Waiters annoy me...

[Dawgs0916]

Me and my girlfriend went to TGI's awhile back, and we had this gay waiter who said this in response to EVERY ONE of our requests. "Noooooooooot a problem".

It was the most annoying experience ever. It got to the point where we were afraid to ask for anything so we wouldn't hear that again.

 

[vta]

Anyone who is willing to bring me food is okay with me.
In some of the high falutin' places, they may act a bit condescending, but if that's what makes their world go 'round, more power to 'em.

The bottom line is, I probably pay more in taxes than they make in a year, so they're welcome to feel superior at my expense, just as long as they don't spit in my food.

God bless the individual.

 

[Kevinicus]

No, a bad way to look at it, is that you are paying for the same service.

At Applebees, the food won't be ruined by sitting for a few extra minutes. At a more expensive place the food is more complex and needs to be out to you right after it gets plated - otherwise sauces congeal and your food gets ruined. Wait staff at better restaurants have more difficult jobs.

Your $100 an hour argument is silly. Your table is taking them away from every other table and while they may only be at your table and bringing food for 30 minutes, you've sucked about 2 hours of their work day as they wait for your food, etc.

All you are doing is justifying being cheap.

Right. I'm sorry, but there are plenty of places where the food costs $30-$40 and is not a single bit different, or better, than applebees or somewhere similar. They charge 2 to 4 times as much for a simple steak. Nothing special, just steak. In fact, most of the time the more expensive places are subpar in my opinion as far as food goes.

And the waiter is not being kept from other tables the whole time, and I certainly hope not for 2 hours. The longest they are at that table for one time is when they first take the order, maybe 7 minutes. Everything else is just bringing the food and refills, and asking if things are ok. They are not constantly serving and waiting either at that table, or in the back for their food. They have other tables, most of them won't be big parties and they will be checking on them as well. $50 is plenty unless they really do command you're attention the entire time. And are you saying if the bill had only been $100 and the tip $25, say it was just a bunch of guys having drinks (non-alcoholic) and required constant refills that really did take a lot of their time, that that would be ok since it was 25%?

Maybe you like to throw money around for no reason, but I do not, and that is not cheap. I tip fairly. If they did a good job, they'll get a good tip, and if they help out by "forgetting" something on the bill then they get an even better one. If they suck they don't get much.

But nobody is gonna get $15+ from me for writing "steak, medium well, lemonade, side of corn" on a notebook, bringing that out to me and bringing me 2 more refills. That is not $15 worth of work. We usually take up about 4 minutes of the waiter's time. That's about $1 worth of work to be honest, but I'm not going to go that low unless they're awful. Honestly, I'd much rather just give the order myself, get my own food and drink and not have to deal with the middle man.

 

[Faerluna]

Honestly, I'd much rather just give the order myself, get my own food and drink and not have to deal with the middle man.

Sounds like you'd rather just stay home and have someone else cook.

 

[AbeBeta]

Right. I'm sorry, but there are plenty of places where the food costs $30-$40 and is not a single bit different, or better, than applebees or somewhere similar. They charge 2 to 4 times as much for a simple steak. Nothing special, just steak. In fact, most of the time the more expensive places are subpar in my opinion as far as food goes.

And the waiter is not being kept from other tables the whole time, and I certainly hope not for 2 hours. The longest they are at that table for one time is when they first take the order, maybe 7 minutes. Everything else is just bringing the food and refills, and asking if things are ok. They are not constantly serving and waiting either at that table, or in the back for their food. They have other tables, most of them won't be big parties and they will be checking on them as well. $50 is plenty unless they really do command you're attention the entire time. And are you saying if the bill had only been $100 and the tip $25, say it was just a bunch of guys having drinks (non-alcoholic) and required constant refills that really did take a lot of their time, that that would be ok since it was 25%?

Maybe you like to throw money around for no reason, but I do not, and that is not cheap. I tip fairly. If they did a good job, they'll get a good tip, and if they help out by "forgetting" something on the bill then they get an even better one. If they suck they don't get much.

But nobody is gonna get $15+ from me for writing "steak, medium well, lemonade, side of corn" on a notebook, bringing that out to me and bringing me 2 more refills. That is not $15 worth of work. We usually take up about 4 minutes of the waiter's time. That's about $1 worth of work to be honest, but I'm not going to go that low unless they're awful. Honestly, I'd much rather just give the order myself, get my own food and drink and not have to deal with the middle man.

So what you are saying is there is little difference between Applebees and a fine dining restaurant - this means that either a) you are going to crap fine dining restaurant or b) your palate stinks.

