🚀 go-pugleaf

I'm going to put in my two cents + on this one as I have had the
rueful experiences of being a waitress and a hostess and know firsthand
how difficult it is.  The flip-side is that I also know what is expected,
and I expect a certain level of service now.

M.D.B. <dovebar@wam.umd.edu> wrote:
> [Tipping scales 'n tales of good and bad service deleted]
> I think I tend to be a bit more generous than I sometimes should be.
> I consider waiting tables to be a difficult job.  I've known some folks
> (including a close family friend) who make it a general practice to abuse
> waitpersons, and I tend to be very sympathetic to those folks just
> trying to do their job.  

I haven't encountered many experiences of customers who were flat out
rude or abusive.  Most of the ones I really disliked were drunk and
trying to flirt.  I waited tables in Athens, Georgia; a college town.
As such, tips always were pretty bad because the clientele was
generally college students, who aren't renowned for their generosity or
etiquette.  At one point, prom night rolled around and a friend of mine
got a table of 8 (it was a Japanese restaurant, much like Benihana btw)
four highschool couples.  She was always a very good waitress, attentive
and helpful.  They completely stiffed her; all four couples!  She had
devoted an hour of her time to their table (we only got two tables of
eight to work) and got absolutely nothing for it.

> I *am*, however, wary of those neglectful
> waitpersons who sort of assume that a 15% or more tip is just a
> given - I mean, sometimes, they're such nonentities that I'd prefer
> to get up and get  my stuff myself. ;) 

I know exactly how you feel.  At that point, I will usually give
a 10-15 percent tip.

> The question I have is:  When you go to a restaurant where there
> is the person who takes you order, the food server, the busboy etc -
> how is the tip divided, or is it divided?  This came up recently

This is what I really wanted to answer.

In places that have bartenders, hostesses and busboys, there is
usually "tip sharing".  At the Steak and Ale where I was a hostess
for a short time, the wait staff would calculate fifteen percent of
the orders they placed that night.  They would then turn over X percent
(1 or 2) to bartenders, X percent to hostesses and X percent to
busboys.  So, if a waiter or waitress didn't earn fifteen percent 
tips consistently, they might get screwed over.

At Kyoto's it was a little different.  The wait-staff would split their
tips 50/50 with the chefs.  We had a lockbox where you put your tips 
during the evening.  When the night was over, you'd empty your lockbox,
count out your tips, and the mgmt would take half to give to the chefs
plus 1 percent for the bartender and 1 percent for the busboy.

> *Anyway*, the point of this was:  When it came to figure the check,
> I didn't want to leave a tip at all, but my fiance pointed out that
> the tip would be divided among the other persons who *did* do their
> job, like the food servers, and it would not be fair to deprive them.
> We eventually left something like 10%.  What say you all?

I've had some service so bad that I've refused to leave a tip at all.
OTOH, I've left some pretty obscenely good tips for some pretty great
waiters and waitresses, remembering how thrilled I was to get a $20
tip on a $30 food bill once, and a $50 tip on a $90 check.  In cases
where it's that bad, it's up to you to decide.  Where I've worked, it
is the waitperson that's given the shaft, as they had to calculate a
standard 15 percent tip and then divide up out of that.

Sorry for rambling so long and incoherently... 

Cat
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