It’s a slow Monday evening; I’ve got a couple of tables. I’m meandering through my section, only walking to keep my eyes open. I’m on my second sixteen hour double after closing the night before and opening the bar this morning. I’m going to be the closing cocktailer again tonight.
Happy hour is starting, though, so the rush is about to happen. Right on cue, two tables sit down. I bring them menus, run through my greet and collect the menus again to put in drinks and food. While I was taking orders, I noticed a few girls had sat down and were animatedly speaking with one of my managers and they already had menus on the table.
With quick skills of common sense, I figure they must know him. I dole out drinks and pre-sets for the tables before they are finished talking to him. At this point, a pitcher of beer and three glasses has appeared on the table. I love when managers do the work for me.
They all look in their very early twenties, sipping on the Hefenweizen I assume came from my manager. I go up to ask how they’re doing, one of the girls once more talking with them manager. I get the “once-over” and a glare from both girls who aren’t occupied by the conversation before one of them says, “Can we just get a minute?”
I just figure they’re young, annoyed and hungry. I brush off their attitude and check on the rest of my tables. I give them a good ten minutes before I check back, as they talked with my manager for a little longer and perused through the menu for a couple more. When I came back, the same “you’re really inconveniencing me by asking if I’m ready to order” looks stayed on their faces. They voices, though, dripped with faux kindness.
I put in their order and curious how my manager knows these young women so I ask him; my assumption that they worked for him turns out to be correct.
The rest of the meal goes smoothly, once they have a few bites of their food they are much easier to cope with. They need very little and seem to be in good spirits.
As I expected, the manager takes care of their food. Their original bill as $60, but once the food was removed only the pitcher was left at $16.75 +tax. They split it three ways on their card, leaving them with an average bill of $5.50 each. They each left me a dollar.
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Before I launch into a long rant about how much steam came out of my ears after seeing this, I want to know what you guys think. Would you be angry if you knew other servers tipped you bad? How much would you have tipped? If you receive bad service, do you still tip your server? If so, how much do you tip?
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