If you are a table large enough to generate a $500 tab you will be taking nearly all the waitperson's attention -- because such a large order is demanding and requires some precision to get stuff out on time. You like steak and corn? No? It doesn't magically stay hot you know.

I don't like to throw money around -- I do recognize that waitpeople at most restaurants depend on their tips. And if I take their time I should be paying at an acceptable level -- not some level of tip that I have to try hard to justify -- but the STANDARD tip. If you spend $500 then $50 is a lame tip for good service.

 

[AbeBeta]

Rarely acceptable to leave no tip or a tiny one? Is it more acceptable to tip bad service? Would you pay someone a full amount to mow your lawn if they only mowed half? You are paying for service in both situations.

Tipping is part of the price of going out. Period. Your lawn analogy is silly and would apply only if you got half of your order

 

[Kevinicus]

Sounds like you'd rather just stay home and have someone else cook.

More often than not I do stay home, but I do the cooking. Going out to a restaurant is a weekend thing, maybe twice a month. Can't go to Applebees now either since they changed and are pretty much crap now.

 

[big dog cowboy]

More often than not I do stay home, but I do the cooking. Going out to a restaurant is a weekend thing, maybe twice a month. Can't go to Applebees now either since they changed and are pretty much crap now.

I'm heading your way next weekend. A weekend of eating out at all my favorites. Those waiters better be ready!

 

[cowboyfan4life_mark]

Tipping is part of the price of going out. Period. Your lawn analogy is silly and would apply only if you got half of your order

I would be getting only half of my order if the service is bad. If you are saying don't hold the food against the server but do tip on bad service, well, we will agree to disagree.

As I said, good service equals good tip. Bad service could mean little to no tip.

Nobody should stiff a good server with little to no tip, but nobody should tip bad serves IMO.

We have a favorite place to eat. we always ask for a certain server and will wait if he is busy. This guy is so good that we generally leave $15.00 for a check of about $45.00. He is that good.

Just 3 months ago, had a bad experience at a restrauant. Had to ask for bread, ask for refills from other servers, and actually brought out two wrong plates. Think she got a tip?

 

[TheKey]

I would be getting only half of my order if the service is bad. If you are saying don't hold the food against the server but do tip on bad service, well, we will agree to disagree.

As I said, good service equals good tip. Bad service could mean little to no tip.

Nobody should stiff a good server with little to no tip, but nobody should tip bad serves IMO.

We have a favorite place to eat. we always ask for a certain server and will wait if he is busy. This guy is so good that we generally leave $15.00 for a check of about $45.00. He is that good.

Just 3 months ago, had a bad experience at a restrauant. Had to ask for bread, ask for refills from other servers, and actually brought out two wrong plates. Think she got a tip?

People that have never had to wait on 4 tables at one time in busy restaurant with impatient customers should not talk about bad service. Walk in their shoes before you go leaving no tip. Bad servers should still get 10%.

 

[bbgun]

I've never done it, but I can tell it's a tough job. I gotta believe that for every rude waiter there's a rude customer.

 

[tomson75]

I've never done it, but I can tell it's a tough job. I gotta believe that for every rude waiter there's a rude customer.

I had to wait tables for a while before getting a good bartending gig while I was in college....there are plenty of rude customers. Take my word for it.

....but as a bartender, you can tell them to **** off. :

 

[vta]

I gotta believe that for every rude waiter there's a rude customer.

Damned straight. People really do like to lean heavily on 'the customer's always right' crap and mistreat someone in a servent's position.

As a customer, you just deal with that one person (a waiter) for a short period of time. During the course of one day, that person, deals with multiple people and many of them are jerk's who take advantage of this person needing their job.

 

[Chinfu]

I've read the entire thread and I've got say I'm not surprised. I waited tables for a few but this was 8 years ago. It's a good living if you find the right place and learn the business. However it's not as easy as writing med well on a ticket and turning it in to the kitchen and dropping the check as someone suggested.

Which reminds me of the guy who orders a 24 oz bone in rib eye steak well done and is asking where his food is 10 minutes later, you see it takes about 25 minutes to turn that fine cut of meat into shoe leather. Can you tell your customer that? No, you've got take it in stride while he big times you in front of the other 7 people at the table he's trying to impress. Sounds fun huh? What I wanted to say is you should have ordered the chop steak genius and saved 30 bucks and it will probably be more tender.

