When I eat out, I generally try to be kind to wait staff. I usually tip at least 20%, sometimes a little higher depending on a number of factors.
I tend to be an agreeable person when in that kind of environment — far more so than in real life — and get flustered and annoyed when I am out with someone who treats the waiter as if they are an indentured servant or their own personal whipping boy.
And now that I’ve read this undercover report from a critic posing as a waiter, I am even more sympathetic.
I know that I would never be able to handle that job, and that’s all the more reason to understand how to treat your wait staff.
[via Jason Kottke]
I read this whole undercover report and laughed so hard Diet Coke came out my nose. I could have warned him.
30 years in restaurants everything from Chuck E Cheese to 5 star french cuisine. Front of the house, back of the house, all of it. And the stories I could tell….
I will say that as a waiter I always got 25-50% more in tips than most other waiters and I don’t think it was because I was a better server but rather because when I hit the floor I was ‘on’… I made you feel special. I also loved doing flambe’ table side because I could really amp it up and put on a show.
But in the end like an actor doing a run on Broadway what was new and exciting on opening night gets a little old after 5 or 6 years. It gets harder and harder to be ‘on’ every night when your exhausted and drained.
It always amazed me that in the US people think anybody can be a waiter (they can’t) and its a low skill-low pay job. And yet in europe its a high skill-high pay job and waiters train for years! I like the European way better.
Ah that article was great, brought back the horrors and the stress. Back in Charlottesville I worked everywhere from a sandwich place to the high-priced restaurant at the Hilton on weekends, all as a second job. It sucked, but the co-workers were great.
The funny thing is that while waiters usually get treated like crap, the bartenders are put on a pedestal. I bartended at that same Hilton as a sub and for parties (often frat formals and things) and they almost without exception would kiss up. Of course, they want stronger drinks. They want you to be their friend. People want waiters to be their slaves. I think everyone who eats out should have to be a waiter for one night.
The thing that made me the most angry in that article was the woman who took $5 off the tip. Cheap bitch.
Waiting is a difficult job which I’d never want to do. I had my share of retail jobs and I fully understand their difficult nature.
Unless mistreated, one should always treat others cordially and respectfully, whatever the relationship. (If mistreated, however, I always keep a knife under my cloak…)
Also, forget about bread — if you treat your waiter and/or bar tender properly, he’ll always fill your glass to the rim.
I hated being waitstaff. Hated it. I hated the snooty assholes who tipped 10% or not at all, I hated touching the food and crumpled up napkins, I hated the shitty pay. All of it.
And that’s probably why, like you, I’m a chronic overtipper.