, it happens much more frequently that good servers who give great service get stiffed or screwed over by cheap or unknowledgeable (often foreign) customers, than good customers get taken by bad servers.

It happens, I know, but most often these are the laziest workers and/or the most mis-matched people for the job, who eventually weed themselves out and either 1) Quit because they're really just not suited for this line of work, or 2) They get themselves fired for their non-customer-service attitude or their shoddy work ethic overall. Good riddance either way, I say.

For the majority of us in the business however, the psychology behind the auto-grat actually has a reverse effect of what you might initially think. What actually starts going through a decent worker's mind are thoughts like "Oh I can't slack off or mess up on this table. I don't want them accusing me of acting lazy because of the auto-grat. I can't afford to have them talk badly about me to a manager, because I might lose my job. Or I might never be given a big table again. I'd better make sure I'm doing an extra good job on this table, EVEN IF this means I have to kind of ignore other tables..."

(Exhibit A : Old-time blog readers of mine will remember my "work-wife" story, where I shared that the first time I was given a table of 12 people at a new job, I actually paid my co-worker $20 - in advance! - to help me make sure the table got great service.)

Seriously folks, as I "moved up" in this field, I've spoken with many, many, servers who have told me that THIS is the attitude they began to take when assigned larger tables that will be auto-gratted. At a personal level, we simply don't want to be accused of "being lazy because the tip is included." Of course there's bad apples in every field, and if you'll just hang with me on this I'll try not to come to your job and judge your performance by what your laziest co-worker does, okay?

Look, no supervisor wants to deal with angry customers, right? Not one, not two, but definitely not ten at once! So speaking in very broad terms here of course, I want you to understand that when given a choice, restaurant policies and the individual managers are going to default to giving the larger tables to the servers who have proven that they can and will consistently give such parties good service. This is but one way seeing an auto-grat on your bill has worked in your favor that you didn't even know about. It's exponentially truer by the way, if you made a reservation, and management had the chance to plan the evening, and to make a personal merit-based judgment call on what server(s) are going to be assigned your large table.

Are you starting to follow me yet, even just a bit? The management doesn't want to get bitched at by the customers of course, but especially not by his or her bosses either, if your complaint goes over their head to their superior (or online, these days). Simply put, the greater the number of people at the table, the more a "floor manager" has a vested interest in your satisfaction, and wants to give your table to the best server(s) available at the time you walk in - if he or she has any choice in the matter. Without a reservation, it may come down to random rotation of course, and the server you get - especially if they happen to be new - will be in a "sink or swim" position... Either they step up and do a good job by you and hope you say something nice about them to the manager on your way out so they can move up, or they'll possibly get a complaint and be out of work without some drastic improvement. And generally speaking, they know this.

If it's any consolation to those of you that may resent the autograt, every place I've ever worked, auto-gratting a check can only be done on the computer by a manager. Our pimply-faced minimum-wage friend Fred can't just add a tip to any check he pleases. At my last two jobs, both companies' policy stated that the manager on duty HAD to drop by the table, and check in with the party before the autograt even got added to the bill. Generally, this will happen sometime after the entrees have been served, or while you're enjoying desert. (That's your chance to speak up, by the way. Otherwise, forever hold your peace.) If at that time the table is a hot mess of uncleared dirty dishes, the manager will either speak to the server to correct it, or tell them they're not going to auto-grat the table, simply because he/she either thinks the auto-grat wasn't earned, or doesn't want to risk the complaint of such coming back to his/her boss.

So now you know okay? I'm sorry to you younger servers reading this who may not appreciate me telling the customers exactly when and how it is most strategic to lodge a complaint or get you un-gratted. But hey, I've got a book to sell and that's not going to happen without me spilling some secrets okay? Just do your job and you'll have nothing to worry about. If you're overwhelmed and can't keep up (which still happens to me, to all of us) part of doing your job involves knowing when to ask your teammates or management for help, thus ensuring that your guests receive the service they deserve. So swallow your pride youngster, drop the attitude that the world owes you a living, get help when you need it and you will start making more money as well as stop giving the rest of us a bad name.

Where was I?

Oh. The fact is that - bad apples aside - nicer restaurants are staffed with decent workers who have bills to pay and who have goals in life, who therefore actually do want to do their job well, so that they can move up a little over time, and who are going to work hard to earn the right to be assigned the larger tables (that are auto-gratted) more and more frequently because (light bulb!) that's where the money is!

I and every other server in America know that we make our money based on three factors and three factors only, and "Surprise! Surprise!" only one of them even PARTLY relates to how good our service turns out to be.

#1) Volume : the number of people we wait on per night, multiplied by

#2) Sales : the amount of money you spend (or that we convince you to spend) multiplied by

#3) Gratuity: the percentage of the total bill that you leave as a tip (10, 15, 18, 20, 30%+, whatever...)

Except for the auto-grat, the last of course remains out of our control. Some people are just poor tippers who will never change, and that's just one sad fact of my and others servers' lives. For every story you can tell me about receiving bad service and seeing the tip added, I can tell you dozens about when I gave great - impeccable even - service and still got tipped 0-10%. We servers all know that whether or not we get a 20% tip (our minimum expectation when service is great) depends as much upon WHO we're waiting on and the TYPE of customer you are, as it does on the quality of service we give.

Receiving 25-30% tips (this may shock some of you, but yes, some people do tip in that range voluntarily) begins with the type of customer first, combined with giving fantastic, attentive, personalized service. 30% doesn't happen every night (to me at least) and for the most part whether a server receives 0% or 30% remains fairly unpredictable, and largely out of our control.

So what CAN we at least influence, if not control.......?

Total sales per guest check can be increased over time if we work on little things like suggestive selling of appetizers, deserts, highly-priced wine, etc. And we do, and some restaurants reward us (via daily contests, via better schedules, or by monitoring our PPA - Per Person Average - because the company wants to see those numbers go up, and their profits increase).

