Guest Check Presenter

Ready Check Glo™ presents "The World's First Illuminating Guest Check Presenter"

How educated are we about tipping at restaurants in the U.S.?

Recently I received a 10 cent tip on a $50 tab because of "Slow Service." Granted, I had other tables; one of which had a problem that demanded my attention. However, I gave each table an equal quality of service as fast as I could. I received 20% from all tables except that one. Do people understand exactly what it does to a server to open the check presenter to see a horrible tip? I absolutely freaked out and was brought to tears. After everything I did for those people, they left me an insulting tip. I'm possibly the nicest person to guests, and even if the service wasn't excellent, I don't believe I deserved such a cruel tip. Do people understand the conditions servers must undergo? We aren't working in the restaurant because we want to make $2.13 an hour (the standard hourly wage for servers). When you give your server such a bad tip it almost ALWAYS ruins their night. And should changes be made in this country regarding working in the restaurant industry?

Girl, I feel your pain! I'm a restaurant owner, former server for years. I've worked in everything from pizza places to 4 star white tablecloth establishments, and my only conclusion is that there is NO STEREOTYPICAL bad tipper. You can never tell...
Educated, rich, poor, uneducated, foreign, famous, any race, there will always be bad tippers in any group...

I've always been the same as you....I served long enough that I know i was an excellent server, but DID have my off nights--and so did the kitchens. But the one thing that no customer could ever accuse me of was being unfriendly-- i was ALWAYS kind to customers, no matter how my night was going.

i'll never forget the miserable couple that I waited on when i lived in the Virgin Islands. They were on vacation, had one of the best tables available in a very cool open air restaurant that had a fabulous view of the Caribbean and St. Thomas. You would think they could at least forge a smile.. But this woman was clearly in a fight with her husband and HATEFUL towards me. The worst part was that you could tell her husband WAS embarrassed and seemed like a half decent guy. Because she was such a #$*#$( i made SURE everything went okay with their meal because she scared me! Sure enough, $100+ tab later, they left a DIRTY PENNY on the table for me. I was so furious because i KNEW they were just miserable people and somehow figured out a way in their heads to blame their misery on ME, and didn't just leave no tip, which would have been hurtful, but I could always hope they really just forgot, or miscalculated or whatever, but to go out of their way to leave a dirty penny...

Knowing i would be fired if my boss saw me, I did not even care and ran out of the restaurant with penny in hand running up and down the main street looking for them ready to THROW the penny at them. Luckily, never found them and kept my job.

The bottom line is, i don't think people like this (or even those that just tip 10-!5% even) realize that to most servers, their poor tip isn't about the fact that we made $5 or $10 less than we should have from them, it, to me, was hurtful. I worked my butt off for all of my customers and i took it personally.

...and its about time that 15% is NOT the standard...that has been the standard for decades....18-20% should be standard for good service. (and no one says you can't go crazy and tip 25% if you loved the service!)

The only thing that i can say (which i tell my servers now when it happens) is ITS ALMOST NEVER PERSONAL. Usually people who tip obviously badly are people we should just feel sorry for....what sad and miserable lives they must have!

(Ergh...i sound like my mother!