The Finger Point and the Baby Table.

So tonight my section was in the back along the wall. This is usually the section that ends up with the larger parties. There was an off table that didn't end up bieng joined to make one of the bigger tables and I would swear tonight someone put a curse on that lone table. The first table to sit in it was a couple with their three highly undisciplined little girls. Every server cringes when they see a table that involves multiple little youngsters because it usually goes very bad for the server and all ends in a giant mess to clean up after the whole ordeal is done. The couple were friendly enough to me and I was friendly back. I tried to make the parents feel comfortable and welcome. I tried to accomodate their kids. Making shirley temples and bringing extra little plates and spoons... giving Mom the girls food first so she could cut it up and portion it out then enjoy her meal, filling Dad's 5 waters he loved to drink so fast. Placing items out of reach so the baby wouldn't knock it over. Was any of this to any avail? Hell no. The girls still managed to spill not one but two of the drinks all over the table. I had baby proofed the girls drinks and placed Mom and Dads drinks out of harms way. I tried to help clean the mess and after that the parents decided to box up what was left and leave. I closed them out got them boxes and tried to help Mom clear out some of the mess so she could box her food and pay but she said she was fine. When she left there was ice cubes, spaghetti and crayons everywhere. Great right... and like deja vu from the last baby table... what did they leave for a tip??? Less than 10%.

F***ing incredible. I wonder what you'd tip if I actually treated you the way I feel like treating you when you walk in with a bunch of kids. Mom and Dad... you of all people should understand and appreciate it when someone cooks and cleans up after your children. Seriously... think about it. These are your kids and you love them. You still hate to cook, clean up and deal with the whining neediness. These are not my kids and I do not love them but it is my job to wait on whoever comes to my restaurant and make them feel welcome. If you know how bad it sucks to do my job then why would you abuse me like that. F*** you housewives who say you work hard and aren't appreciated then go into a restaurant with your kids and slap your server in the face like that.

So after that ordeal was done a party of 8 was seated in my section at the tables next to the one that was previously the baby table. When their food was ready I trayed up half (it was all I could fit) and asked another server to follow me with the rest. In the time it took me to tray up the food and walk from the kitchen a table had been sat in the cursed table. As I am walking with a giant tray packed with food to this big table next door obviously about to serve them the woman at the cursed table points her finger up in the air at me like she's saying come here now. I am OBVIOUSLY tending to another table right now and trying to serve them their food. should i just drop my tray and run over?? So I tried to be nice and while passing out the food quickly ask her if she would like me to get her something to drink while she waits. Well, oh no. she stopped me from what I was doing to ask a million stupid questions and tell me everything she wanted from the drink to app to the entree while the table next door I was trying to serve watched half their food just sit on the tray. It didn't stop there. Everytime I would check on her she would say she was doing just fine then a minute later there she'd be pointing that finger and waving it in the air. It was like she enjoyed being a condescending biotch so much that I started believing she would intentionally wait until I walked away or was trying to take care of other customers just so she could shake that little finger and demand my presence immediately. If there is anything that rattles a servers cage it's having fingers snapped and pointed at them like "HERE SERVANT SERVANT".
I understand some people don't realize it's rude because they've never been in a server or bartenders position before. There was this one time I went to visit my roomate at the bar she works at and have a few drinks. It was super busy and this one guy kept banging his empty beer on the bar at her everytime he needed another one until she dropped everything else and got him one. Since I was a customer and not an employee of this place I exercised my freedom to let that guy know what an asshole he was being. I called him over and I told him how rude and degrading it is when you do something like that to a bartender. He thought about it and then appologized and said he just wanted to get her attention. I told him that I'm sure she noticed you were out of beer but had a line of people also ordering drinks and it takes a few minutes to get to you and a better way to get your drink on time is to call her by her god-given name. I told him her name and I said next time he needed to get her attention try calling her by her name and I say I need a beer when you have a minute. He ended up tipping her a hundred dollars that night because he was in fact a very cool older guy... he had just never worked in a restaurant or bar and didn't know how it felt to be snapped, banged or pointed at.

Rule #7 and #8: If you come in with your kids please acknowledge and appreciate that it is a headache to deal with and clean up after them and tip accordingly. Never snap at, point or bang a glass at your server. A friendly wave or name call is just fine... but not if they are talking to and or serving the table next to you.