As to volume, we can't really do that much as far "marketing" to get more people walking through the doors, except from giving fantastic and personalized service that results in you asking for us by name when you do come in. "Call parties" (as we refer to them) aside, we can't otherwise do that much to effect how many people come in, or how many sit in our section tonight. (Well, actually there was this one time when I was dating a hostess and got more tables than I should have, but that was a long time ago and it's not a tactic I could employ now. However, offering occasional bribes, drinks, food, flirting and compliments actually does work out pretty well for some waiters.)

BUT in general, we CAN work our asses off to prove to management that we're worthy of being chosen to get that party of 8 or 12 that does call up for a reservation tonight. With the minimum gratuity being guaranteed and the volume being handed to me, I can focus so much better on service (and salesmanship ;) with your party, than I can with my other tables. If my manager knows beyond any reasonable shadow of doubt that you are going to get great service from me and have nothing but nice things to say about our restaurant when you leave for days and weeks and months to come, then he's going to assign you to me, as well as many more large tables over time.

But if he's going to receive complaints and perhaps be told that "We resent the tip being added because our server seemed lazy and really didn't deserve it" just how long do you think it's going to be before he assigns me to another large party? Or to the Unemployment Office?

Point being, contrary to what you might think or even have experienced a few times in your life ... I, and every decent server knows that making a conscience choice to give bad service "because the tip is included" becomes so counter-productive to our financial needs and goals that it's not even a logical choice. Exceptions of bad workers aside (blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, okay?) we DON'T give you worse service "because the tip is automatic."

Generally speaking we will try to give you better service, or at least the best that we're capable of, because doing so equals money in our pockets, and will continue to do so long after you're gone.

So, those times when you see a gratuity added, it's most likely worked in your favor because - out of the servers you could have gotten that night - the odds are you got one whom the hostess or manager knew would result in the least amount of complaints to them personally.

That's just one way the auto-grat works in your favor. I'll share another one next, as well as support my earlier statement that restaurants that don't ever include the tip in your bill are likely the worst places to eat.

Subscribe via e-mail for your next heaping helping of my hospitality-y-y-y-y ...

I'll give you something to wine about

2012-08-10T17:26:00.000-04:00

Image Source
Ummm, for purposes of this story,
the red stuff pictured above isn't wine.

Perhaps you've been out to a restaurant a time or two in your life, and perused the wine list thinking about ordering a bottle wine to compliment your dinner.

You may have also found yourself thinking, "Dang? $65 for a a bottle of my favorite Yummy-Delicious Brand of Cabernet Sauvignon? Why, I can get that same bottle for $20 at __________ (insert local retail store here)...

The prices you pay at a restaurant for a great bottle of wine can seem a wee bit outrageous indeed, I understand.

Well folks, I have to confess to you that *I personally* am part of this "insanely-high-priced bottles of wine problem" that you face when ordering wine out.

Sorry about that.

Small consolation perhaps, but tonight I'm going to share with you exactly why it's servers like me that drive the price you have to pay for a bottle of wine when "out" so through the roof.

Because tonight, for the second time in my lifetime as a career bartender/server, I wound up at the "Emergency Room" after a wine-glass related injury.

Many of you already know - and perhaps routinely accept - the fact that when you're at a nice restaurant you're going to pay probably triple, and maybe 4 times, for a bottle of wine than you'd pay for it at a local store. If you order by-the-glass in fact, you've perhaps noticed that you can actually buy a whole bottle of your brand of choice in a store, for about the same amount you'd pay for a single glass when ordering out. Before tipping, that is.

And if you've ever felt the need to ask about or challenge this concept, you've probably received an answer that inevitably contained the word "Ambiance" ...

Well sure Yes that's part of the correct answer... I mean the plush (furniture expenses) air-conditioned (utilities) building (Real Estate in a nice and convenient location) expenses do have to be covered ... But also No, that's just not the entire story either.

Okay, so you get the fact that this yummy-deliciousness gets carried to you by someone that the restaurant has to pay. Check. Stopping to think about it, you're also okay with the idea that it's served to you in nice glasses. Glasses that have to be purchased, and washed regularly with really hot water, by another person who has to be paid. Glasses, hot water bill, and payroll - check, check, and check.

So of course you're paying for a bit more than just the cost bottle of wine itself. You might even understand that long-term, these nice glasses get broken from time-to-time (I personally break three or four per month one way or another, and I've witnessed a server break over a dozen at once in one little accident. "What up, Dee?") and so these expensive glasses have to be replaced quite routinely. And of course you understand and respect that the restaurant itself actually has to make a decent profit from the whole transaction in order to remain open for you - for the next time you want to order a bottle of wine in a plush air-conditioned establishment with hopefully nice people waiting on you hand-and-foot who also have to be recruited, trained (BIG expense) and who of course expect to get paid for doing all of this for you.

But then on top of all that, there's guys like me that wind up at the hospital from time-to-time - just to deliver all of this yummy-deliciousness - trapped inside of a seamless "perfect night out" to you and for you.

My bad! Again, I'm sorry for throwing the equation off. But here's how it went down tonight :

I arrived a cool 20 minutes early for my shift. Take that to mean that I'm in NO hurries tonight, and I'm not rushing to catch up, nor being careless by any means. Where I work, there are wine glasses pre-set on starched white tablecloths on every table before you sit down. So, one of the largest parts of our "opening side-work" (as we call it) involves dividing ourselves into sections, then walking through the building with pitchers of hot steaming water, and polishing every wine glass.

For people who like to order expensive bottles of wine out, waiting while someone eyes the wine bottle's cork and then holds the first sip of wine up to a light - "rolling the glass" before even smelling - and then finally tasting - the wine itself... is just the every day part and parcel of what I do for a living.

Therefore, before opening for the evening, we servers likewise hold every wine glass up to a light to examine each and every one for little things like water-spots or (the worst!) those pesky lipstick stains that don't automatically come off with machine-washing. While all of the glasses are technically clean and sanitized, little things like this will of course catch the customer's eye whilst he or she rolls the glass and peers though it and the wine, searching for signs of quality and/or imperfections. Yeh, sounds pretty anal I know, but whether you're paying $30 or $800 for a bottle of wine (we carry both where I work) you deserve a clean glass, and part of what I get paid $2.13/hr for by the restaurant is to make sure you have it, okay?

