I under-tipped recently and wanted to share my story.
My wife and I stopped at a popular restaurant for Sunday brunch. The hostess seated us on the patio; due to cool weather we were only the third table (of nine) to have patrons. One of the others was finishing up before paying their check, the other was in mid-meal.
My wife looked at the menu and told me that she wanted an omelet and coffee, then left to freshen up. While she was gone the waiter, who was working the area by himself, came over to take our order. I gave him the two orders, which he didn’t write down, and he left.
After my wife returned the waiter came over and asked if we’d be ordering food or just drinking. He looked confused when I told him that he had taken our order, but the runner was right behind him with two plates. He finally believed that he had taken the order and got my wife her coffee, but never brought me my drink.
One table paid and left and a party of six came onto the patio, so still three tables total. For the rest of the meal the server went to the other two tables several times to check on them but ignored us. I had to almost grab him to get his attention to bring us salt and pepper.
At the end of the meal our bill came to $31.25. I had exact change and debated about the tip, but in the end I threw down $4 figuring he’d been embarrassed by his earlier faux pas.
What would others have done? Stiffed him completely, asked him what was going on, talked to the manager? Just curious.
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{ 23 comments… read them below or add one }
Considering the poor service, seems like you over tipped. No server should put a customer under the pressure/awkwardness of trying to figure out how to respond to their bad behavior.
I might have left him exactly 15% (on the pre-tax amount) but probably wouldn't have stiffed him. It's hard to know if the bad service was the restaurant's fault (for seating arrangements) or the server's. In any case I'd have spoken to the manager or at least sent a follow-up email after arriving at home.
talked to management. he may have had other tables inside that you were unaware he was serving. or maybe he was just a bad waiter. hard to say. but thank you for tipping. servers make almost zero per hour, and one doesn't know the circumstances.
that's why I say just speak to a manager,,,he may have been able to explain the problem.
I wouldn't have stiffed him because it sounds like the guy was really confused. I know when I waited tables, I checked the floor plan of the diningroom to see what tables were mine before starting work each shift. But all too often, the manager would come along and re-do the section assignments and fail to relay the information to everyone. Sometimes this would happen more than once a night and it caused mass confusion as to what table belonged to which server. It resulted in tables sitting and waiting for service because Sally thought it was John's table, but John was under the impression it was Larry's. Maybe assignments had been changed and he wasn't fully aware of what was going on. Maybe he was high?/ I dunno.
When you dine in a restaurant you should expect decent food and proper service. You didn't say how the food was, but the service was bad, to say the least. I never leave a tip based on the quality/quantity of the food, I tip based on service. If I notice a server is extremely busy Imake allowances for delays in service. With that said, poor service doesn't deserve a tip. In your case I wouldn't have left anything, he didn't deserve it. If his service is poor, and he doesn't earn tips maybe he'll take the hint and get a different job. Being a server is a hard job, everyone isn't cut out for it.
I tip based on the entire restaurant experience. I know that sounds bad but I'm not one of those people who automatically tips, no matter what. I firmly believe that if you want a tip at all, especially a good one, you give excellent service. I the service is really crappy, I give no tip at all. If the service is excellent, I give between 15-20%. I REFUSE to reward poor service with a tip. Servers nowadays think they are automatically entitled to a tip simply because they are a server. I'm a believer in EARNING your reward.
I'm a server. I just want to let you know that we hardly ever get paychecks. I have not had money on a check in months. The majority of our hourly wages are eaten up by the taxes on the tips that we make. With this being said, tips make up 99.99% of our income. Most restaurant do tipshare so that they can pay the other employees (ie. Hosts, bussers, bartenders) less. Tip share is when restaurants take a percentage of the server's total sales and deducts it from their tips for the night. At my restaurant, it's 3%. In some cases, it's as high as 10%. A percentage of your bill is being taken out of your server's bill, regardless of whether you tipped or not. If you chose to stiff your server, you are essentiallying forcing your server to pay to serve you. I don't know about you, but I got to work make money, not lose it.
I would agree with you, but there are servers who use this excuse to NOT do their jobs and still get tipped. I have NO problem tipping for good service. But I REFUSE to tip just because your job does not pay you enough if you have NOT provided good service. If I went to work and just stood around basically ignoring my clients or checked them once and then ignored them I wouldn't get paid or I'd be fired. So why should I tip a server if they aren't doing their job just because. Although your reasoning may be true for some servers, others need to remember it's called gratuity for a reason.
In this case, NO he did not deserve a tip. He checked on the TWO other tables, but just ignored theirs. And he clearly knew it was his assigned table because he tried to take their order twice. The other 2 tables had no reason not to tip, but this couple CLEARLY did.
Stuffing a waiter/tress leaves the possibility in their mind that you may have simply forgotten. I never just leave nothing. If they're that bad, I leave them a dollar, or warse, change. Wait staff HATE change, so my point is made.
