I work at a restaurant in Houston and sometimes even my boundless energy and good spirits are brought to heel time and again. It can all be boiled down to two things: Ignorance and Living Vicariously. Ignorance is when you just don't know. Your parent's never taught you, you never had the experience, or you just threw away the memo.
Living Vicariously is when you live through someone else or experience things through another. Acting through another is also in this catagory.
Both are really no excuse for what I must go through daily. I hope everyone knows that the standard tip amount is 15% of your total bill. This isn't 15% of the remainder after coupons, discounts, and acts of kindness... it's 15% of the TOTAL bill. This comes into play all the time. Now, of course if you receive horrible treatment or problems we actually know that we're getting nothing. There were times that I was truly suprised I got anything from some tables that everything went wrong on or that I'd forgotten something. But some people live on a whole different set of rules.
I have put it like this.
A: If your food is too hot, it's your server's fault.
B: If your food is too cold, it's your server's fault.
C: IF LIGHTNING STRIKES YOUR CAR IN THE PARKING LOT OR YOUR DOG IS RUN OVER THAT WEEK IT'S YOUR SERVER'S FAULT!
that seems to be the pervasive attitude among restaurant goers now adays. The worst are the teens. They come in in droves and herds and either carry daddy's credit card or have some of their massive (i'm in a better part of town with many subdivisions and highschools) allowance. It's my opinion that they must have terrible home lives. This comes from the fact that they are the A-1 WORST tippers in history. I had a group of them today... 8 kids. They can't seem to help but want to share entrees, effectively halfing my check size, but also try to share drinks. Now as anyone knows, you can't share a plate at a buffet. Why would anyone think it's ok to try to share unlimited refill items?
At my restaurant you get unlimited soup AND/OR salad WITH AN ENTREE!!! (guess where I work yet? LOL) not with anything, not with nothing, not with God's permission... ONLY WITH AN ENTREE. SO the kids come in and try to order four entrees and ALL try to scam off the unlimited refill salad, bread, and drinks. (half got water but were drinking out of the drinks of the others).
Now, you might not know this, but if a manager were to see this they'd make us charge them for what they ate. duh... and IF we don't we could be accused of scamming for them (some servers are known to do that and we've had over 15 fired in the last few months for scamming). So, of course, I'm going to charge you for what you are eating... how does that make me the bad guy?
Noone, and i mean NOONE ever makes it worth a server's while to cheat. They just enjoy the fake discount and run off.. usually w/o tipping anyway. So we don't scam.
They ran my ass off. I think teens that come in like that are Living Vicariously. They are treating us like crap and making us run run run for them to get back at their parents. And we pay the price. $80.00 check. They left me $1.49. Sometimes I wish I had their address. They get my MORON OF THE DAY award.
yeah, sometimes I really hate people. 7/1/03