So I've got my pitcher of hot water and clean linen towel. I'm making my way from table to table at a casual pace examining the glasses and polishing as needed. Then there's this onnnnne glass that's giving me no end of trouble, because of one pesky little hard-water spot that doesn't seem to want to come off. It's not enough to just polish it, so I've held the glass topside-down above the steamy water to fog it up a bit, then polish it again using the condensation to help with the stain.

That works just fine at least half of the time, but not this time. Now I've additionally dipped the glass into the water, and given it the extra attention of basically hand re-washing and then drying the glass. The chalky little stain is still there, hanging on determinedly, but it's almost completely gone now. Almost so completely gone if fact that I place the wine glass back onto the table, thinking to myself "Good enough" and move on to the next glass.

At the next table, that tiny little spot is still bugging me tho. Maybe I have a good work ethic or maybe I'm just OCD. Maybe both. Whatever, I have to go back. I basically repeat the process yet again to no avail, then try lightly scraping the glass with a spoon, which always works but it's a last resort because then I have to walk away and replace the spoon that was on the table because I know I've gotten it dirty in the process of cleaning the wine glass.

Even that didn't work this time. So I wet the glass one last time, holding the rim much more firmly than is usual (or smart) and give polishing it one more go...

Crack! Two other waiters turn around at the sound of breaking glass hitting the floor. I'm standing there looking at the cut and immediately begin applying pressure with the linen towel. I know good and well what this usually means, and I nonchalantly announce "Night off" as I begin calmly walking towards the nearest sink. This may sound pretty bad to you non-restaurant folks maybe, but since I'm not screaming, "DT" my co-worker, with equal nonchalance, announces "We've got a bleeder" as he and the other guy walk towards the table I've left with a broom and dutifully go about the business of cleaning up the mess I'm walking away from.

I'm going to spare you the bloody details of what actually had to be cleaned up so that I can get back to the point I've strayed from. But not without first giving a shout-out of thanks to about five people who really stepped up to help and take great care of me in my time of need, plus cleaning up what I perhaps rightfully should have, except that I was busy driving myself to the Emergency Room. The manager did a great job of helping me to relax while also applying different ointments and antiseptics, and "Yanni" both wrapped and unwrapped my finger with towels and even made a finger-splint to keep from re-opening the wound, while "Mrs Rabbit" cleaned up said sink. Thanks all you guys, I really mean it.

But back to the original point, Emergency Room visits aren't cheap - and as I noted, this is my second such visit (the last being around 2005) requiring stitches both times. So as to the seemingly ridiculously high price you pay for a bottle of wine while dining out, while "Ambiance" may definitely be a good catch-all answer, I'm thinking it's more correct to say that there's probably more "Overhead" costs going into the experience than most of us will ever have to think about.

So even if you bring your own bottle of wine to a restaurant, maybe now you'll be a little less peeved about the "corkage fee" you get charged, knowing about how much overhead actually goes into those nice clean shiny and hopefully spot-free glasses which you're chugging the yummy over-priced wine from.

That we break all the time, haha.

In fact before we even opened at 5pm, I heard when I got back from the hospital (and yes, I did go back to work and complete the shift, waiting on people with a cute little splint on my hand) ... I heard that another server broke another glass while polishing them, but I'm happy to report that she escaped unscathed from the incident.

While I can't speak for her, I just want to say that I'm sorry for being the guy that runs the cost of that bottle of wine up so high for you.

But yes, all that said, I still expect you to tip 20% on it. Duh. $2.13 an hour's not exactly hazard pay, right?

Boring Technical Details of Losing $200

2012-05-09T19:00:00.000-04:00

Scene of the crime.. the white tent on the right is where we were working

Dog-bite it friends, I really WILL get back to (and soon draw to a conclusion) this ongoing series on the "autograt" tip that sometimes gets added to our bills in restaurants - the series that I know just has you hanging on the edge of your seats - as soon as I can.

But while not so directly tied into the series, here's a doozy from this Friday night that has to be included. You'll understand why by the time I close things out. Be patient grasshopper.

So... I now work part-time at The Arena, right? Concerts, sporting events, and the like. All told, there's about 15 bar stations and 50 or more bartenders clocked in and running registers during "max capacity" events, of which we've had three this week. You're imagining that we're making money hand-over-fist, right?

Well, we should be .... but sometimes things don't quite work out like that in our business.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, the possibility for theft remains an ongoing temptation for all bartenders. It's just too darn easy to pretend you're ringing in a drink when you're not, and allowing a cash-paying customer to leave his money there and then to put it in your pocket. That's just one of many "f'rinstances" by the way.

My point is that there are many ways to steal when you're behind a bar, and as Mom and Pop restaurants grow into chains, then eventually large, greedy corporations, eventually they see them all. Some servers and bartenders of course grow with the company, being promoted to management or corporate executive positions over time. Then it becomes part of their new job to prevent their "rank and file" employees from stealing, via the exact same tricks they once used, when they held the previous positions.

And so maybe they "fess up" and share with their bosses the more obvious means by which they cheated the system - or at least they share these "easy cheats" by claiming that they "... knew someone who did..." while they had the lower job title.

So newer policies and even brighter shades of red tape get introduced to those of us in the work force, as new and usually more time-consuming procedures of doing things get added to our work routines, many of them centered around the concept of reducing or preventing theft.

Really, I can't blame the companies for doing so. I know I would if I owned a huge corporation.

Now when you work at a typical restaurant, there's possibly only one bar in the building and sometimes only one bartender working per shift. It's relatively easy for management to watch them, and keep tabs on most of what they're doing - especially when you add cameras to the equation that managers, owners and corporate officers can view live from the comfort of their own homes.

(Yes I'm serious - at my last full-time bar job (Cattle Baron) there were three cameras trained on me behind the bar.)

But when you have FIFTY BARTENDERS working at the same time in a large Arena setting ... watching them all and protecting your assets becomes a challenge, understandably. Certain control factors just have to be in place, to keep the joint from being robbed blind.