And I really love the people who can't stand for their glass to get empty which is a reasonable request for someone who doesn't belong at a trough to drink their tea. I mean I encountered some people who would literally drink the 16 oz glass half of which half is ice before I set the pitcher down. Most restaurants don't allow you to break out the nice 32 oz plastic eye sores or leave the pitchers at the table. I understand what most of you meant and most people drink at a normal pace but I'm giving an example of extreme but not so uncommon cases.

As for big parties and the gratuity, well I never added it in and rolled the dice. I have to say most people are very gracious and understand the pita it is to wait on large groups even though I preferred it. However, I've waited on 22 people before and got the stiff. Try working for 2.35 an hour while having your *** ran like crazy for 4 hours for 10 bucks, fun stuff. It's happened other times as well but that one stung the worst. And no everything went well with no problems with food, drinks ect.

How about your working the lunch shift and you are about to leave when the host seats 2 woman who must have not seen each other in twenty years since they spend the next 4 hours talking over water with lemon, split an entre and leave you whopping 68 cents for your trouble. Wow, thanks!

As for things not going well, like the kitchen running out of something and not telling you until after someone orders it and having to go back and tell them we are out of that and them look at you like your the idiot. Or the bartender mixing the wrong drink and having the alcoholic (expletive) cuss you out for asking what he was served. Having the greedy owner add more tables to the place on mothers day to make extra cash while the dining room and kitchen went into the crapper so he could make a few extra bucks at our expense. Having busboys or even an owner (I kid you not) take tips off of your tables.

Fact is you are the face of the restaurant and if anything goes bad it is normally your fault. You don't see what goes on and that's probably a good thing or you wouldn't eat out as much. Sorry I couldn't get your 3rd basket of bread to your table because little Johnny just spilled his milk all over table 9 and I spent 5 minutes cleaning it up. Sorry it has taken the kitchen so long to get your food out because the host seated 9 tables at the same time 5 minutes before you arrived and now the kitchen is slammed. Sorry you waited 5 minutes before some greeted you because the guy at the next table wouldn't let me just come back in a couple minutes while he made up his mind on what he wanted to eat. Sorry my boss only scheduled 2 waiters today and now I've got 38 people across 11 tables I need to wait on simultaneously. Sorry the busboy is outback smoking and didn't bring you any water.

I've made plenty of mistakes everyone has but at least half of the time it wasn't my fault but you still have to take the beating either verbally or monetarily or both. Their are some terrible waiters out there I've worked with some and experienced some others first hand but it would take a whole lot for me to completely stiff someone. As for the guy mowing your lawn analogy, that was a terrible analogy.

I could always tell when I waited on someone who was in the industry. Just like in this thread, you can tell who has done it. You gain a respect for the job and the crap you have to go through. It can be a total beating at times but I still enjoyed it though you probably couldn't tell. Anywho, sorry for ranting but I wanted to give a waiters perspective on some things.

 

[TheKey]

I've read the entire thread and I've got say I'm not surprised. I waited tables for a few but this was 8 years ago. It's a good living if you find the right place and learn the business. However it's not as easy as writing med well on a ticket and turning it in to the kitchen and dropping the check as someone suggested.

Which reminds me of the guy who orders a 24 oz bone in rib eye steak well done and is asking where his food is 10 minutes later, you see it takes about 25 minutes to turn that fine cut of meat into shoe leather. Can you tell your customer that? No, you've got take it in stride while he big times you in front of the other 7 people at the table he's trying to impress. Sounds fun huh? What I wanted to say is you should have ordered the chop steak genius and saved 30 bucks and it will probably be more tender.

And I really love the people who can't stand for their glass to get empty which is a reasonable request for someone who doesn't belong at a trough to drink their tea. I mean I encountered some people who would literally drink the 16 oz glass half of which half is ice before I set the pitcher down. Most restaurants don't allow you to break out the nice 32 oz plastic eye sores or leave the pitchers at the table. I understand what most of you meant and most people drink at a normal pace but I'm giving an example of extreme but not so uncommon cases.

As for big parties and the gratuity, well I never added it in and rolled the dice. I have to say most people are very gracious and understand the pita it is to wait on large groups even though I preferred it. However, I've waited on 22 people before and got the stiff. Try working for 2.35 an hour while having your *** ran like crazy for 4 hours for 10 bucks, fun stuff. It's happened other times as well but that one stung the worst. And no everything went well with no problems with food, drinks ect.

How about your working the lunch shift and you are about to leave when the host seats 2 woman who must have not seen each other in twenty years since they spend the next 4 hours talking over water with lemon, split an entre and leave you whopping 68 cents for your trouble. Wow, thanks!

