5 reasons why I won’t tip you if you’re a waiter

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

 

Did you earn this tip?

 

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.

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12,132 thoughts on “5 reasons why I won’t tip you if you’re a waiter”

  1. Ok then pay for the “food”. Just say they don’t talk to you, who hand you the menu, who serve you water, which doesn’t include in “food”? Who help you to get the napkin? If you use their restroom, their water, their soup, their toilet paper, watch their TV( if you do). who will pay for all of that? Because why don’t you just do those all by your fucking own self, why you need waitresses to get stuff that or serve you the things that you fucking need??? Plus, you sit in their table, their chair, use their spices that placed in the table, they’re all not “FOOD”. Can you tell the difference stupid ass? :).

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  2. You make me happy I don’t tip. The menu prices include everything you mentioned. Only your employer is responsible for your paycheck, not me.

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  3. Being a waiter or waitress is an unskilled job. This is a simple fact. It requires no special training or education or an apprenticeship or schoolwork or professional licensing. Just write down what people want to eat and bring it to them. That really is all there is to it.
    I don’t understand why you feel so entitled to extra money in the form of a tip? Nothing you do adds any extra value to my dining experience. Doing your job it’s not worth extra money from me. If you don’t like your job then get a different one. It’s not my responsibility to pay you extra money for anything. That is something you need to discuss with your employer.. getting angry at customers that don’t tip you just shows your stupidity. If you don’t like the amount of money you make get a different job. That is how the business world works.

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    • In reply to Wolfgang

      I love my job as a server and make a decent living, supporting myself and children, living alone as a single mother. I worked very hard to become the best bartender in that restaurant, starting out though by busting my ass every hour of every shift, genuinely caring about each customer and the experience I am able to provide for them. People skills, which I have had to learn, now come naturally. I make the experience unique based on my own personality, remain professional in representing the restaurant as a whole, and make it my goal every day to go above and beyond for each customer. Because whether or not you think my employer should pay me what you are inconsiderate enough to not care or contribute, knowing the fact is that we make $2.50 on average per hour. Are you going to change a law that is set in stone so deeply within this country? No, you won’t put in the mental energy, effort to care or to relate to or to empathize with another humans’ struggles and current circumstances. My job is not a job that just anyone could do. The rude customers, who treat us like the help, and then don’t even leave a single dollar, have obviously never gone days on end without electricity in their home, without a car to drive, without food to eat, or the resources available to obtain any of said necessities. The true skill is the patience and compassion we show to the customers who contributed to our malnourishment as we starve for the next three days, as we have to see and smell all of the food that we are constantly running back and forth to bring to you. So that you can eat the meal of your choosing at the time you want at whatever price that it costs. You’re willing to pay $50 to enjoy your steak. As I look at it wondering what it would be like to be able to afford a burger off the dollar menu on my lunch break, rather than remaining miserably hungry. The pay we are given, as a server, is the nationwide status quo, as far as what the government has set it up as being. I would never be upset with a customer who didn’t tip, if they couldn’t afford to do so and were genuinely kind and respectful to me during their meal. But you entitled, ignorant, narcissistic, golden-spoon-fed, born into money, arrogant, closed-minded, cruel, hateful, disgustingly pompous motherfucker.. you obviously never cared about others, nor the struggles that they go through on a daily basis. It is in spite of you, and instead thanks to the beautiful souls of the kind, decent, compassionate, open-minded and caring customers that I do have the honor of meeting, interacting with, and providing service to, that I do still love my job. And the regulars that I’ve acquired over the years are people I now consider friends. People who do tip well, do so because I did my job well and it was obvious to them that I genuinely cared and was working as hard as a could at every given moment. It was because they knew that I appreciated every dollar they left me, being that without it.. I wouldn’t have food to put on my own table or to feed my kids at night. Without those good people, who do tip their servers, thank you so much for allowing me to afford to not only pay my electricity and gas bills, pay my rent that is due, but also to afford to be able to actually eat more than once every couple of days. So fuck off and never come again. Please and thank you.

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      • In reply to litlikeWhitt

        You are a liar. Federal law requires that with or without tips you make minimum wage in your state. If the 2.13 wage plus tips does not equal minimum wage in your state than the employer is required by law to make up the difference. Nobody works for less than minimum wage EVER.

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      • In reply to litlikeWhitt

        A simple Google search will prove you are a liar because nobody works for less than minimum wage. I love how waiters always say they don’t make minimum wage and without tips they make 213 an hour. Lying sack of shit.

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      • In reply to litlikeWhitt

        So you want me to feel sorry for you and give you charity by tipping you. Fuck you, your personal money problem is not my problem. I don’t give a fuck if you starve or don’t pay your bills. I am rich because I worked hard in school so I could make a good living because I wanted to live a luxurious life.
        Show me your tits I will buy you a 450 dollar steak and a 30 yr single malt scotch.

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      • In reply to litlikeWhitt

        How do you make $2.50/ hour if the law says you have to make minimum wage in your state even if you get zero tips? The law says you’re employer must make up the difference so the hourly wage is minimum wage for your entire pay check.
        This just makes you a liar!1111111111111
        A piece of advice. Stop spreading your legs like a whore you can’t afford it.

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    • In reply to Wolfgang

      I worked in a steakhouse in Vegas years ago and we had some regular customers with this attitude. I couldn’t believe they were stupid enough to stiff the staff then return to the restaurant again. We used to dip our balls in their drinks and put boogers in their food.

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    • In reply to Wolfgang

      When you come into my restaurant, be prepared to tip 69% or higher, I don’t F AROUND, service is provided to individual tables, not a business as a whole, imdividual tables, families, servers, unique experiences, you tip and get great service, you don’t tip OH WELL.

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