The corporation that my Arena employs to handle their alcohol sales actually started out as - and now specializes in - "Concessions" and so the control factors built into our system are quite like those you might relate to how things are run at a movie theater. Like how you can't just ask someone for a large cup for water, because they'll tell you "the cups are counted, and I'd have to charge you $5 for just the cup."

The upshot here means that opposed to holding employees accountable for how much popcorn, soda, or draft beer or alcohol is actually gone from your work-station when you leave, The Arena just counts cups. We count cups at the beginning of the shift, and at the end. Nine different cups for bar stations btw. We have Single shot cups, Double shot cups, Patron tequilla cups, canned beer cups, bottled beer cups, and various draft beer cups, plus the souvenir cup.

Getting to the point finally (!) the difference between the number of cups you start with minus the number you end with gets painstakingly calculated on a ledger, and multiplied out by the nine different costs to figure out how much money SHOULD be in your cash drawer at the end of the night.

It's my second night and I'm paired with Barb who's been there all season. The outside cash bar, she says, is one of the premium best money-making places to be assigned, and so I'm glad to have drawn it. Tonight's a special event "block party" for the home team with 2 blocks of downtown Broadway traffic closed off, 2 large Jumbotron screens broadcasting the game live, and a couple thousand people who couldn't afford or didn't get tickets to the sold-out playoff game milling around outside The Arena to cheer them on.

And they're enjoying some alcoholic beverages as they do so, natch, and tipping well.

Barb and I are humming along getting to know each other and just watching that pile of $1 bills grow and grow as the night progresses. The event winds down (sorry for the loss, home-team), we clean up and she gets to counting the drawer.

Uh-oh.. Barb finally says slowly that she has a bad feeling. We re-do the math together, re-count every cup again, and turns out there's about a $200 discrepancy between what should be in the drawer, according to the cup counts, and what there actually is.

We're both pretty sure of ourselves and the other's abilities to not blame it on a money-counting error on either of our part. We recollect together every little detail of the evening, and she says at one point she caught someone reaching to grab a cup (for whatever reason, like to spit tobacco in, or to split a drink with someone perhaps) and she told them No. But it was busy, throngs of people were pressed up against the make-shift bar, and for all we know that wasn't the only time someone nabbed one, it was just the only time we caught them.

Now I know that "by law" an employer cannot make you pay that money. Generally speaking what they can do is to write you up for improper cash-handling or failure to follow procedure, and then maybe fire you if it happens again. That's the normal way I'm used to anyways - the legal way. Turns out The Arena has a different plan, that gets around such laws. Barb tells me that we both signed a waiver...

We both know good and well that the only options that exist are to pay the money, or turn the drawer in $200 short and be out of a job. At least we did break $200 in tips together this night, so we cough it up, pay the shortage, and walk with $34 left over between us. If we hadn't earned that much, the balance would either have come out of our own pockets, or out of our paychecks at the end of the week with our bosses having documentation of the error, which would of course likely affect our schedules and long-term employment status.

If all of that sounds a little messed up to you, well it is.

If you have any other ideas how a large arena could protect themselves from 50 bartenders being $200 short ($10,000) every night of the week, at this point I'm all ears.

There's just a certain "air" people like me can sort of pick up on when we're working with a professional, even from just one shift. Barb's good at this job, a wee bit older than I am I think, and there's nothing about working with her that makes me think she's scamming me somehow. Fortunately, she's not all up in arms about how "the new guy" messed up her cash drawer and cost her money. She's as non-plussed about this as I was when the Brazillians stiffed me on their $600 tab, and says to me "Well, now you already know the down-side of working here."

And now so do you.

"HOW is possible that we could both remain so calm when losing over $100 each on a single shift?" you might wonder...

The answer to this and more, as my series on "the autograt" concludes. Be sure you're subscribed!

Say My Name

2012-05-04T03:59:00.001-04:00

"What Society thinks I do..."

You'd likely have to be a familiar friend and follower of my blog to get much out of this one today, or even get why I'd share this little piece.

Much of my writing here has been about my full-time waiting tables job, but as you know, I just got hired on for a part-time bartending gig.

Now I didn't mention this earlier, but I've been struggling with a few insecurities in the days since I accepted the position...

For starters, I'm not getting any younger. Bartending can be extremely physically exhausting, and I'm out of shape, and out of practice. It's been over a year-and-a-half since I last bartended for a living, and part of me has been wondering if I can even still do it?

Plus, I got hired at a major concert and sporting Arena, which means this will be an extremely high-volume job at times, with lines of people stretching 5 or 10 deep, all standing there wanting service "now" so they can get back to their seats before the intermission or whatever is over. Arena bartending seems a far cry from typical restaurant or fine-dining service, and while I have handled "high volume" before (as a Daytona Beach, FL Spring Break bartender) that was over 20 years ago. Have I even got what it takes for this job?

Well, we're all there for "orientation" - around 40 of us newbies, altho just 8 of us are newly-hired bartenders. After four hours of signing paperwork and going over the more general corporate policies that apply to us all, it's finally time for us to be broken up into groups and taken to our respective areas - Retail, Concessions, or Bar.

When this nice HR lady who was there for my interview, turns and says to me "You're a bartender right?"

It was a simple matter-of-fact question. She might as well have asked "You drive a blue Chevy right?" So I gave her a simple matter-of-fact "Yes."

However, long-time readers know that this was not the first time I'd ever been asked if I were a bartender...

And darn it, the second the affirmative answer left my lips, things got oddly surreal in Guy-land for a minute there.

There was this immediate sensation (with apologies to York) of warm water being poured slowly over my head, soaking me from within, oozing through my pores and trickling down every inch of my body, to my toes. Some of you won't like me putting it this way, but the phrase "fresh anointing" later came to mind. All I can say is that all of my doubts and insecurities about my abilities dissolved within seconds after answering her, as I found myself silently mouthing those words again...

"Yes. I am a bartender."

If you've ever uttered the phrase "I got this," then you know what I mean.

