Oh thank you so much, that really does make my day. I appreciate being told I am good at something, even if that is just serving. But why oh why did you only leave me a dollar on that eighty dollar ticket? Did you simply assume that your Verbal Tip was enough? Because although I am pleased you recognize my skill, I still have bills to pay.
If you are a customer who does this, I do not want to make you feel your compliment was unnecessary, let me stress how nice it is to meet someone polite. However, when I go home to a dark, cold house because my electric bill didn't get paid, my mind immediately flashes to your receipt and the $1.00 written next to 'TIP' and I fail to remember how nice you really were. All I am thinking about is how I can't even wash my clothes for my next shift because the water bill went unpaid.
In fact, what many customers don't realize is that servers only make approximately $2.15 an hour, and we are forced to tip out, which means pay the bartender, host, and busboy a minimum of 2.5%. At most restaurants the tip out is 5% or more. That means, on your eighty dollar ticket that you only left a dollar on, I now owe an additonal $1.13. Sure that doesn't seem like much, but that means I just PAID to wait on you. No matter how nice you are to me, and no matter how uplifting your Verbal Tip is, I am now further behind on paying the bills then I was before.
Once again we come back to a common response I get from this argument, that maybe they needed the money more than I did. Sure in reality, all my bills get paid so I never am actually in this situation, but that is because I conserve my money. I work my butt off everyday, sometimes paying to wait on tables, and I never go out to eat if I can't afford it so I can pay my bills on time. If you need the money more than I do, then please drive-thru.
