I saw this on another blog today, and though some of the points were valid, most of it, i felt was wrong. Why can't people who are unhappy with their jobs FIND ANOTHER ONE!!! There are plenty of jobs that are not in the service industry...but if you must work in the service industry, please understand that your job is SERVICE, and just like any job, if you do it well, you're paid for it, and if not, you suffer. If you give me good service, then you're going to be tipped well. Simple as that. I should tip you MORE because you felt like giving me free coffee!! PLEASE! Anyway, the origianal post is in blue with my responses in red, and like I said, this is not geared towards anyone in particular. I have done my fair share of resturant work, service and otherwise. It is a rant, so take it as such. It was my initial feelings at reading this. Perhaps it was just the attitide with which it was expressed, but it rubbed me the wrong way. Here ya go...
The next time you're out eating at a restaurant, look at your server. Do you think they are really happy to be doing that job? The answer is no, they are not, but it's what we do, and we do it for the money so please help them out. Its a tougher job than you think and you should pay them accordingly!
I realize that this is a tough job…but some people LOVE it. Some people were made to be career servers and actually love their job. I am a firm believer in at least kinda liking what you do. If you hate your job DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT. If I look at my server, and they look like they hate their job, then chances are, I’m going to get bad service, and the server is going to get a bad tip.
There are SO many people out there flooding the restaurants w/o any knowledge of how to tip. Here is a short guide for the general public to follow. Feel free to print out and store in your wallet and/or purse.
There are also SO many people out there working at the restaurant without any knowledge on how to serve. It is a server’s job to take care of the customer, NOT the other way around. The customer is the REASON that you have a job!
1. CHILDREN "THE LITTLE DEVILS":If you have children, DO NOT let them, open and dump anything on the table (ie; salt, sugar, etc). IF YOU DO, you must leave an extra $5 for the server to clean up YOUR CHILD'S mess & to restock the now unusable wasted items. We are neither their babysitter nor their parent. The least you can do is pay us for the extra work. Also make sure you control your kids and don't let them scream or run around the restaurant. It's very distracting not to mention dangerous if they get ran over by a server with hot food in their hands.
Unless I am a complete idiot, most of these things would not happen; However, on occasion, my children may be a little more rambunctious than they usually are. If the happen to open something and empty it, then I will probably clean most of it up, but god forbid you should touch it?!? Don’t they have bus boys anymore? You have to clean up the table. It’s in the job description. Sometimes it’s more difficult than other times, but there are restaurants where you can work that are NOT places for children. If you hate waiting on people with children, I suggest you not work at a “family friendly” place.
2. "THE CAMPERS":If you feel the necessity to stay for longer than 15 minutes after you pay, its an extra $3 every 30 minutes. We make our money from the tables. If you are in one and we can't seat it, we don't make money.
BY LAW, if you are not making a certain amount per hour with tips, your place of employment is obligated to pay you more per hour to make up for it. Your income is not solely based on my table. If I choose to stay for a while, chances are my service was good and you’re going to get a tip anyway…unless of course you get an attitude with me for staying late. Do your job well, and you get paid for it.
3. COMPLIMENTS:Telling a server they are the best server they've ever had is not a tip. If we are good, let us know by leaving us more money. We cant pay our bills on compliments. Its not that we don't appreciate the praise, its just that if you say that and then leave 10% it's an insult.
Again, chances are that if I think your service was good, you’ll be tipped….but don’t bet paying your bills on your tips. My mother always told me not to count my chickens before they hatch. If I can’t pay my bills, then I’m going to find a better paying job.
4. THE SALVATION PAMPHLETS:Prayer cards and any other religious pamphlet is NOT a tip. It is insulting that you assume we are w/o religion and must save us. Again, like ..3, we cant pay bills w/prayer cards. We'd go to church on Sundays if it wasn't mandatory to work on Sundays because EVERYONE who goes to church follows it by eating out.
If you don’t want the pamphlet, throw it away. Excuse us for trying to be nice. We are not trying to save you, nor do we assume that you are w/o religion. We simply are secure and happy in our spirituality and are making a suggestion to you. You don’t have to read it. You don’t have to look at it…and if you are not making enough money to pay your bills, then you probably suck as a server anyway. Find a better paying job.
