on tipping

Thank you Jebus!

I mean, Jon. Jon of inestimable wisdom and grace, who with great alacrity (if not haste) did fix this website. If I could tip him thirty percent, I would. Unfortunately, when your site generates zero dollars and zero cents, thirty percent is zero, and I'd be too ashamed to mail the envelope.

So let me just celebrate my return to blogging with a meditation on the fine art of tipping, a topic about which I was at one time as ignorant as perhaps you, yourself. Yes, I was that guy who did not even know what the standards of tipping are, or why, and would just approximate a dime and nickel percentage, slap it on the table, and walk away. This sort of ignorance leads to a lot of anxiety and so now, having spent the past five months as a server at a full-service Italian restaurant, I feel qualified to offer a few words on the subject.

First off, you've got to ask why you'd tip at all. You worked hard for your money, didn't you, so why go giving it away to someone who is already getting paid for their work? That's a good question, I guess, but if you're going to count quarters in a restaurant, then perhaps the first question you should ask is... should I be going out to eat at all? I mean, seriously. It will cost you at the very least twice (and probably three times) as much to eat in a full-service restaurant as it would to eat at home. If money is such an issue for you, maybe you shouldn't be wasting it on extravagance.

Still, if you're going to wallow in opulent decadence, here are some justifications for ending your meal with a nice, friendly tip.

While servers do get paid, the most they will make is minimum wage. Here in British Columbia that minimum wage is 8 dollars an hour. In Ontario it is less, and servers there get paid only around four dollars an hour. In the U.S. there are a few States (like Oregon) where servers get paid minimum wage, but in most States the servers get paid HALF minimum wage, which in North Carolina (where I am about to move) is around five dollars - so servers there make around two-fifty an hour. In most other countries around the world, servers make much less than that (so tip well, you penny-pinching arrogant rich tourist @%^&d!), but suffice it to say that an American cannot possibly pay for the minimum of food and shelter on two dollars and fifty cents an hour - especially since the average serving shift is maybe five hours.

Yes, restaurants could pay the servers more, but not only would that up the price of the food (the profit margin is thin in restaurants), you would get worse service - guaranteed. Serving is REALLY hard and stressful, and there are very few people in this world who will strive for excellence in a work situation like that if it doesn't directly affect their income.

So tip. Tip generously. While a lot of servers are just young dumb kids, living at home and spending all that disposable income on booze and two hundred dollar hair appointments, a good number of them are single mothers, or students, or artists just trying to get by. If you can afford to blow money on the luxury of a restaurant meal, you can afford to generously tip.

What's a generous tip? Well, I'll tell you what isn't. Zero dollars is not a generous tip. Zero dollars is only justifiable if your server is obviously, blatantly rude to you. Not leaving her other table and rushing to the snap of your fingers is NOT rude. You are not the king or queen of the universe, and buying a twenty-dollar meal does not give you the right to treat another human being like crap. Even if you do tip her something between zero and ten percent and you are nice to her and you tell her what a good job she did, a dollar fifty does not pay the bills.

Ten percent is a tip you give if your server is obviously harried and running like mad and stressed and isn't really taking good care of you. If stuff goes wrong, but it's not the servers fault and she does her best to make you happy despite this, you should probably still consider tipping her fifteen percent. That's standard, and she's probably having a rough enough time without getting jack-diddly from your seized-shut wallet. Let me repeat, loudly: FIFTEEN PERCENT IS STANDARD for good service.

Twenty percent is a nice tip - if you're buying the cheapest thing on the menu, you should consider leaving this sort of tip. Anything over twenty percent is a really generous tip. Thirty-five percent tips are wicked awesome. Be proud of yourself - no one is cursing your name in the back, or scratching the inside of their nose with the spout of your teapot.

Here are situations where if you don't leave a generous tip, you're really just a big trash can full of poop:

One: you've been really demanding. This could mean that you've made the server change something about every meal your table orders (extra mushrooms, hold the garlic sauce, substitute penne noodles for linguine... no, wait, make that wheat spagetti... no, wait - do you have the colored tortellini?). This costs the server time and effort in three places: at your table, at the computer entering the bill, and in the back, making sure the kitchen gets it right. It is complicated and your server has got other things to worry about, so be easy on her and if she pulls it off, be really nice. Another way to be demanding is to ask for lots of refills on everything. If there are refills available, it's your prerogative to ask for them - but be nice about it - you are not the only person in your server's world.

Two: you're a camper. When you come to a restaurant, you are paying for a meal - not a place to spend the night. If you want to chat for three hours over a cup of coffee, consider going to a coffee shop. Your server is assigned a specific set of tables, and if you hang out in one of them for twice the usual time, you would do well to tip her twice the usual amount.

Three: you change your mind about stuff a lot. Don't do this, but if you do it and your server obviously goes out of her way to accommodate you, be generous.

Four: if your table spends seventy dollars on meal and your server runs like a crazy cat to get things done for you, but you have a gift card that brings the bill down to twenty dollars, don't tip out your fifteen or twenty percent on the twenty dollars - that's just pathetic. Or if you're a whiney little punk with an overblown sense of entitlement, and you get a manager out and your meal for free because your chicken's a little tough or you didn't get as much steak sauce as you wanted or your server didn't get you your eighth water refill fast enough, don't think that if you then tip a hefty percentage on zero then you're doing the world a favor and striking a blow for justice. Just because you are a complainer does not mean that your server did not do a good job. Always tip out on the original amount of your bill.

That is just about it. Hopefully I've educated you to a point where you can tip with confidence, dignity and (we hope) generosity. I would like to finish up, however, with one final point: buying a meal in a restaurant does not give you the right to barge into another person's life and tell them what to think or do - tipping them really well just might.

There is a patron of my restaurant who comes in every week, spends up to ninety dollars on a meal for herself and her three children, demands all manner of attention, and then tips around one and a half percent. On the back of her credit card slip she writes the reference for this Bible verse: "for I know the plans I have for you says the Lord: plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future". Then she signs it, "God bless, Mrs. S**** and the girls".

Personally, the first time I served this lady I thought it was funny. I mean, c'mon... "prosper you"?!? The fact remains, though, that to the average server the message she is giving is this: "hey, there. I know you work a difficult minimum wage job and I know I make it even harder than usual, but I've got a tip worth even more than money... God wants to prosper you! Isn't that nice?" It reminds me of the Charlie Brown strip where Charlie and Linus, bundled up in warm winter clothes, see Snoopy shivering on top of his dog house. "Snoopy looks cold", says Charlie Brown. "We should go cheer him up", says Linus. So they walk together over to Snoopy, say "Be of good cheer, Snoopy", and walk away.

Do not eat out in restaurants at all, friend. Save the money and put it into something useful, like starving people. If you need to celebrate something and you absolutely must go out, however, don't be like Charlie Brown, or the inscrutable Mrs. S****.

Tip like you mean it.