Stranger still, there was this ooey-gooey warm rush of emotion I felt towards my lovely HR lady and new best friend, as she was still standing right there beside me. It's as if I'd been going through my life for some reason as "Greg" or "Zelda Malone" for ages now - and she's the first person who'd called me by my name for over twenty months. She knows me, she really really knows me.

I feel like I'm someone who didn't realize they'd fallen asleep, being suddenly snapped awake again by a trusted friend.

Of course she'd think I was some kind of weirdo if I put any of this into words at the time... All she did was ask a simple job-related question so she could herd me along the right path with the rest of the cattle.

But I genuinely felt like telling her "That's the nicest thing anybody's said to me in a really long time."

Bartender Interview

2012-05-02T11:17:00.000-04:00

Maybe since I posted that funny job listing I saw on Craigslist recently, perhaps some of you thought to wonder...

"Hey Guy, just why *are* you looking at jobs on Craigslist in the first place?"

Or (less likely) perhaps, "Why did I feel the need to interrupt this enthralling restaurant tipping series, just to tell you about a bar position I *didn't* get (or want ;) at work recently?"

Well to the point, it's because I have in fact been interviewing, and just accepted a part-time bartending position, that's why!

It's an extremely high-volume locale, doing events at our local "major" concert venue and sporting arena.

I thought I'd share with you some highlights of the Q/A process we went through during the interview. And then something kind of weird, or surreal, that happened tonight during my orientation.

I'm in front of three women during the interview. One is their (oops - I mean "our!") "Human Resources" officer. One will soon be leaving the "top spot" she has in management at (what I'll from now on just call) "The Arena" and the third woman - conducting most of the interview - will be "moving up" into the position.

"How do you feel about cutting someone off who's already intoxicated?" she asks me.

Hmmm, well I probably shouldn't mention that mad little rush of power I experience when I do so, so instead I start by simply saying "Polite, but firm..." and then leave them hanging for a few seconds while I gather my thoughts on just how to answer this one.

This is after all, a venue where people come to party, and - like a typical movie theater that makes most of their profits from popcorn and soda, not movie tickets - The Arena charges $8-10 for a draft beer, so I know already that selling all they can is a huge part of their business model. I'm wondering if their question pertains more to their bottom line financially, or to their responsibilities to the community? If it's the former, then part of the question may revolve around "Am I a trigger-happy bartender who will too quickly cut off their patrons, and their profit-flow?" After all, there are cabs everywhere downtown.

But I have to be true to myself as well, job or no job.

I expound by saying "It's not the most fun part of our job, but it is a sad necessity of the position sometimes. You just have to be firm about it from the get-go, once you've made that decision, so they don't sense any wavering on your part. Sure, they'll act out or get belligerent for a minute sometimes just to see if you'll cave and serve them if they can intimidate you, but once you've said No, you just stick to your guns. Polite, but firm."

I continue "Plus, if they're the kind of person that drinks until they get cut off, odds are it's NOT the first time in their life they've ever been cut off. They know the routine usually. They yell at you a minute. You remain firm. They eventually give up and walk away."

It's obvious to me that I just "scored huge" with that answer. They now know, that I know, this line of work. Maybe I shouldn't, but now I'm going for the two extra points.

"And we have to back each other up too. If one person makes the decision to cut someone off - even if they're wrong - then the rest of us have to back them. You can't leave the door open for that person to just go to another bartender and get served. Once someone's cut off by one person, they're cut off period - at the whole establishment, I mean."

I could not have foreseen how well that would sit with them, but I'm glad I kept talking, in this case. Darned if that's not exactly one of the main points they drove into us during orientation. They made it very clear that if for ANY reason one of us wasn't comfortable serving a customer more alcohol, then all of management would back that decision, and if needed bring in Police (the place is crawling with Police presence) to enforce the decision and let us all get back to serving other customers. If we cut someone off, they want us to alert a manger or security, describe the person, and they'll make the effort to notify every bar station in the building. They let us know in the training that we are their "front line" of responsible alcohol service, and that we'd never be corrected for cutting someone off, or second-guess any of our decisions.

So back to the interview, then she wants to know how I feel about "conflicts?" I have to ask her what she means - what type of conflicts? "Conflicts with co-workers" she explains. "If you're working the same station with someone, but you're not getting along with them?"

"Oh" I say almost dismissively. "Well as you see from my letters of reference, I usually get along very well with my co-workers, to start."

She nods. She's read the letters. (Thanks Bobby and my other former employers!)

"But the way I look at it is that the people who cause the most conflict tend to just weed themselves out. Whatever they're problem is, if they bring it into work all the time, I won't really have to worry about them, because they probably won't be here very long. So I just ignore them - or at least their drama - if an immediate solution can't be found...

"I'm here to do a job - to serve the customers and to get paid. If my co-worker has the same goal, then there won't be many conflicts. But - and no offense to you - I'm not here to make friends, I'm here to make money. Getting involved with drama like that affects my ability to concentrate on the customers and to make money, so I'll usually just walk from any conflict that can't be solved immediately and focus on the job and what needs to be done."

I ask, and it turns out they are not offering full-time employment. Most of the people here either work another job, or they don't need to. Working here just means "fun" and extra money to some of them.

So now they need to know how I'll handle working two jobs at the same time, and if I'd foresee any conflicts with doing so. I know that what they'e really asking is whether I'll blow them off sometime because of my main job and not show up for work there at The Arena.

I tell them that "Working two jobs has it's challenges, but I've done it before. You just have to be up-front with both employers that "this is when I'm available here, and this is when I work my other job.

"But nonetheless, sometimes it happens that both places schedule you for the same night. If that happens to me, I first make the effort to deal with it myself, by just asking employees at one or both places to pick up the night where you got double-scheduled. Everybody's looking for more money or extra shifts these days, so that usually settles it - I'd just make the effort to get the shift picked up by someone else who needs it.

"If that doesn't work say, within a day of me finding out about the conflict, then I'd have to go to the manager who made the error and go over what we agreed my availability was, tell them I'm scheduled at my other job, which gives them a week or so advance notice to fix the problem. They'll generally realize that it was their mistake, and again, I'd probably only do that after making a reasonable effort to fix the problem myself."