5. TIPPING:It is not 1960. Cost of living has gone up dramatically since then. 18% is the MINIMUM amount of what you should be tipping your servers. Just look at the tax line and multiply by 2-3, this gives you your minimum tip amount. Remember, our companies pay us minimum wage (minumum wage for servers is $2.13) And we are taxed on 10 percent of your meal automatically anyway. So if your meal is $100 and you leave $10 and we tip out $4-5 to the busser, bartender, and whoever else then we pay tax on 10 dollars and we make $5. It seems small but it adds up. How many times do you eat out per week and do this?
Not every restaurant requires you to tip out. On top of that, most of your tips aren’t even reported so that YOU don’t have as much taxes coming out of your check. I can’t pick and choose how much I make. And you don’t tip out $4-5 of my $10 if I leave it. If I can afford a $100 meal, and my service was worth 20%, then you will get 20%. If it’s not, then you won’t….simple as that. You are called a SERVER.
6. THE COMPLAINERS:If you get a discount because of your food was prepared wrong or something, do not take it out of our tip. We didn't cook it. The cooks get paid hourly regardless if the food sucks. However, we only make what you give us.
You do not ONLY make what we tip you, though this is a valid argument. If there is something wrong with my food, and you do what you can to help, and there is no smart-assness coming from you, then you will still get your good tip.
7. THE FREE STUFF:If you happen to get anything for free and you did not have a problem with your dining experience, most of the time it is because the server thinks you will realize that they are giving it to you for free. There should be extra tip thanking the server for the free item. They could get in a lot of trouble giving away free stuff. You should give them hazard pay for it.
IF YOU ARE GOING TO GET IN TROUBLE FOR GIVING ME FREE FOOD THEN DON’T GIVE IT TO ME. Furthermore, if you are giving it to me for free, don’t expect me to pay for it. If I have to pay for it, then it wasn’t really free anyway, now was it?
8. THE LATE ONES:If you come into the restaurant 10 mins before closing or any time near closing hurry up and order your food and get out. Closed means closed, not social hour. It is so rude to sit there and take your sweet ass time. We can't leave until you leave because we have to do sidework and clean the table you are sitting at. We don't want to stand there waiting for you for an extra hour just because you don't want to go home. We recommend 24 hour establishments such as Dennys if you wish to sit into the wee hours of the night.
If your restaurant is closed, then I won’t come in. if it is open, then I will, and I’ll enjoy my food. If you need extra time to do your sidework, I'm sorry. Most sidework can be done whether there are people still there or not, and that the work that can't be done then can usually be done in a matter of minutes.
9. THE TABLE HOGGERS:If you only come in for coffee or a dessert, to do paper work, or to have a meeting, don't sit there taking up our booths for hours. We are not Starbucks or a hotel restraunt. If you want to sit for hours, go there or else you better leave a good tip for us and camping fee included.
If I choose to go out, maybe after a movie or something, and have dessert, then I will do that. If I want to have a business meeting, or work on some things, I will. Last I checked, there were no time limits for sitting at a restaurant, and as I have said, if I am served well, then the server will be tipped well.
10. THE GREET:When we come up to the table to greet you and we ask how you are doing please let us know. We honestly want to know how you are doing. If you are in a bad mood we want to know that from the beginning. A confused stare or complete silence does not suffice as a reply to "How are you doing?". Also most of us are REQUIRED to say certain things during the greeting, so please don't interrupt our greeting and say "I want coffee", "Can we get some bread?", or "What are the soups?"
Sometimes you go into these spiels before we have even had a chance to sit down and take our coats off. We look at you blankly because we have no idea what you’ve said. Sometimes we are completely engrossed in our menus and you come up and just start talking without any acknowledgement that you are even speaking to us. Give us some time to figure things out…and if I’m the secret shopper coming to see if you are saying your greeting correctly, chances are, I’m not going to interrupt you; so if I do, it’s okay for you to stop talking. I may already know the specials. I may already no what I want. Noone, that is neither of us wants to get off on a bad start.
11. THOSE DAMN CELL PHONES:Don't ever talk on your cell phone in a restaurant. This is probably the rudest thing to do. If you must be on your cell, at least keep your voice down in respect for other customers. If you are on your cell phone when we walk up to greet your table we will walk away and not return until you get off your phone. Just show some respect and give us your attention for a couple of minutes.
Good then. If I am on my cell phone, I expect you to leave me alone until I am done. Nothing is worse than having a server come up to me and interrupt a call. I may be on the phone with a babysitter, and my child is sick. Or maybe I’m the supervisor of a warehouse and someone was seriously injured. I come to the restaurant to eat, but if I get a call that I need to take, I will take it.
