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.
Hey there you lonely old fuck. Sounds like you need to stay home and cook your own meals. Going out to eat is your choice so remember that. If you let your server know ahead of time, I’m sure they’ll let you go back there, and talk to the cooks yourself into making your food? And dont forget to modify as im sure you like it your way? Oh, while you’re at it, I’m sure the bartender will give you the opportunity behind the bar to come create your own drink too?!!! You’re lazy is what it comes down to. Do you realize you’re asking strangers to do shit for you for free? Your mom probably still wipes your ass for you too. Society doesn’t need a guest like you, as you are clearly an unappreciative individual who believes the world still owes you something. Stay home, cook yourself, and keep your pitiful excuses inside.
Wtf is wrong with u ppl tipping is not giving ur server free money…they work n live off tips I’m sure u do not work for free…. $2.13 an hour doesn’t do much for anyone. …if u don’t want something off mcdonalds $$ menu and u choose to eat out and u recieved good service u pay for it….not our employers fault either the law only requires them to pay that amount….and there is more than a server just dropping food off at your table….a lot more….your stupid made up reasons make no sense….. and someone probably has spit in your food b4…
You’re an idiot. Become a waiter for a week and you’ll be singing a totally new song. Ass hat.
I’m going to assume you would expect an American to follow your customs and ethics in your country correct? This is how you show appreciation for a job well done in out country. If your service sucks don’t tip. If you can’t afford to tip don’t go out.
If you don’t like the fact that you have tip when you eat at table service restaurant in the US then go eat fast food. McDonald’s would love to serve your cheap ass. In most states, service industry gets paid $2.13 an hr. Is that your problem? No. But it was voted on and passed as a law, therefore solidifying an agreement between waiters and customers that customers tip. At my bar, if a customer repeatedly doesn’t tip, we don’t serve them again. Don’t like it? Go back home. No one likes European douche bags anyway.
In Texas, servers make 2.13 an hour. Now if you want your drinks/food quickly with a smile? Ha. A floor worker is good at working floors. A blacksmith is good at shaping metal, and a server is good at serving, but not being a servant. And spitting in food? That’s never going to happen, because we have laws to abide by too, like health code. And by the way, a hole, if my employer paid minimum wage, you’d get McDonalds service. Feel blessed you dont have to go to a counter to get you stinky, messy, grabbing my apron weird ass kids 5 more ranch. You don’t tip? Guess what, we remember y’all. Jokes on you, expect shitty service from now on. Because this went viral in the server network.
As a server, I agree I and my coworkers deserve to be paid better. A system like those in Europe and elsewhere would be a more secure system for servers, because we’d be guaranteed a certain wage. However, as anyone who’s following the fight in Congress to raise the minimum wage will already know, feeling like I deserve a better wage does not guarantee I will get a better wage.
Ultimately, a couple of bad tips–or a couple of tables who do not tip at all–will not hurt me in the long run. As long as there are decent people willing to tip 15% or more, I can still make a good living. However, if someone who refuses to tip does not begin their dining experience by telling their server they will not tip them and why, then that person is merely a coward. Given that the author of this post didn’t see fit to put his name to it, I have to assume that he is merely a cheap jerk trying to soothe his conscience and justify a crappy pattern of behavior.
If you don’t like american culture… you have a choice not to come here and frequent our establishments. Many servers are genuine and don’t just demand tip! I’m insulted. I was a server for years and I wasn’t trying to be your best friend but I was trained that people come to a restaraunt to have a dining experience… which means its my job to enetertain you and I take that seriously. Most servers are students who are studying for a different career or a mom trying to make it. Then there are people who just really enjoy working in that industry. Who are you to judge any of us? I’m not saying there’s not a few bad servers in the mix but you don’t know all our stories or circumstances stop punishing the whole of us because of some of us. I can’t control what my employer pays me and that’s exactly why I go the extra mile for my customers… cause in the end we both appreciate it.
If you tell your waitstaff before ordering that you do not intend to tip than I see nothing wrong with your behavior, despite how ill-informed and twisted your logic is. I however believe you to be much too spineless of a human being to exercise that practice. Also, I thought I’d check out some of your other posts to get a more rounded opinion of you but I had to stop once I read you were hiding in a car waiting for kids to come around.
I’d like to say that these statements are all ignorant. Not every server declares less to avoid taxes. I claim exactly what I make to the dollar so at the end of the year I don’t owe taxes. As far as unskilled goes, you have never been a server if you think it is effortless. I just got off an eleven hour shift, I did my job regardless of if I thought I would be tipped or not. I’ve never tampered with someone’s food nor have I ever witnessed or heard stories of food tampering. I do agree with it being ludicrous that servers don’t make minimum wage but its life. I work just as hard for my money as anyone else does. Regardless, you should tip unless you received bad service. It’s part of the restaurant experience. If you can’t afford an 18% tip then you can’t afford to go eat. That being said, your service may not warrant 18% and if not then leave less. No one is forcing you to leave me anything but do keep in mind I work for tips, if you aren’t tipping, I’m not working.