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.
I live in Oldsmar, Florida. I’ve seen you and waited on you. You have eaten shit and drank piss more times than you can count. We know who you are. Your picture is all over every restaurant from New Orleans, LA to Key West, FL. We have circulated both your article and your photo. Better than that, we’ve done our research and know where you live. If I were you (which I’m damned glad I’m not) I’d NEVER GO OUT AND EAT IN PUBLIC AGAIN. Not to mention, never come out of the house.
That’s fine if you think the employer should pay servers minimum wage, but where do you think the employer is going to get that extra money to pay? From you, it’s customer. Prices for the food and beverage will go up. Now, the average price for an entree at my restaurant is $15. With tax and a 20% tip it comes to $17.49. Having to pay all employees minimum wage, that same entree would probably rise to $20-$23. Personally, I’d rather pay $17.49 (by tipping) than pay a corporation $23.
In reply to Jo
Learn how to do math, I see why you do not have a real job. 20% of 15 is 3 so at a minimum you should be at $18 before tax not $17.49. You probably should have stayed in school.
In reply to Jo
Learn how to do math, I see why you do not have a real job. 20% of 15 is 3 so at a minimum you should be at $18 before tax not $17.49. You probably should have stayed in school
Then get your food for carry-out you cheap fuck. I support my wife, son, and myself on tips.
My favorite thing about this whole stupid article? It was written in 2009. And in that entire time, it ONLY GOT 59 likes on Google. And probably by its author.
Oops, my bad. FIFTY-FUCKING-TWO. WHAT A GRANDIOSE EGO YOU HAVE MY LITTLE INDIAN FRIEND! Don’t forget to come back and see me this weekend for some more shit pie!
Customs don’t have to be understood to be accepted. Chances are, if you put any cultural custom under any sort of microscope for any extended period of time, it will soon seem ridiculous and arbitrary. Nonetheless, I have heard many people in many foreign countries I’ve visited bemoan how the boorish Americans do not respect theirs, implying this is an act of unintended rudeness or even overt disrespect. But of course, the door swings both ways, doesn’t it? This is one of our customs and, to those it is directly attached to, it applies on a day to day financial level which sustains their very livelihood. So please respect it; as something is asked it should be given. And I, for one, will continue to do the same when I visit the lands of others.
In reply to Robbie
This might be reasonable if it were not for the fact that this particular custom of tipping costs money. Now there are places where it’s the “custom” to bow instead of shake hands. No problem. Or where you eat with chopsticks instead of spoons and forks. No problem. Or where you give money with one hand instead of the other. Great!
But when a custom financially impacts you, business sense takes over and the same rules don’t apply. Don’t you agree?
In reply to bhagwad
Yes I do, but not to the extent of business sense “taking over” and the rules not applying altogether. In my opinion, absolutist language like that is almost always inaccurate, unproductive, and even unjustifiable once we move past our own initial preferences and into the greater world beyond them.
Moreover, this particular argument of yours is also a reflexive one. There’s no doubt how the money involved changes the stakes of following the custom on your end but it also changes the stakes of you NOT following the custom on the other end. (Someone using a fork instead of chopsticks isn’t much of a problem either.) Again, even if it doesn’t make sense to you, this is how restaurant workers make a living, which means it’s kind of a big deal regardless of whether or not that’s philosophically justifiable in your opinion. As always, we’re talking about the world (or culture) that is, not the one we think should be.
I totally understand your perspective, though, and I’m not asking you to embrace our ways on this specific matter; I would just like you to understand that they are our ways and, by going out to eat in a restaurant located in our country, you’re making yourself a part of them, which carries some level of inherent responsibility for anyone in such a position. So perhaps a compromise? One in which you might pay half the customary percentage (which would be about ten, give or take)? That way you would not have to be inconvenienced to the full extent of what you find so troublesome but you also will not have completely taken out your subjective disdain on a server who would have otherwise been, in effect, punished totally for the simple and singular reason that you were placed at his or her table. Clearly, it’s not ideal on either end but at least it’s something.
But of course, it is your money and your decision and that needs to be respected. No matter what I or anyone else thinks or says, it’s obviously still your call (and the world isn’t going to end either way).
You know you enjoyed that SHIT PIE BHAGWAD…. I made it for you SPECIAL!!! Come back to the Greek Restaurant. Come back to the Seafood Restaurant. Come back to ANY restuarant and you will eat your own shit. We bagged it up special for you. Have a nice DAY!
Really ? Sweet while you can sit there and wait 45 minutes and ponder your cheapness while I serve the people that DO TIP , moron
If you don’t like the tipping system, it’s simple: don’t go out to eat.
We will not miss you. Really. Nobody will. I promise you. No restaurants are going to close because a handful of cheap-asses didn’t come in.
Oh? What’s that you say? You like going out to eat? In America where we have a tipping system?
Too bad.
Stay home or go to MacDonalds.
Or at least have the decency to tell the server up front that you’re not going to tip them. See how that works out for you.
Your moral high ground about the employers being responsible for the servers’ wage is preposterous and hypocritical. You are not choosing the “right” path of social disobedience or abstinence or whatever you are telling yourself. You are choosing the cheap path where you make someone work for free, and in some cases lose money, because you found a loophole in your moral judgement.
Restaurant owners have sound economic reasons for operating the way they do in America. If you don’t like it, don’t give them your money. Be a true voice for change. Please.
Because all your doing is shouting “NOT MY PROBLEM” at the top of your lungs and hoping enough people will agree with you that you can stop feeling guilty. And I know you do.
Maybe you can’t afford to tip? Well then you can’t afford to eat out. Take some of your own advice about non-participatory protest and STAY HOME, otherwise stop being a cheap prick, or at least advertise it when it counts: the moment you sit down at the table.
Go fuck yourself. That’s it. You’ve never worked in the restraunt industry and tipping was invented in England, and yes, THE WHOLE FUCKING WORLD DOES IT. I am praying to night you choke and die on the food a waiter serves you. Ignorant piece of shit.