It never fails to shock me how a tip is demanded in the US. People simply refuse to listen to reason when we (yes, there are others!) tell them that leaving a tip isn’t necessary. Well, I’m hoping for too much here, but if you’re a waiter, here are 5 reasons why I will try my best not to give any money to you and why the reasons for tipping are crappy.
1. You act as if you’re my best friend
Just leave me alone ok? I don’t want to bloody chit chat with you. I want food. FOOD! Get it? It’s a restaurant. I go there to eat. I go because I want either Italian food, Chinese Food or something else which I can’t get in a McDonald’s. So I come to a restaurant to fulfill my cravings for it. I will pay for what I value – food. Not you.
Christ, you offend me – kneeling down next to my table, pretending to like me and chatting as if you’re my best friend when it’s obvious that all you’re after is the tip! I’m not a bloody money bag you know. I will pay the bill which includes the cost of the food, the environment and the salaries of the people involved – nothing more.
The only way to get money out of me that I don’t have to legally pay is by prying it out of my cold dead hands…
Bottom line: I don’t want to know your name, or interact with you for any longer than I have to in order to place my order. As far as I’m concerned, you’re the equivalent of a conveyor belt that brings me my food and a computer into which I input my order. Of course, I won’t be rude. But don’t expect me to interact with you any more than I would with some stranger.
Image Credit: cafemama
2. You don’t get paid enough
And this is my problem how exactly? It’s astonishing that customers are expected to make up for your employer’s cheapness in not paying you a decent wage. Please include the full cost in everyone’s bill thank you very much. I’ll pay it because I have to and the charge is there for me to see.
What’s really funny here is that no one seems to criticize the employers! All criticism is reserved for non tipping customers instead of the owners of the restaurant for not paying a decent wage. Wtf! Could it possibly be because you guys know you can make much more by tips and under report your income to the IRS?
3. You’ll spit in my food if I don’t tip you?
And I’ll shoot your kid if you don’t give me a million dollars. Seriously, am I even hearing this right? You’re actually using the threat of blackmail to make me pay you? Well as long as you’re openly claiming to be a criminal it’s all right I guess.
Fortunately that’s why I prefer buffets. Listen apart from it being illegal, this shows your poor integrity. But if you spit in someone’s food because they didn’t give you money you didn’t earn, then you’re a loser and deserve to be a waiter for the rest of your life.
4. Bringing me my food isn’t worthy of being paid extra
Did you cook it? Did you invent it? No. You picked it up and brought it to me. While it might not be easy, there are plenty of jobs which are much worse – shop floor workers for example. And I’ve been a shop floor manager, so I know. Face it – compared to other jobs, being a waiter is unskilled. You get paid what the market will think your services are worth. You don’t deserve more for your work over and above what your employer should pay you.
5. Money doesn’t grow on trees
I expect you to be grateful and pray for me at night if I tip you 10%. Be happy I gave you anything at all. I worked for the money in my wallet and by giving you some I didn’t have to, I’m doing you a favor. Learn to remember that when people give you something they don’t need to, it’s a favor. You don’t complain that they didn’t give you more!
By the way, the same thing above applies to all professions that demand tips including those on cruise liners.
So now that you understand why I won’t give you money you don’t deserve, stop with the “oh how could you?” attitude. I can. And I will.
Update: Here’s a rebuttal of the many silly justifications for tipping that people have given in the comments section.
You write: I will pay the bill which includes the cost of the food, the environment and the salaries of the people involved – nothing more.
The tip IS my salary. I get a check for “0” every week as the $2.14 an hour the employer pays is used for taxes. Do I think my employer SHOULD pay more? Hell yes! But then they would have to pass that cost onto you, the customer, and your food would cost more.
You write: You don’t deserve more for your work over and above what your employer should pay you.
Again, what my employer SHOULD pay me, but doesn’t. So I don’t even deserve minimum wage for my job? Really? They at least make that at McDonalds and don’t have to wait on you giving you refills or extra sauce or any of the other requests you may make.
If you want to attack the employers for not following the European model and paying me a fair wage…you go right ahead. But to attack servers for expecting a decent (not great mind you…but decent) salary for doing work? Insanity! May you never find yourself needing an “unskilled” job to get you through hard times.