Yuppers, I am "in" as far as passing this interview goes. The interviewing manager and up-coming boss thanks me for my time and says that she thinks I'll be "... a perfect fit" for working here and gives me the documentation I'll need to go take the required drug tests to finalize the hiring process and tells me when to report for Orientation.

Realizing that this entry seems way long enough already (you guys already know me, right?) I'll get back to the "surreal" (and just short of supernatural) thing that occurred during orientation that I spoke of earlier, next time. Subscribe via e-mail for my updates by using the blank box at the top of this screen if you want to hear more about this.

Meanwhile, I'd like to direct you to either read, or to re-read, this older Blog entry of mine. What I'll share next will be missing some needed context for you otherwise - and so you'll enjoy the next one all the more - if this story about my first time ever bartending from 1989ish is fresh in your mind.

Til next time.

-g-

Mr. McGee, Don't Make Me Angry

2012-04-29T03:41:00.001-04:00

Seriously. Is this a guy you want chasing you into the parking lot with a baseball bat?

So, you guys remember my friend Shannon, don't you?

He's the waiter that saved my life by pulling a booger out of my nose for me, just as I was about to deliver food to a table.

I'm going to tell you one of his stories, as I wind down this series (and soon-to-be book!) on restaurant tipping and the reasoning behind the "autograt" (Newbies, please see Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - and Part 6 sometime. You'll get a few laughs, and probably thank me for the education).

When last we left off, I'd just been stiffed on a $600 tab. While that's quite an emotional experience, my telling of it was tempered by the fact that I've got over 20 years in the restaurant industry behind me, and at least possess the wherewithal to somewhat control myself, and (usually) NOT chase the offending party into the parking lot to let them know exactly how I feel about the situation.

Well ages ago, while we were still young whipper-snappers who didn't give a frying pan about our jobs, this guy did just that. That Shannon, he's a lawless one, I'm here to tell ya.

I don't recall the exact situation that led up to this, but apparently, the tip he was left impacted him (i.e., pissed him off) enough to chase after the customer in the parking lot. Whether it was one, two, or ten people he waited on (beats me), they left him a dollar.

One. Measly. Dollar.

Shannon went outside, and I guess it's lucky for them that it took him maybe a minute to get back to the table to find their dollar, and then to bolt out the door. Otherwise, they'd have met one angry dude face-to-face. So, he sees them either while still walking down our long sidewalk or in their car driving off, somehow gets their attention, and rips the dollar bill into shreds, yelling "Here's what I think of your @#$% dollar!"

He then threw the pieces into the air and walked back inside. Yup, every server's dream...

Now do I know all this because Shannon told me the story over a beer, after the shift was over? No.

He and I were cleaning up or doing whatever it is we do as waiters at the end of the shift, when our manager, Donna, walks up and says "Shannon. Put out your hand for me." Shannon extends his hand, palm up. Donna places hers - closed-fisted - above his, then slowly extends her fingers, while shredded pieces of dollar bill fall into Shannon's hand.

Busted! Obviously, the customer must have turned around, walked back toward the entrance, taken the time to pick up all the pieces of their not-so-generous dollar tip, and then made the effort to walk back inside to find a manager. And (I'm guessing) perhaps "chewed her a new one" before finally leaving.

She says, "Consider yourself lucky we're so short-staffed right now or I'd fire you on the spot. But if you ever........"

Professional or not, what you've just read is quite arguably a healthy emotional reaction to the situation he was faced with. (That he actually got away with it is nothing short of legendary, haha!) But so often, when most of us servers find ourselves in that situation, we suppress the natural emotional response for the sake of keeping our jobs, and we wind up not taking our frustrations out on the customer directly. Many of us also wind up drowning, or working our frustrations out, in some famously unhealthy and/or illegal ways.

Now I really don't know if Shannon's service on that particular table "sucked" or not, but I've already detailed why leaving less than 10% just isn't right - ever. But 10% likely wouldn't have provoked such a response or action on his part. As you should know by now, he most likely wound up paying out of his own pocket to wait on that person (or group) and this makes us all pretty angry.

Now imagine that Shannon, myself, or any waiter comes in to work a larger reservation. Your wedding party, maybe. Say we two servers share a party of 25 people. We get there well over an hour early to set things all up for you, and we wait on no other tables (guests, customers, whatever you need to hear me call you) that entire night, because the tables in our sections had to be pushed together and are of course held empty until your group arrives. Everything goes okay - maybe with some minor glitch or two thrown in for color - but overall everyone got fed and most folks were genuinely happy.

The group leaves late that night, leaving two waiters (and hopefully a busser!) to clean up. And then we waiters open that little book, only to find out that we've worked all these hours and some cheap bastard (not you, of course) again left us a whole dollar. To split.

Do you REALLY think that guy will stand even a snowball's chance of getting out of the parking lot un-accosted? By not one, but two, angry waiters? Whose rent is due tomorrow?

There's a saying (that I made up one day) that goes "Every policy, law, or rule there ever was - is because of something stupid somebody does..."

My point is, that fact that you and I EVER see a tip included in our bills at restaurants, is NOT because restaurants in general are snooty places who just expect you to pay good money for bad service.

And if you're reading this, know that it's probably not your fault either, nor a reflection of how most restaurant servers feel about you personally. But use your imagination for just a minute please, and try to picture the evolution of how the practice of "automatic gratuity" most likely ever came into being in the first place...

Over many years, many thousands and thousands of diners - whether just plain cheap, uneducated, or foreigners simply unaware of the norms of American restaurant culture and all that I've painstakingly detailed for you these past weeks - failed again and again to pay their waiters and waitresses for service rendered. Waitresses cried, and waiters broke things. Some walked out of their job in the middle of a shift, leaving lots of people hanging by their absence. Customers got confronted in the parking lot. Again and again and again.

Maybe some restaurant or three in years past even got SUED based on the actions of an angry waiter. Like Shannon. Like me. Like Mabel at the Waffle House or Sven in Los Angeles or Sebastian in New York City, I don't know. Really I don't know how automatic gratuity got started, but I'm willing to bet you double-or-nothing of 20% on a bottle of Dom Perignon that before the autograt came into existence that SOMEBODY got physically injured over this very issue.