12. TAKE-AWAY OR TO-GOS:Always remember to tip the take-out order servers! They work just as hard as a server, and hardly ever get tips for it! WE DESERVE TO BE TIPPED TOO!
9 times out of 10, unless a regular server is also assigned to TO-GO orders, then the person doing these is getting a regular pay rate. If my food is ready when it’s supposed to be, then I may throw a couple bucks in the jar…but you didn’t serve me. You answered the phone, took my order, and put the food in the bag
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!SERVERS READING THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Please repost this so the word can get out, since so many people are uneducated about tips and our lives depend on this - at least for now......
I have been a server before. I understand part of the argument, but whoever wrote this doesn’t understand that the job is to serve people. When you do a good job, and enjoy what you do, then you make enough money. No one’s life should depend (solely) on tips – especially the ones that you haven’t even gotten yet. If it’s that bad, then FIND ANOTHER FREAKIN JOB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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3 comments:
*clapping*
Go, Taboot!
I've done some time in service and never found it as challenging as this monkey head does. They obviously have made a horrible career choice and should immediately get back in line at the job fair.
“Good then. If I am on my cell phone, I expect you to leave me alone until I am done. Nothing is worse than having a server come up to me and interrupt a call.”
I DON’T agree, EXCEPT if you have already ordered your entree and are waiting for the food to arrive. If you are SO INCONSIDERATE of your wait staff that you haven’t been greeted yet, DON’T complain if the server hasn’t greeted you for 10 minutes, because you either didn’t hang up or decided not to take the call or make the call. If you want to chat, WHY BOTHER getting seated? You can’t expect the server not to do their job. Are you just that SELFISH of a human being? If you want to be on the phone, be CONSIDERATE enough to go SOMEWHERE ELSE to chat if the server is getting your first drink order or food order. If you are going to hold up your greeting process, the manager CAN tell you they need that table for someone that will order SOMETHING, because if you go at a time where there’s a wait for a table, YOU are the one being INCONSIDERATE of people that actual want to EAT and DRINK. You have NO RIGHT to hog a table without ordering SOMETHING. Also, don’t complain when you are on the phone and you need a refill or the check. If you need a refill or the check and you want your server not to interrupt you, you can’t expect to get these things in a timely fashion if you don’t want them to come up to you to interrupt your precious conversation. So DON’T complain when it’s 10-15 minutes and you still didn’t get a refill or a check. I think it’s rather rude to just continue chatting on the phone if the server did come up to me, personally. I actually think of SOMEONE ELSE besides myself. You can just say “I’ll call you back” to the person OR tell them to hold on. Wouldn’t that be the MOST CONSIDERATE thing to do, to think of SOMEONE ELSE BESIDES *YOURSELF* and YOUR conversation?
Nobody should depend on tips yet they still do. And you're right i think the frasing at the begining was wrong. Some people do like working. I do... i've done it for 6 years and counting. Yet this is not about you. You have worked in a restaurant and understand the situation even thou it sounds like it has been a while and you are a bit detached. You may know to tip well, to tip more if you stay longer or other things like that. Your childern might be well educated. I'm talking about people that are rude, that look at you when you get to the table and say Hello and respong "SWEET TEEEA", i'm talking about kids running around the table and bumping into you while you're carrying 15 glasses of water, i'm talking about people that are taken to 5 different tables and each time find a reason why that is not ok for them: too close to the door, too close to the kitchen, too close to the back, not by the window, not in the middle.. i mean the first e-mail was a rant (that i support) and yours a rant response but taken with a grain of salt everything he was right. I'm not talking about you that might have this education i'm talking about people that have NO EDUCATION. The people that got very good service, that say they'll ask for you (and unfortunatelly do) that hug you and shake your hand when they leave and then leave you 4$ in a 50$ bill.