As for things not going well, like the kitchen running out of something and not telling you until after someone orders it and having to go back and tell them we are out of that and them look at you like your the idiot. Or the bartender mixing the wrong drink and having the alcoholic (expletive) cuss you out for asking what he was served. Having the greedy owner add more tables to the place on mothers day to make extra cash while the dining room and kitchen went into the crapper so he could make a few extra bucks at our expense. Having busboys or even an owner (I kid you not) take tips off of your tables.

Fact is you are the face of the restaurant and if anything goes bad it is normally your fault. You don't see what goes on and that's probably a good thing or you wouldn't eat out as much. Sorry I couldn't get your 3rd basket of bread to your table because little Johnny just spilled his milk all over table 9 and I spent 5 minutes cleaning it up. Sorry it has taken the kitchen so long to get your food out because the host seated 9 tables at the same time 5 minutes before you arrived and now the kitchen is slammed. Sorry you waited 5 minutes before some greeted you because the guy at the next table wouldn't let me just come back in a couple minutes while he made up his mind on what he wanted to eat. Sorry my boss only scheduled 2 waiters today and now I've got 38 people across 11 tables I need to wait on simultaneously. Sorry the busboy is outback smoking and didn't bring you any water.

I've made plenty of mistakes everyone has but at least half of the time it wasn't my fault but you still have to take the beating either verbally or monetarily or both. Their are some terrible waiters out there I've worked with some and experienced some others first hand but it would take a whole lot for me to completely stiff someone. As for the guy mowing your lawn analogy, that was a terrible analogy.

I could always tell when I waited on someone who was in the industry. Just like in this thread, you can tell who has done it. You gain a respect for the job and the crap you have to go through. It can be a total beating at times but I still enjoyed it though you probably couldn't tell. Anywho, sorry for ranting but I wanted to give a waiters perspective on some things.

Nice post. I agree. Even if the waiter is annoying and slow, he is super busy and running his butt off. I try to tip no less that 20%, no matter what. These are college students and single moms and people just trying to make it. I make 2.13 and hour, they LIVE off of tips. I wish everyone could be a waiter for a day and have to put in 16 meals, get 10 refills, and bring a table 4 news baskets of chips and salsa, while trying to bust your own table, all at once. Im ranting now, but guys waiting tables is all work. Next time you go eat, enjoy it. You will only see the waiter for an hour, or an hour and a half, then you will go home. 5 hours later, think back, and remember that the waiter is still doing the same thing he was while you were there.

 

[Faerluna]

I've read the entire thread and I've got say I'm not surprised. I waited tables for a few but this was 8 years ago. It's a good living if you find the right place and learn the business. However it's not as easy as writing med well on a ticket and turning it in to the kitchen and dropping the check as someone suggested.

Amen to that entire post!

One funny story about bad things that can happen to a waiter, though.

I had a friend who was a big galoot of a guy and he waited tables with me at Fridays. They encouraged us to use our hands to carry drinks and not use trays.

One day, during a very busy lunch, he went out to a large table with the drinks, and just as he had 2 left in his hand, one of them toppled over....right into the woman's purse that was sitting on the floor.

Trying to diffuse the obvious snafu with a little humor, he took a straw out of his apron and put it into the purse like a big drink.

Luckily, the women all laughed and turned a potentially unrecoverable error into a passable one.

 

[DallasFanSince86]

Having busboys or even an owner (I kid you not) take tips off of your tables.

This is why I give the tips for the waiter/waitress directly to them and not leave it on the table. BTW I have also seen other customers go by a just vacated table, see the tip laying there, and take it with them.

 

[bbgun]

Waiters going the way of bank tellers? Maybe so, in Germany.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7335351.stm

 

[cowboyfan4life_mark]

People that have never had to wait on 4 tables at one time in busy restaurant with impatient customers should not talk about bad service. Walk in their shoes before you go leaving no tip. Bad servers should still get 10%.

First, I have waited tables. It is hard. Did pretty good as far as tips are concerned. That is why when a server does a good job, I tip very well. I have even talked to the manager on a few occassions about how well they did.

Second, in my post about leaving no tip. I did not fully explain myself. I was watching this "waitress" lean against the table in the back alot of the time that we needed her. I noticed that she jumped and turned towards the table all of a sudden. And not 2 seconds later, the manager walked by her. She was simply putting on a show for him. She was more interested in not doing anything then actually her job. I actually felt like leaving a tip for another waitress due to her actually filling up our glasses and checking on us more than our own but she had already left for the day.

Again I ask, if you suck at being a server, how can you expect to live on tips?

Faerluna, am I a dud for this?

 

[Faerluna]

Faerluna, am I a dud for this?

Under those circumstances, no.