Then again, I'm just guessing - but do you have a better theory? Everything starts somewhere, right?

All I'm saying is that at some point in time, some restaurant owner or manager made a judgment call, and instituted a new policy. Others saw that it was good, and followed suit.

If I were to ever meet that person, I'd probably kiss them.

And probably you should too.

Okay I know... so maybe you don't always like it when you see a tip added to your restaurant bill, especially when you're the one paying a particularly large tab.

But if you've ever had too much wine while dining out - so much that you completely forgot to even sign your credit card voucher when you left (I've had this happen to me more than once) - much less do the math required to tip properly while you were intoxicated, then please just trust me when I say ...

You have the autograt to thank for the fact that you woke up the next morning, taking for granted that both your skull and your car's windshield were still intact.

You'd think I'd be finished with this topic by now, huh?

No, not quite. Subscribe if you care to see how this ends.
And tell you friends about www.TheWorkingGuy.com !

There's a Bartender Position open, but I'm not getting it

2012-04-28T16:24:00.000-04:00

Apparently, I'm under-qualified for a good bar job in Florida...
Why? Your resume is about the LAST thing they're looking at!
Image Source

Hey we finally have a bartender leaving.. moving on to other things.

That means there's a position available where I work, and as you know, I'm qualified!

(Or maybe not, going by the picture!

That IS the problem I ran into when we moved to sunny Florida, btw... All the best bar jobs seem to be awarded primarily to "hawt chicks" who would - for obvious reasons - draw a regular crowd of lurkers to spend their money at a given establishment.)

Not so much the case here in our little corner of Paradise tho.. Being right by The Convention Center, we cater mostly to tourists who probably won't be back - at least for a year. And, our bar-staff is primarily male it turns out, which all things considered should put me in the running.

And with Play-Dough's life taking him elsewhere, there's an opening.

Now, even tho I've kind of thought that I can't wait to get behind a bar again, it may or may not be what I want here. Just in talking to our other full-time bartenders - "Benny and Joon" and "Speed-Gel" for instance - I've learned that switching from "the floor" (waitstaff) to bartending may not be in my best interests. They've all indicated that at this place, they probably made more money as a server here .. so, I've often had to ask myself "Even if a position opened up, would I want it? And if offered, or asked, would I take it?"

Turns out it's not my decision to make after all, this time at least. I'm not being offered the open position, or asked to take it. I might feel a little miffed by this, except for ... Well ...

Here's how it went down, according to Benny, who related the story for me:

Once Play-Dough announced that he was leaving, there was a bar meeting betwixt the remaining bartenders and management. The manager asked them all to submit a name or two, as to whom they'd like to work with, and see moved from the floor to the bar.

My name did of course come up, Benny said. But - according to Benny - here's what "Mike" (the General Manager) said:

"No. He's one of our best servers. I'm not taking him off the floor."

Note that I'm not arrogantly making that claim about myself, just repeating here what I was told.

Perhaps you've experienced this yourself, or heard of someone else complaining about this very thing... In some job situations (restaurant or not) you can actually be denied a promotion because you're too good at what you're already doing! Yuppers, I have a local friend who's told me the same story - that he couldn't move into management at one job he had, because management didn't want to lose him from their sales force - he was just that good!

So in this case, the open bartender position goes not to Guy, but instead to-o-o- ("The Envelope Please...")

Chuckles!

I like Chuckles, and she's a great choice. Altho she has no bartending experience as of yet, she's still a great worker, knows more about our high dollar wines than I do, and makes great conversation with her guests.

She's also fun for me to work with too, as we have quite a few similar interests - we share a love of red wine, chocolate, studying male/female relationship dynamics, and lame jokes. Especially lame jokes. We swap puns all the time. ("Hey, why will you never hear a psychiatrist urinate?" "Why?" "The P is silent! Bwah haha!" Yeh, we're like that sometimes when in the same room. She's the main co-worker here I go to with (and she with me) beginning a a quick conversation with "Hey, you got time to hear about the really stupid (i.e., "punny") thing I just said to my table?" Why if I were a single man, I might just ...
... Creep her out because I'm 20 years older than her, haha!

All told, she has the personality to become a great bartender. It's a different world from waiting tho, and I just hope the stress of it all doesn't turn her head as bald as mine one day.

Best of luck to ya Chuckles!

Anyways, I WILL get back to the tipping thing eventually, it's just that I've been a bit overdue sharing this particular story o' mine with ya, and recent personal developments make it worth throwing in at this point.

Mayyybee you know what I mean, mayybee you don't ;)

Best Job Posting ever!

2012-04-24T23:24:00.000-04:00

"The sign said long haired freaky people,
Please Apply" Image Source

Hey been busy. Real busy. I will resume (and possibly conclude!) my series on tipping soon. Meanwhile, just had to share this funny ad for a server I saw on Craigslist.

Those of you job-hunting just may learn something from the tips the author posts ;)

"We are looking for a self-motivated experienced server (maybe 2) to join our weird little family at .... We are a bunch of seriously odd people, but we work hard and make decent money.

There's no uniform, no flair, we don't sing on birthdays. Kids never eat free and we don't have live bands, karaoke, writer's night, or trivia. We DO listen to good music, wear comfortable clothes, and tattoos and piercings are A-OK! If you are a trustworthy, hard-working, sincere individual with REAL restaurant experience, please stop by and fill out an application.

A few tips:

We need people that can close -- night time availability is a must.

Bring a pen. If you borrow one, you obviously did not come prepared. Not a good sign.

Clean yourself. While we appreciate a nice tattoo sleeve, dirty ripped jeans is not appropriate for a job interview. Try to smell nice.

Be honest. No better way to piss off your new boss than by getting hired under false pretenses. If you aren't available on Thursdays, I need to know. If you tend to get arrested, that is also helpful info, etc.

Other than that, showing up ON TIME is always good. And by on time, I mean 5 minutes early."

Love it!