This is why you are out to eat alone :( . I too agree that people are underpaid in restaurants, if you know the cost would be added to the bill if you weren’t expected to tip, aren’t you just taking advantage of it and being cheap? I mean, let’s face it you’re probably eating at places where your check average is 15 dollars. Nobody ‘spits’ in your food either. Just keep going to the same place, when I have the option of serving two people, one who tips, and one who does not, I will perform my duties just like you ask.
For everyone complaining about wages of restaurant workers in America–It’s the system and it sucks; it’s being brought to national attention, if you don’t like voting, vote or people against it.
For everyone saying ‘get another job’-What other jobs can I work 5-10, 3 days a week, and bank 72k while in college? (bartender at nice steakhouse, could give a shit less if you tip tbh) However, many students are not that lucky.
For the author-you’re a spoiled bitch who had mommy and daddy pay for all of your American schooling. This is so poorly written, stick to your editing research papers; start an outsource company back home; maybe if your culture was in America we’d have the highest poverty rate in the world, the poorest cities, the largest gap between rich and poor. You’ve overcome so many obstacles I can totally justify why you would feel no need to be charitable to someone less fortunate.
Go to Paris, you’ll see the difference between restaurants where tip is included in the food charge and where it isn’t. Basically, where giving a shitty service will earn you the same paycheck as a crappy one. The tipping system is a way to get rid of the people who don’t want to make you spend a good evening at the restaurant, because that’s why a lot of people go out to eat, the experience.
So is there was no need to tip, items on menus would just be more expensive, like France or Australia, so in the end it ends up the same, but you get a better service in North America. So finally, you’re just thankful to be able to be cheap.
Let me just say, as a person n the service industry for twenty years as a server and bartender, you sir are only trying to make excuses for the fact that you are cheap ass. Do you even know where the word tips comes from? It stands for “to insure proper service.” So, while you are down on those of us that are good at being a server and bartender and refusing to tip us, well don’t be surprised when the service is sub par. P.S. If you don’t like our customs, how about you go somewhere more agreeable, that way none of us has the displeasure of waiting on your ignorant cheap ass! You don’t want to tip? Stick to fast food like all the other folks who don’t like to tip. Also,for your information, I am a single mother of two who uses serving and bartending to support my kids and pay for my schooling. We’re not all just money hungry vultures as you portray us, we just want to get paid for doing our job, to serve you and all of our other guests 40 hours a week to earn a living. p.s.s. If we all got new jobs, I bet you’d miss us. Can’t go to a restaurant where there is no one to serve you. I mean seriously dude, your one person and you cant come off of a couple of dollars? People like you are the problem in this equation, not the hard working people who you refuse to pay for services rendered.
Well, you and I can agree on one thing Bhagwad…. you say in your article that you don’t want to deal with me? Likewise, I don’t want to deal with you either.
There are, however, places where you can get just the ‘food’ you claim is the only reason you go out to eat. McDonalds, my man… take a dip in the ball-pit at “Ronald’s playplace” while you’re there! You can get your recreation as well as your dining in!
This is what’s wrong with ‘blogs’ and the internet…. the proliferation and the arrogant and ignorant.
You’re straight up cheap, period. I just summarized this post in one sentence.
Cheap people will always find a reason not to tip. Period.
In reply to Melanie
amen, Melanie.
So you want our employers to pay us decent wages so you don’t have to tip right? But I’m guessing you would bitch if the price of that food went up 20% or more. People like you should just have forced gratuity or refusal of service. Go to the store, buy groceries, and make your own damn dinner, you are low class, and that’s something that has nothing to do with money.
In reply to Jenna
amen, Jenna.
STAY HOME & EAT OR GO TO FUCKING MCDONALDS YOU PIECE OF SHIT LOW LIFE MUTHER FUCKER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I HOPE THE NEXT TIME YOU GO OUT TO EAT & DON’T LEAVE AT LEAST 20%, YOU FUCKING CHOKE ON YOUR FOOD, SUFFER EMENSLY, & DIE A SLOW AGONIZING DEATH! IF YOU FUCKED ME OVER FOR THEM REASONS, IT WOULD SO BE WORTH IT TO WIPE THE PARKING LOT WITH YOUR FUCKING FACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FUCK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
Stay at home n eat! Idiot!
So let me see if I’ve got this straight. You just took probably 30 minutes out of your day to rant online about restaurant staffers in a country you don’t live in because you think you’re above having to abide by local customs when visiting a foreign country? Wow. And it’s OUR culture that sucks, huh? Oh well. Tipping us in your worthless Euros wouldn’t do us any good anyway.