Poor people vs.Trashy people

One thing I have learned working in an upscale restaurant is that rich people can still be super trashy and poor people can be very classy. Some poor people however, can still be very trashy while some rich people can be classy.
My grandmother was a very poor woman and I can remember the handful of times she scrounged up enough money to take us out to eat when we were growing up. My grandmother cooked all of the time for our huge family and it was super rare that she ever had enough money to pay someone else to do this kind of work for her. She viewed going out to eat as what it is... a luxery and not an entitlement. She always treated staff with a sincere kindness and appreciation that you rarely see because most people view eating out as their god given right. If she did go out to eat she always made sure she had enough money to tip very well. She tipped more than the 15-20% because she figured that most other people probally treat them like hell (especially because she took us to lower end restaurants because it was all she could afford). And she was right.
Class isn't how much money you have. Class is a social grace that can't be bought. Class is treating people with respect out of humility and good will. Class is gratitude and tact.
Trashy is a barbaric demeanor. Demanding, rude, obnoxious and entitled. If you bring class to my table I will treat you with class. If you bring trash to my table I will treat you like you are trashy. I don't care if I know you have more money than God or if you are a poor little old lady widow who saved up enough pennies to treat your family to dinner.

Rule # 6: Keep it classy.

As The World Turns Around the lady at the bar

I work in a restaurant that has a nice patio dining area; which means that EVERYONE wants a table during the spring and the fall and we get slammed all the time because people come in hopes of getting a table out there. People will wait ridiculous amounts of time to get a table out there even if there is immediate seating inside. So tonight, there was a huge wait for patio seating and a woman comes in with her gay guy friend, puts her name on the list and then they sit at the bar and order a drink. Later on I go to close out a tables check on the computer at the hostess station and the lady turns around and snaps at me...

Lady "Hellllloooo, how much looonnger is our wait going to be for our table on the patio?"

Me "I'm not sure. I'm not the hostess. As soon as the hostess gets back I will ask her."

Lady "Ohhhhh I thought you were the hostess. Well go find out then."

So the hostess comes back and I ask her about their wait and she said that she called out every name on the list more than once and they never responded to claim their table. So now the patio is full and they are going to have to wait again. I go and explain to the lady that when their table was called no one responded so it was passed up. She sighed with indignation... um well we were just here at the bar! She couldn't have come found us right here? Then I had to explain that there was a very extensive amount of people over the course of the night waiting for tables on the patio and it is not always so easy to know your face to match the name and also where you were hanging out. The reason names are taken down and called are for that reason. Yes, on a moderate wait list a hostess can reasonably get your name, check out where you went and come get you when your table is ready. The next outside table to get up is of course mine and so I go to the bar and tell them I have a table for them. Well the same woman who was in suuccchhh a hurry to get her table spent the next 15 minutes after I set her table up still chatting people up at the bar and in the walk way while the other people who had to get pushed back for her sat there and watched looking like they wanted to sucker punch her repeatedly in the forehead. So then they sat down with their drinks and her friend ordered one small pizza and she ordered nothing because SHE HAD ALREADY EATEN JUST A COUPLE OF HOURS AGO AT ANOTHER WHOS WHO RESTAURANT DOWN THE STREET. So these people sat at bar waiting for a patio table for quite a while, expected that from a two second meeting with the hostess she would know exactly which name matched the face and that they were drinking at the bar. They didn't feel it was at all necessessary to listen for their name and threw a fit that the hostess didn't get all that in the two second meeting. All of this just to sit on the patio for one small pizza so they could see and be seen.
People seem to go out to eat with the idea in mind that they are some kind of celebrity and should be treated like one. In a massive crowd of people they assume they are top priority. This attitude usually makes you look like the opposite. When you act like that in my restauraunt or at my table I do not think you are a celebrity or top priority. I think you are a whiny self-important bitch and I will do my best to make you my last priority. If you snap, whine and demand then I will ignore you. If you are kind, patient and understanding then trust me I will bend over backwards to make sure that you are taken care of and enjoy the shit out of your night. After all customers are what pay my bills and I like you to come in. If you treat us with an ounce of respect and understanding then I will do whatever I can to make your night a good one. But if you shit on my night, I will shit on yours.


Rule #5: If you make my night pleasant I will make yours pleasant but if you shit on my night I will shit on yours.

The Verbal Tip

I can't count how many times a table has come in, had their dinner then raved about how great the food and the service was then left a really crappy tip. It's a bizarre phenomenon that I can't quite wrap my head around and it happens to servers everywhere. We refer to it as "the verbal tip". I try to think of different scenarios that might lead some people to feel a need to glow about how fantastic I was and how much they enjoyed their meal but not feel a need to pay me. This is all I could come up with.

1. You had a great time but spent a little more than planned and didn't have enough money on hand. (Not likely considering we accept all major credit and debit cards and if your squeezing yourself that tight you probably shouldn't be eating out at all).

2. You really enjoyed yourself but you don't know how much is the customary amount to leave for good service. (In that case either you are foreign or some backwards freak that must not have been living in civilization this whole time).

