Why I Left You that Shitty Tip
Dear Waitress at the Dock Street Brewery:
You may remember me: I came in a little before 7:30 on last week with my 6-year old son to order a pizza. By the time we got our pie, it was nearly 9:00 PM, and as a result I left you a tip that was less than 10%. I’d like to explain why.
I got my first job at the age of 13, washing dishes in a restaurant. Over the next 15 years, I worked my way up through the ranks of prep cook to garde manger to line cook. I’ve worked in closed kitchens and open kitchens, and although I’ve never been a server, I’ve done enough front end work in restaurants that I understand how difficult your job can be.
And make no mistake, being a server is hard work: you’re on your feet the whole time, you have to have a smile on your face no matter what, the tray of food is heavy, and the floor can often be an obstacle course complicated by little children underfoot. On top of that, your efforts to provide good service may be undermined by circumstances beyond your control in the kitchen.
Honestly, I don’t know whether the shitty service we received was your fault or the kitchen’s fault: that’s because you never bothered to come by our table and explain why our food was delayed.
When people go to restaurants, they expect to be taken care of. Not the TGI Fridays “May I Annoy the Living Shit Out Of You” model, but unobtrusively and consistently, asking if we need refills or (more pertinently to this post) informing the customer of anything that might delay his or her meal.
If you had made the slightest effort to communicate with me, just dropping by and saying “the oven went cold and the pizza is taking longer than it should”, you would have gotten my standard 20% tip, because I would have felt taken care of. Maybe even more, because I like to reward good service. That would have been especially true if you’d said something like “can i get you guys some bread or something to tide you over?” Rightly or wrongly, i blamed YOU for the shitty service: had you dropped by the table, you might have been able to lay the blame on the cook, who doesn’t depend on gratuities to pay the rent.
That is not what you did. You acted like our table didn’t exist. You did the same thing to the much larger party sitting next to us That’s why, after Sam and I came in at 7:30 and got served at close to 9:00, you managed to get a dollar on a $20.00 ticket.
You shouldn’t need your customer to explain the basics of customer service when it’s the core function of your job.
Sincerely
Brendan Skwire
disgruntled customer