If not for the fact that "2 adults can dine for around $20" I'd love to work with these people.

Gratuity Not Included

2012-04-13T21:10:00.083-04:00

(Wow. This is taking longer than I thought it would. I told you the topic of tipping was pretty complex. If this is your first time here, you might want to read Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 of this thrilling series on tipping in restaurants before proceeding.

Definitely read this older link on "How Getting Stiffed Literally Costs Me Money" (as a waiter) or you'll be kind of lost.)

Brazillian Tourists are boosting the Orlando economy,
according to WestOrlandoNews. But mine? Not so much.

Yes, I know you may not like it when a tip gets automatically included in your bill when dining out, and I know some of you have some genuine horror stories and complaints about this.

But here's one of mine.

Like many in my line of work, instead of spending this past New Year's Eve ringing it in with my lady, I was working late.

Restaurant people get stuck working most major holidays because of the higher volume of people eating out, so this is normal. Those of us in relationships usually do our Valentine's dates on another night, and waitresses who are moms often wind up working doubles on Mothers' Day. Such is our life, and we don't complain about it. Much.

Well, just moments before 11pm (closing time) a family of 7 Brazilian tourists walks into our restaurant for dinner. I've found that Brazillians are something of a mixed bag when it comes to tipping. On the one hand, I think of the nice father/daughter I waited on awhile back who left me a solid 30%. But some I work with say that in Brazil, most people with any money at all have house-servants, and they look at waiters and waitresses as "beneath even them" in life, and can wind up being pretty rude to wait-staff, and not even tip them, or tip maybe only 5 or 10%.

Whatever the case, it's my turn to be seated, so I'm about to find out. My miniscule chance of getting home for the midnight smooch, of course officially flies out the window.

The group lucks into a completely private room because a) that's where I'm stationed tonight, and b) almost everyone ELSE :) dining in the restaurant tonight has GONE HOME ALREADY. So these guys feel like they have the place all to themselves, can really let their hair down and get drunk, loud and silly, which they do.

They all order our modestly-priced $75 per person New Year's "package" which includes appetizers, salads, Certified Angus Beef steaks, drinks, and deserts - but not gratuity - as was clearly stated on the promotional menu. All told, the nice family ran up a bill of approximately $612.97 (which is going to cost me about $30 in tip-out to my support staff, no matter what amount they leave me as a tip).

The clock strikes 12, I pop their champagne (thinking wistfully of being with my own wife right now) pour it for them, and I have a great time (I'm lying) yelling "Happy New Year" with my new friends who don't speak much English. They take pictures - with me in them - over desert, and two of them even hug me on the way out of their own private little party room. Dad puts a fat wad of cash into the little booklet on the table, then offers me a big smile of gratitude for the "muy bueno" time had by all, and shakes my hand as he too, leaves.

I reach for the book. If there'd been just one more person at the table, the auto-grat would have been over a $100 tip. If they go 20%, I'll be looking at $120 - definitely consolation at least for what I'm giving up by being there for them tonight. But I'm no fool, so I'm bracing myself and preparing my heart for ten percent, so as to not be disappointed, just in case.

I start counting. One hundred, two hundred, three, four, five, six .. Six-ten, Six-eleven, Six-twelve, Six hundred and thirteen dollars.

Three cents.

10 or 20 years ago I would have wanted to punch the wall or chase after them into the parking lot. I have done both of these before. Many other unjustly stiffed servers have done just that as well, often yelling, cursing, or flipping their customers off in the parking lot.

Sometimes we pull out the calmer "Excuse me, but was there something wrong with the service?" line while the guests are still in the restaurant, in hopes of politely explaining to reasonable people who have made an honest mistake that gratuity was not included in their bill. But surprise - generally speaking, doing any of the above - or anything ELSE that would just come naturally to anyone who might be reading this and found themselves in the same situation - is grounds for immediate termination in pretty much every place I've ever worked.

While not exactly angry, in this case my more primal insticts begin over-riding my brain, or what years of experience have taught me. I've faced this exact situation perhaps a hundred times (altho never for this large an amount) and I know.. good and well .. that the only smart thing to do...

... is to just let it go.

But no.

This one's just too big a hit to take lying down, and I guess the whole holiday thing makes me feel more emotionally charged about the situation, than is usual for me. "MY picture, is going to wind up on YOUR Facebook "Trip to America" pics, and you're leaving me three cents?!?" O hellz no...

They're still in the building, and I'm going after them.

I leave the private room fully intending to pull out "the calm approach" when I see Luigi, the manager, in the lobby asking them if everything was al-right and wishing them a nice evening. That's not why he's really there, it's just what we restaurants want you to think. He's really there to make sure no other late-night revelers try to slide *in* the door, as these ones are walking out.

His presence is enough to make my brain engage again.

Can't .. say .. jack. Must .. keep .. job. Can't .. do .. squat.

Let it go.

I exhale calmly, hoping that all the bitterness and cancers of the soul this situation can cause for me will be exorcised on the spot. I keep my big mouth shut, and go to finish cleaning up so that I can just leave.

My instincts tell me this was not a malicious act on their part. They're a large group, and at many places in America, gratuity is added automatically on tables of just 5 or 6. At our place it's 8. At some places, they might just get genuinely discriminated against simply for being foreign, and have probably had the tip added to their checks before, regardless of their group's size. Odds are, they honestly thought it was included, but just didn't bother to read the check closely enough to find out.

And as a result, Guy got screwed.

Not that I'm planning on taking a poll, but I am officially voting for tipping being automatic, in certain cases at least.

It's not just for the protection of the servers however. What if Luigi hadn't been standing there, we must ask? What might I have said? What might any server in America - with wayyyyyy less years of doing this than I have under his/her belt - have said? Or done?

Imagine it's you ... What would you have done, knowing that instead of paying you $100 for GREAT service rendered, that these people just cost you $30?

I'm just saying, that the auto-grat is there, in part, perhaps as much for your protection - from the servers that is.

You new here? Read Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 of this thrilling series on tipping in restaurants, and use the box at top to subscribe via e-mail for much, much more.

Buenas Tardes.