3. You loved everything but you still don't see why you have to tip 20% after you spent so much money on your meal. That should be the restaurants fault for not paying you an hourly rate not yours right. So you compliment because you didn't want to think your bad tipping practices meant I was bad at my job.

I am going to place my bet that #3 is the most likely scenario for a lot of these "verbal tippers" which is going to lead me to an explanation for why you should tip me and why you in fact do not want the restaurant to pay me by the hour to serve you.

Here goes.

#1. The restaurant prices your meal according to what product and labor costs them leaving room to profit on whatever the restaurant invests it's own money on. So if you calculate what it would cost the restaurant to suddenly triple the payroll for a giant chunk of it's employees then apply that to the price of your meal what do you think would happen? I would figure that your bill would be about 15 to 20 percent higher maybe even more whether the service was great or absolutely horrible.

#2. You no longer have to tip me so I no longer have quite the incentive to tend to your needs with the zeal that I used to. You remember the days when I bent over backwards, ran around like a chicken with my head cut off, put up with your rude demanding "I WANT IT NOW" attitude. I've talked to people who come from countries where restaurants pay servers hourly or include service charges in the bill and I heard service is horrible everywhere.

Telling me I did a great job is sweet and I like some positive reinforcement every now and again but I am just like every other human being that goes to work. We all wake up, work and try to do our jobs well in hopes to make money. Servers don't have a lot of opportunity for professional advancement so I raises come from getting better at what we do so we get better tips. Also, to all the people who think that they hate servers because they just see you as a paycheck... well for the time I am waiting on you thats exactly what you are. You have a boss too, are you nice to him and working your ass off for him just because he's a swell guy? No! You do it because its your job and he pays your bills whether you think he's awesome or a total dickhead.

Lesson #3: Verbal tipping is not really tipping.

Lesson#4: The tipping system is to your advantage

The Tweens

Almost every shift there will be a table of unaccompanied minors dropped off by Mom's SUV. I'm guessing Mom wants to go get her nails or hair done in peace and quiet while I deal with her tween age children and their friends. What Mom didn't do was drop these kids off with proper math skills and dining etiquette worthy of them being unsupervised. And so the race to see who can drink the most root beer the quickest (I mean this literally. They challenge each other to who can obnoxiously consume the most soda). They order according to how much their Mom left them with for food... but don't calculate having enough for tax (which is usually the portion of the bill left in coin change) much less account for or calculate leaving a tip. I work in a nice, upscale restaurant in a very good part of town. This is not Incredible Pizza or Chuck-E-Cheese and I am not a free babysitter.

So Mom comes back in the SUV with fresh hair and nails. Picks up the tweens without so much as a care or concern for how they behaved or if they tipped. This is my job. This is how I feed myself, shelter myself, keep running lights and water on. I am not paid by the restaurant except 2 dollars an hour that is only used to make sure that the government can tax me on my tips. My tables are the only people who pay me to work and it's not a joke. You work... you get paid. Not to mention I have to tip out other employees (Hostesses, bussers and bartenders) out of my tips. So when you drop me off 5 tweens that ate 50-60 dollars worth of food, paid the bill partly in change and left me nada then I had to actually pay to wait on your kids. I appreciate that, and judging by your great parental discretion I bet your kids will grow up to be healthy well adjusted adults.

Lesson # 3: Underage diners should either A: Be Accompanied by An Adult or B: Dropped of with a knowledge of how to calculate percents and proper dining etiquette

The Inappropriate Touch

There are these couple of guys that come in pretty regularly. Older men in about their late 60's to early 70's. They are incredibly demanding and condescending to all the servers and they always boast about how much money they have and then barely tip. Well for whatever reason, they took a liking to me and started requesting me every time they came in. Lucky me, right? Not so much.

They drink pretty heavily, one of the men drinks makers mark old fashions and the other red wine. They'll sit for hours drinking all the while growing more inappropriate and then begin to hit on me. One thing about being in the service industry is that no matter how vile, obnoxious or much of an asshole you are I still have to smile and be nice to you. These old men will never know how much I want to punch them square in the face every time they touch me on the small of the back or ask for a kiss. They are like 70 and I am 24... in what Anna Nicole alternate universe do they think that I would actually enjoy and welcome these gestures? To add insult to injury sometimes they will bring in their wives and do it right in front of them which makes me feel 3 times as dirty because I look like I welcome it from my lack of punching them in the face. They'd get drunk and offer to pay for my school and invite me to wait on them at private functions at their home (Yeah right, if you act like this in public I really want to go to your house where you can really let the old and creepy hang out).

