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.
Reason number 6: Your a cheap bastard really going the extra mile to make it seem okay.
You’re a piece of shit. That “tip” helps pay my way through college. Making cash helps me get by till I graduate. If you don’t want to tip for service or interact with your server go to Burger King. Its have it your way which you clearly must have. While you sit on your fat ass, I’m assuming its fat at this point, stuffing your puffy little face I’m ensuring everything is up to your smug needs. With your bratty ass fat kid not bothering to say a single thank you and you turning up your nose as if I owe you something. If you only knew half the crap servers dealt with from pricks like you.
Maybe you should try this. Since you are a cheapskate loser, do one of two things. Option #1 – Leave our country since you disagree with the way we live and go back to the shithole you call home. Or Option #2 – Tell your server up front as soon as you are greeted that you do not believe in tipping and don’t require receiving any special services from them and you prefer to somehow magically guess whats on the menu (since you won’t need a server to bring one to you), you brought your own beverages for yourself (since you won’t need a server to bring water and any other drink you’d like, or have a server come out to keep your drinks refilled before, during and after your meal), you have no problem going back to the kitchen yourself to explain the order to the cook (this is gonna be a tough one since you’re not allowed behind the bar or in the kitchen of just about all establishments), you also have no problem eating with your hands on the floor with no silverware (since you won’t need to occupy a table removing the potential opportunity for the server to make the proper and deserved wages and you don’t want anyone bringing eating utensils to you) and you’d also be glad to go ahead and roll up your sleeves after the meal to take your dirty dishes to the kitchen and wash them yourself. (Again, gonna be difficult to enter areas only employees are are permitted)
You are apparently a silver spoon ass who never held a real job in your cheap, bitter life!
Your opinion is rubbish and the fact I wasted 5 minutes of my life to read it and respond makes me sad… I wasted even a minute on someone with your views.
As a restaurant worker and owner I certainly would refuse to serve you.. After I spat in your food! Believe me it happens!
So continue not tipping and posting stupid shit and see how many places will continue to “serve” you!!
Go back to Pakistan you cheap piece of shit. If servers were paid minimum wage your cheeseburger in a diner would cost 30$, your soda would cost 5$ and you’d be charged for ever packet of ketchup and oz of dressing you use. I make it a point to follow the customs of countries I visit. Fuck off and move to Canada, eat only fast food, or cook at home.if you refuse to tip. Unskilled.labor? Your be crying in five minutes on the floor on a Saturday night. Servers are some.of the best multitaskers alive, are marathon runners, AND have to be PR people dealing with fucksticks like you. Its one of the largest and most underpaid labor forces in the nation. How hard is your job? Sitting on your fat curry swilling ass at home typing a blog? So if you don’t want to play by the rules and leave a tip, fuck off and cook your own food. Asshole.
Okay first of all, tipping has been a thing forever. Tips means to insure prompt service. Second servers get payed 2.13 an hour because tipping is a part of going out to eat. We work just as hard as you to make money and support our families. If your not gonna tip don’t go out to eat. Your a dick.
Do me a favor, next time you go out to eat please inform your server that you will not be tipping them as it goes against your value system. I’m betting you won’t do it.
Here’s a few things to consider:
1. If going out to eat was just about providing your body with sustenance at a value price then we would just eat at home. No questions asked this is the value option. Maybe you’re too tired to cook for yourself and just want something quick and easy. Have you heard of this thing called fast food? It’s fast, cheap, and hell you don’t even have to get out of your car to get it. Added bonus, tipping is not expected. The reason people go out to eat at a sit down restaurant is for the experience, not the food. Look up any study you want but they all say the same thing: People go out to sit down restaurants to be waited on. They want someone to bring them drinks, to keep those drinks full, to bring them food, to take the dirty dishes away. Conversation and all that crap aside, servers are there to manage/orchestrate a dining experience for their guests. With the plethora of dining options available to those that don’t want to tip a server the only reason to visit a restaurant with them is specifically for their service. Use whatever circular logic you want to justify your cheapness, but please don’t try and hide it behind this veneer of cynicism and idiocy.
2. The United States labor laws recognize tipped employees as a separate wage category. The federally mandated minimum wage of which is $2.33 an hour. In this country tipping is customary, therefore no restaurants pay more than the minimum mandated by either the federal government or their respective state. It’s an unwritten rule of the land, deal with it.
3. Most restaurants have support staff: bussers, food runners, hosts, etc… This people are getting tipped out of the tips that their server makes. If my place of employment requires me to tip out these support personnel a certain percentage of my sales then your lack of a tip means I have to make up that amount of tip out from the tips that I receive from other tables, therefore you just cost me money. Also, the IRS also looks at total sales as a basis for determining taxable income. So not only do I have to cough up extra money to provide a tip out to my bussers, but I also have to pay taxes on the tip you did not provide. You just cost me more money.
4. The entire idea behind tipping is to align the interest of the server with your interests as our guests. The entirety of a server’s income comes from tips, therefore it is in my best interests to ensure that you have a good dining experience. We can instead put servers/bartenders on salary, but then they no longer have any incentive to go above and beyond to ensure that you have a good meal. Have you tried getting staff at Walmart to help?
5. Waiting tables is actually a tough job, don’t belittle the people that do it because all you see is them kneeling at your table pretending to be your friend. Granted it may not require an advanced degree, nonetheless it takes years of experience to make someone truly good at it. Could you imagine having to deal with some pompous, arrogant, full of himself asshole, who isn’t going to pay you for doing your job all while keeping a smile on your face?
U are about the stupidest person in the world and u don’t have a clue
Stay home and cook your own food. Have your husband that you probably mistreat, or your wife that you probably beat, serve it to you.
What’s funny is… I live off tips. I’m a bartender in a very busy bar, in a very busy town and I probably make far more annually than you do. It is clear by your tone that you look down on those of us in the service industry, and it is also clear that you are the type of person that we instantly read and say to ourselves “how sad… This man is completely and utterly miserable.” Then we laugh and do our best to get you out of our bar/restaurant as quick as possible so we have room for the slew of awesome people that make our jobs one of the most fun and rewarding to have… Making just under six figures, having three days off a week, full benefits, 401k, and vacation PTO whenever i want doesn’t hurt either ;-)