If i even see you on your cell and i need to greet i pass by i smile and but my napkin down. If you respond it's ok, if not you're rude.. Anyways this is a blog i wrote a few days ago when i was upset over some stupid lady:
"Many of you don't know but I work in the restaurant business. It was the easiest job to get when I first arrived to "America" (let's be honest it doesn't take much to get a job in the industry, and my English was squeaky). I've met a lot of nice and generous people and... the other face of the coin. Lately it seems it takes more and more to get a good, not to say very good, tip. I always smile and say to myself: people don't know how much we make per hour and how much we have to pay out of the tips we receive to the rest of the workers in the restaurant. I've worked in the last six years mainly in two restaurants. I started in Baja Fresh as a cashier, two months later I was a shift manager and six months later an assistant manager. I ended up as a general manager later on and quit working the management position because I had lost touch with the customers, which was the main reason I liked working in a restaurant. I've worked afterwards in a full service Italian restaurant where I am still. This may surprise many, but in Virginia most of the tipped workers in the restaurants make $2.13 an hour. "You make a lot of money in tips" you think when you leave a bad tip to somebody... but stop for a second and think. Out of that tip we pay the rest of the tipped workers: bussers, hostesses and bartenders. We pay (where I work, some places require more) 3% out of our SALES, not our TIPS as TIPSHARE. So if you don't leave as a good tip, we sometimes end up paying for taking care of you.
But that's only one aspect of the issue. Most of the time I don't get upset about bad tippers. I know that for a person like that I'll have ten that will appreciate the effort I make to take their experience to the next level, will recognize that with each thing I do I give a part of myself to them. If you don't want to tip me, don't. But don't be rude and consider yourself superior to me because I take care of you. Don't raise your nose when I come back to the table with both of my hands full of trays bursting with drinks and baskets of bread, telling me I took too long. I was not in the bathroom powdering my nose. I was carrying drinks and food like a mule, sweating, dropping drinks on my clothes to get you the food and drinks we want. YOU ARE NOT THE ONLY TABLE IN THE RESTAURANT!!! You may think you are, but you're wrong. When I get to the table full of drinks for two tables summing 9 people, some having 2 drinks each, while my back is killing me because I'm forcing it to do so much effort and while I'm trying not to wear your drinks I don't want to hear your dissertation about how late I was. Sorry this is not McDonalds fastness, you're probably used to that. Yet I smile and apologize for doing my job the right way. I apologize for your impatience and rudeness, about your lack of education and culture. I close my eyes and breath deep and know that I'm better than you.
Servers are people too... we have bad days. Probably we are the ones that should have Oscars awarded to us. No matter what happens we have to maintain our composure and smile, we are always reminded: customers don't care about how you feel. There's one thing that comes into my mind. About four years ago, end of May, I was working seven days a week having two jobs. It was Sunday night and my mom called me to tell me... my dad had died. I remember taking care of my tables as always and going and crying in a corner of the restaurant where nobody could see me. The next day was the same day. I could not wear black so I wore a black band on my pocket and everybody would ask me why. When I would tell them they would have a hard time believing me because I never let it show.
I worked sometimes so sick that I had no voice for a month, I worked with such a tooth pain, that I was forced to take vicodin and work with nausea and dizziness. Respect that! When you go to a restaurant and the server gives you ok service without walking on their hands for you, think that his/her job is not being your clown or entertainer. They are there to refill your drink and get your food... that's all. So if that goes smooth and the server is not disrespectful towards you, without being out of the ordinary spectacular, think that their day may be worst than you think. Their partner might be cheating and they have to not concentrate on that, they might not have money for their bills, they might be sick... million of reasons they can't talk about with you.
I have to admit my job provided me with the opportunity to meet wonderful people and initiate lasting relationships, as well has taught me how NOT to be. Six years after I arrived in America I'm still amazed at how wasteful some people are. We don't know how much to eat. We are content with paying more for bigger meals, even if we know we'll never finish or wish to take them home... if those meals would be smaller, we would not see them as a value even if they would be cheaper… What is wrong with this??? We waste money to waste food... It is sad.
I'm going to finish with a thought I got from a friend: You never want to piss off 2 people, the person that cuts your hair or the person that handles your food. There are many who have no scruples and would to anything to you or your food (not me, so keep visiting hehe).
Next time you step in a restaurant think of all those people you always choose to ignore. Lots of them are good people and they choose to leave a part of their soul at your table. Recognize that and you may become a regular or even a friend (and be taken out to half price food lol). If I came out as a bit angry please understand. This might be my only outlet for the thoughts that I have towards my guests. Part of this letter is actually a dream I had about a speech I made to a lady that was mean to me. This is a plea to all to respect our work. The restaurant workers are hard under appreciated and under paid workers."
P.S. if i get stiffed or receive a small tip, i'll not be in the situation of not beeing able to pay my bills... but if more than one person does it and if indeed is my career as it actualy is i might get there... think about it, some people don't have something else to fall on...
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