It boils down to this. I am a waitress. I am not your personal escort for the duration of your meal. I did not put on this apron to shake it for you at the table. If I wanted to do that line of work well then I would have gotten into that line of work. Trust me though it would be a lot more expensive than the 20% gratuity on your old fashions. And no you can not touch me, kiss me, pay for my school or have me go to your home you old bastards. Eat your f***ing food, pay the bill and go home to the sweet little age appropriate lady who for god knows what reason agreed to marry a sleazy pile of creepy like you.

Lesson #2: Well, don't inappropriately touch your server

The Sunday Post-Church Crowd

I'm one of the few people who don't mind working on Sundays. I don't go to church or have a particular faith so there is usually an air of emptiness and a pointlessness to Sunday which makes me like to keep busy. A lot of people like church and a lot of people like eating together after church. A lot of people like eating after church with all the kids and grandparents attached. Which is great and dandy unless the story goes something like this...

A family of five come in about an hour before my shift ends. Three of them are little kids. Ok, cool. "Hi my name is L..." before I can finish introducing myself the mother is barking to her kids about what they want to drink. Ok fine, she has three kids to deal with so we will let that slide.

Lady: "What kind of juice do you have?"

Me: " We have orange, pineapple, grapefruit and cranberry."

Lady: "Do you have apple juice?"

Me: "No, Mam"

(Me in my head: We have ORANGE... PINEAPPLE... GRAPEFRUIT and CRANBERRY.)

So the lady starts to order the drinks, meanwhile her kids start whining and throwing a fit to me that the crayons are rolling around too much on the table. (What am I supposed to do about that? Whittle them into square shapes? It's a crayon, it's freaking round kid. Round shapes roll. Deal with it.)

So then the husband sits down. He looks about as excited to have Sunday lunch with his family as I imagine people look when being diagnosed with herpes. Who is he going to be rude and demanding to because his kids are obnoxious and messy? Well that would be me. So I go get the drinks and come back. The mother orders fettuccine alfredo for her kids and telling me to make sure they cut the chicken up into really little bits. (Would you like the cooks to chew it for your children too while they are at it?) So before I leave the table, the husband has already downed lemonade number one. (Let it be known... the glasses where I work are huge. If they were little I wouldn't be as disgusted as when people gluttonously down them over and over again). So I return with lemonade number 2 and the baby has begun gloriously screaming at the top of his lungs.

Lady: "Don't you have some bread or something?" (Rudely)

Because somehow it is my fault her baby is crying. We do not just give out complimentary bread at this particular restaurant. Most people just assume and feel entitled to all restaurants giving out some free bread, chips or crackers.)

So I go fetch her some bread and bring out her kids chicken fettuccine cut into small little bits. Husband has downed lemonade #3. They order lasagnas. I return with lemonade # 4 and their kids are whining for more bread. Within the 1 minute those kids had food in front of them there was a tornado of noodles, white sauce, bread bits dirty napkins and crayons everywhere. I try to do a little bus to keep it neat but I am no match for this family. I figured it was just the kids until I brought out the adult's lasagna and then realized these people are just barbaric like the vikings. Were they raised in a civilized manner where people eat over the plate? I guess not.

So they finish up and ask for the bill. I bring them the bill which totals about $60. They pay then leave. I return to bus this horrific disgusting mess they left. I almost took a picture of it for this blog just to prove I am not exaggerating. There was food, soiled silverware and all kinds of little horrors that made it to the walls, mushed in the carpet, smeared on the booth. So, it's an hour past when I am supposed to be off. I cleaned it up and picked up the checkbook. They left me 5 dollars for a $60 bill = .08 %.

It was a such pleasure waking up on Sunday morning to come cater to your pleasant family after church and clean up after your sweet little offspring.

Thanks, Jesus loves you and please come again.

Lesson #1 of Dining out: The Tip

15-20%: Good service. (Your server was friendly to you, answered all your questions, responded to your needs as timely as possible).

10-15%: Is a bad tip. It should be reserved only for really bad service ( Your server was not friendly to you. Your drinks were not filled and you and your needs were for the most part ignored).

0-10%: Only if you are so mad you plan on never ever going to that restaurant again because if you got good or decent service and left that as a tip trust me you will never get good service there again.

Something I find to be true in many but not all cases are that people do not tip according to the quality of service but out of some selfish sense of entitlement that they can leave whatever they feel like because it's left up to their discretion. i.e I already spent 60 dollars on food... Why do I have to give her $12 too? Because asshole, I just worked for you and that is the customary amount to pay me for the job. If you came to work for me and I just felt like paying you half that day because I'm a selfish asshole then how would you feel? I am a luxury not a right. If you don't want to tip then how about cook at home and clean up after yourselves people.