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.
“Day 2446…today i discovered the awful truth. My so-called American friends lied to me. They told me not tipping would make me sexually attractive to women. They also lied about not showering and adding tons of cologne to my pungent body odor. It turns out that this too is sexually unattracive to women. And bragging about wiping my bottom with my bare left hand? Also unattractive to women! And writing blogs about being a jerk to waiters, and explaining my wishes that America would adopt the Caste System? You guessed it! That also makes women NOT want to have sex with me!!! How could they do this to me?! They have turned me into the sexual equivalent of what in my country of Pakistan we would call an ‘untouchable’! The reason i can’t get laid for going on seven years is because I am doing everything women find unattractive!!! Damn infidels!!! I will get you yet!!!”
In reply to Robert Sweet
How foolish is this? Tipping allows you to reward the GOOD wait staff and not reward the POOR wait staff. It makes your waiters and waitress WANT to do a good job. If they were salaried and not looking for a tip you would receive FAR poorer service. You do NOT want their salary included in your bill because then you have absolutely no say in the skill and demeanor of people that serve you.
In reply to Kevin Lisek
By that logic every person who does a job for a fixed salary has no motivation to do it properly. Because…well…why should they right?
But it doesn’t work that way. People have enough integrity to realize that if they’re getting paid a fixed amount to do a job, that’s enough motivation to do it well.
You’re a true blue cock-sucker, now aren’t you. If you don’t want the interaction of a waiter or bartender, then eat at McDonalds. You’re basically saying you don’t want to be waited on so that’s why you don’t tip. If I were you, I wouldn’t go to the same resturaunt twice.
Alright you want to know the best reason to tip? It keeps YOUR cost down. Servers typically get paid 4.35 an hour (at least in AZ). IF the owners of the establishments where we work increase our pay to 7.25 an hour (which is by the way the lowest minimum wage, not the average) that is a $2.90 raise for EVERY single server and the bartender. Lets say 3 servers plus the bartender. That is $11.60 per hour; $139.20 if the establishment is open for 12 hours a day. If open 7 days a week 360 days a year this adds up to $50112 per year. Now where do you think this extra money is going to come from? It’s not going to be out of the owners pocket. That kind of extra cost would shut down a LOT of places. The money to cover that is going to come from your pocket and I promise it will be more than 20% (which is a good tip). So save yourself and everyone else some money and leave a tip. Also I don’t try and be your best friend. My goal is that you have a wonderful dining experience.
You’re a piece of shit. As a Chef, I would personally never spit in your food. If….IF… I knew you were in my restaurant, I would turn a blind eye to someone shitting in your chocolate cake, and then mold it into a piece of culinary art.(wearing gloves of course.) Get a life you jerk off….I’m sure your curing cancer, or of some similar importance.
Wow, no one taught you that you should mind your manners when in a foreign country, did they! Go away, we do not want or need you or your attitude in the USA! W a it a minute…….. I bet your free loading butt is her e on a visa & You Took OUR Tax Dollars to Fund YOUR EDUCATION!!! I dearly hope someone spits in your cheap, arrogant, FACE!
You need to seriously get laid.
You need to seriously get laid.
In reply to Jeremy
he’s a writer. he cannot afford a prostitute.
You think bartenders or servers are unskilled? I dare you to try it for a week. You wouldn’t last an hour before you went crying home to your mother.
You are certainly a loveless person. Maybe you won’t tip the nurse when you’re dying alone, because with this attitude, you don’t deserve a smile, let alone service. No one will spit in your food; they wouldn’t waste the effort on such a grinch-like putz. Go home, make your own food.
Ahhh this is exactly the reason the old saying is at a place I’ve worked, whats worse than 6 Indians? 5!! Because it’s automatic gratuity on parties of 6 or more……