Would you like an awkward social interaction with that order?
By Tania Arora, Staff Writer
It has been two years since I started working in the food and beverage industry. It is a job where I met a 100 different people each day. Still, I come across a new category of weird people every night. I might be able to write a book on reactions people have when they don’t tip and try to either save themselves from the embarrassment or walk away shamelessly not knowing about what they did. I will try to summarize it briefly for those of you who don’t have the same pleasure I do to meet so many of these people.
First category would be “I don’t need my receipt.” This reaction is similar to a cat pooping in a corner of your garden, and then trying to cover up the poop before anyone sees it. The “I don’t need my receipt” bunch knows that the minute their partner or friend or the person they are dining with sees that they haven’t tipped, they will be judged or in some case questioned if the other person is genuine. They just ask you to keep the poop, they don’t need it, “thanks.”
The second group is the “trying to hide the machine” non-tippers… as if we think they have millions of dollars in their bank account and the server will personally hunt them down after they leave to rob them of their wallet and steal the money. On a busy night, servers have many other things to do aside from money embezzlement and identity theft.
Third sample of the human population is the cash payers. Sometimes people try to show their smart moves by paying in cash and handing it over in the bill book. I am not saying it is wrong to make payments by cash. But… people do use it as a way to tip less or not at all. I can sub-categorize further this into two more groups. Either people give you the book and proudly say “keep the change,” or they just leave it on the table and quickly walk out. The latter is a perfect example of the silent treatment.
Fourth would be—you guessed it—the “weeny” type. They eat all the food and clear the bowl, as if it had nothing in it, and then complain about how the good wasn’t good at the end while paying. It is a strategic move designed to give justification to not tip the server, using the food which they did not even cook as a reason to not pay them for their service.
There is always an option of taking food to-go, but people dine-in for the experience. Yes, it is a server’s basic job to take your order and bring out your food. But, when they do it all with a smile and pass on the warmth to you, checking upon you constantly and being at your service at a blink of an eye—they deserve your capitalist appreciation and not embarrassment.
People who try to escape obviously are the kind who know they did something wrong and want to save themselves from the guilt. So, the next time you wish to not appreciate someone… don’t.