O.K, First off sunday brunch = hung over waiter because the restaurant probably had the server work the saturday night shift as well. Seating you on the patio on a cold day= they played you as a fool who would take it (they are there to turn and burn). If you don't like anything that happens during you'r meal speak up, let them know , I am not happy with my seating , lack of affection of waiter, busboy, runner,host. Lord ,grow a pair and use your words, don't be passive aggressive and leave a crappy tip.
The customer states they kept making attempts to get the waiter's attention. Also, being a sunday brunch is no excuse to be hungover to the point of failing to do your job properly, for starters if you work the next morning you are the only one responsible for your choices to get drunk enough to be hungover the next day, customer service should not suffer because you're an idiot.
Guess you've never been a server. Seriously, we need to drink after dealing with people like you.
The waiter could also be "hungover" simply from lack of sleep- if he had to work till midnight on Saturday, then didn't get home till 1 am and didn't get to bed till 2, and then had to open up the next day at 6 am… yeah, that waiter would NOT give you the best service and might even forget that he took your order. In fact, that's exactly what happened to me tonight- I took a couple's order, wrote it down, brought them some drinks and then automatically asked what they would like to order. Got only 2 hours of sleep last night but hadn't been drinking at all.
Why is serving the only profession in the world where your not allowed to have a bad day or make mistakes, it’s pretty silly, I mean everyone makes mistakes or has a bad day but as a server your pay is deducted for it, I wished everything worked that way. For instance if your at a gas station and you had to wait in a long line or the cashier wasn’t as friendly as they could be so you only pay what you feel like ” I know my bill is 20$ but because of the delay I’m only going to pay 15$”
He paid the bill in full, he just didn't tip. I generally tip very well for good service and 10-15% for poor. Waitstaff can have a bad day, but they've got to at least fake it a little or they throw everyone else off.
My husband and I went to dinner kind of early on a weeknight one time and were the only dinners in the restaurant. Our waitress brought us our drinks and then disappeared. We waited for like 30 minutes and when she came back she was totally embarrassed because she forgot about us. She brought us out a free app and we still gave her a good tip because she acknowledged that she had goofed.
When you don't tip, you are basically telling that server that they are not deserving of food and shelter because you (in conjunction with the restaurant) are not paying them a living wage. That's what's wrong with tip jobs. Management pays their servers crap, expect them to work extremely stressful, high maintenance jobs for little hourly wage and then (whether it's their fault or not) they get paid the rest of their salary on the customers whim. And let's face it, if you feel tipping someone who's only getting paid 2 or 3 dollars an hour is optional, then you just don't get it.
He actually tipped over 10%, $4 on a $32 bill, for bad service that's beyond generous.
I checked the floor plan of the diningroom to see what tables were mine before starting work each shift. But all too often, the manager would come along and re-do the section assignments and fail to relay the information to everyone. Sometimes this would happen more than once a night and it caused mass confusion as to what table belonged to which server.
If this is your greatest concern, you are incredibly blessed. Whatever the reason was for poor service, it's one day out of your life. You realize 20% is $6 and you keeping the $2 doesn't make a profound statement to anyone, especially the waiter. Ihope this puts the occurence in perspective for you .. In short, move on. It's not that serious.
I have to agree with Eva.
I don't have a problem with your tip, even as a former server, because if I became that befuddled to have forgetten I had put your order in, well, the onus is on me. Everyone is human and we have bad days, still it shouldn't be brought to the job.
Since you you asked, I will tell you – you should have talked to the manager if your concerns were that extreme [to you]. The server has no idea that your less than 15% tip is a reflection of your unhappiness with their service. Had you spoken to the manager [without demanding a comp or what not – which you don't seem to be the type, thank you] the server might have realized that their missteps were noticed.
Next time just talk to the manager.
Wouldn't it be better to talk to the waiter himself?
Would it have changed your tip if the waiter explained what had happened? Would your opinion raise enough to keep you from posting on innocuous websites to complain?
With all due respect, probably not. So why fluster the server further?
The manager is your line of communication to the server and if you do it in a polite way the server won't get into trouble, but will know that there have been concerns regarding their service that day.
I don't know [can't tell] if you're the author of this complaint, but from what was explained, in this instance, talking to the manager [before leaving the establishment] is the best response. In my opinion.
Am I the only person here who actually READ the whole article??? You are all focusing on the fact that he forgot he had taken their order and tried to take it twice and stating that the customer should be understanding that maybe the server was having a bad day. Ok fine, I'll give you that one. But what about the part where the server checked on his other 2 tables but IGNORED this couple. THAT is not having a bad day….THAT is bad service. And I love how other servers jump on here to defend people, but I PROMISE if some of these servers (including this one) was one of YOUR co-workers, and you were having to do their job as well as yours, you wouldn't be as quick to calmly state "Oh, he's just having a bad day." "Oh, we don't get paid enough salary, so you should still tip him." NO YOU WOULDN'T. You'd be fuming and venting that it's not fair that YOU did all their work while THEY got the tip for it. #smh