485 To Tip Or Not To Tip?
“Clothman, this is Voice. (Voice sounds just like the dude who does voice-overs for all the movie trailers.) Can you give me a ride to the airport tomorrow? I’ll buy you breakfast.”
“Sure, anything for free food.”
The next day we were pleased to see that there weren’t many customers in the restaurant because we didn’t have much time to wait for our food.
A server who kept calling me “Hon” took our order but must not have taken it to the cook because we were still waiting for our food well after two tables of customers who were seated after us got there’s.
“Excuse me Miss,” I said flagging down our server, “do you know where…” Before I could finish she said, “Don’t worry Hon, I just saw your order, it will be right out.”
Eventually a different server brought our order. Voice’s meal was short a pancake, my omelet came with dry toast and our coffee urn ran dry after filling my cup once and Voice’s twice.
“Excuse me Miss,” I said to our server who had become more difficult find than Waldo, “Voice is short a pancake and there’s no butter on my...”
“They always butter the toast Hon,” she interrupted, “but I’ll bring another pancake and get you some more butter.” She was gone before I could bring up the coffee.
Then when the bill came it was nearly $19 and we were late! “How does one tip that?” I asked.
“I hate to reinforce bad behavior,” Voice said shaking his head, “but I don’t like to not tip. My dad used to do that and it always embarrassed me.” Indeed when the cashier asked, “Was everything okay?” Voice answered, “Yipper” and left a decent tip.
Later, I decided to get a professional opinion about how to tip bad service. I called Mrs. Hardwood who is the best server on earth with 20 years experience. I ran our situation by her and mentioned that I didn’t plan to ever go back to that restaurant.
“Every tip a gift,” she said. “I will chase a tipping customer to their car if necessary to say ‘thank you.’ So I think it is wrong for servers to expect a tip. However, in your case, you also need to consider if your server was new, what kind of a day was she having, did the cook screw up, etc. Put yourself in her shoes. And you need to give that restaurant another chance; everyone deserves a second chance. If its bad again, then don’t go back.”
Great advice. I also thought about one of my favorite passages which asks: “God, who gets invited to dinner at your place? How do we get on your guest list?” The answer is, “Walk straight, act right, tell the truth. Don’t hurt your friend, don’t blame your neighbor; despise the despicable. Keep your word even when it costs you, make an honest living, never take a bribe.” (Psalm 15:1-5).
I decided that next time I get bad service that I will leave a tip because it is the right thing to do. However, I’m also going to tell the server and/or manager the truth about how bad my meal experience was. And following Mrs. Hardwood’s advice I’m trying hard to talk myself into giving that restaurant another chance.
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