[BayMoWe335]

Long story short, had a cheap dinner out. Split a pizza at a semi-nice Italian restaurant. Bill came to $19.44.

I literally only had 2 $20 bills with me. So I gave them to the waiter.

He brings back a $10 bill and 2 $5 bills, plus 2 quarters. I immediately think, "hmmm, is he expecting me to leave $5? I am a 20% tipper with good service, but it was marginal at best and I'm not feeling like $5 is in order. Now, we aren't talking a lot of money, but I felt either he was trying to get the bigger tip or he was a total rookie. Either way, I didn't want to give him the satisfaction of knowing his little plan worked. And if he didn't do it on purpose, maybe he won't do it again. Anyway, I left him the 50 cents and walked out.

Felt bad afterward. Maybe no tip would have been better than just the 50 cents? Or perhaps I should have just ponied up the $5?

[BMW F22]

Personally I always feel obligated to tip even when the service isn't good. I've always been conflicted though. On the one hand it's like "well you didn't give me a good service so do I really need to tip you?" On the other, waiters and waitresses rely on tips to make a living so I would feel bad if I didn't leave a tip. So I decided to do 10-15% (10% if it's really bad but I would still like to leave a small tip) if the service is bad/decent and 20-25% if it's good service.

I think in this case you kinda cheaped out. lol It's not a big deal I just thought it was funny that you assumed stuff and only tipped him 50 cents. I would have gotten change for the $5 bill and maybe leave him at least a couple bucks.

[khaye1]

I sure hope you're not planning on going back to that place anytime soon

[O-cha]

Originally Posted by BMW E90

Personally I always feel obligated to tip even when the service isn't good. I've always been conflicted though. On the one hand it's like "well you didn't give me a good service so do I really need to tip you?" On the other, waiters and waitresses rely on tips to make a living so I would feel bad if I didn't leave a tip. So I decided to do 10-15% (10% if it's really bad but I would still like to leave a small tip) if the service is bad/decent and 20-25% if it's good service.

I think in this case you kinda cheaped out. lol It's not a big deal I just thought it was funny that you assumed stuff and only tipped him 50 cents. I would have gotten change for the $5 bill and maybe leave him at least a couple bucks.

"bad" service that still deserves a tip are things like the restaurant being super busy, and the server having too many tables to handle. Things like food taking too long ETC, not their fault (unless they didn't put it in), over cooked food, bad food etc, not servers fault.

Things that don't deserve a tip is a server is nowhere to be found when you need a drink refill, who doesn't come by to check on how your food was, who doesn't know the menu, is rude, gets order wrong, cant remember who ordered what and auctions off your food at the table ETC. Depending on severity and accumulation of these, tip can be zero ( I leave a penny on CC tips just so they know it wasn't a mistake). I waited tables for years, so I wont tolerate a shitty server or any whining on the matter. You do your job or you don't get paid.



OP you should have asked for change, it's not that big of an oversight to not provide ones, just because you were to embarrassed to feel like a cheap ass. But you could have taken that into consideration when you did tip as it should have been handled.

[MisterSkiMask]

dick move, if the place was busy the bartender may have made the change, or...

it was one more dollar then you were planning on spending.

[spanner1751]

Go back, find the waiter, and give him $5. At any rate, 5% more than 20% wouldn't have killed you, it's only $5.

[Inspired]

I usually ask them to give me 5-1 dollar bill when they pull something off like this. Plain and simple.

[boymonkey]

Waiter's dumb but you should ask for change. I had this happen to me once, left the $5 and never went back; cashier was the manager and not a waiter.

[SaMaster14]

I'm a 20% tipper as well, and I would have just asked for the waiter to give me one of the $5 bills as 1s, and I would leave him $4.

[OOO]

Nice job douche.

[mfanatic325]

Originally Posted by OOO

Nice job douche.

at least he's repenting his sins...cut him some slack!

In Asia, "tip" is probably just a name

I personally tip AT LEAST 10%. Unless service was truly horrendous.

[///Montreal3]

Just left a nice fat ZERO on Saturday night, myself.

Waitress was MIA too often, resorted to getting things myself (straws, napkins, lemon wedges). Then my order came wrong, to which she insisted that it was in fact what I ordered till she found the hand-written bill and realized she was wrong. So my gf ate while I waited for my correct order, which came to me rushed and without an apology.

I'm generous when the service is on point, but I can be brutal if I feel slighted.

[stylinexpat]

The waiter should have learned a lesson. I don't think you made a mistake. He did not go out of his way to ask you nor did he go out of his way to give you smaller bills so why should you go out of your way to give him full credit and a full 20%+ tip when he made no effort on his part?

The waiter has a job of which he gets paid for by his employer and that is to service his customers. For extra service he may get a tip.

[panicos81]

i´m with this guy..

no really i usually tip but dont follow any percentages.. depends on the change. if i pay with card i round it up. in your case i would just leave the 20 in the first place..

[karliejai]

Originally Posted by panicos81

i´m with this guy..

no really i usually tip but dont follow any percentages.. depends on the change. if i pay with card i round it up. in your case i would just leave the 20 in the first place..

douche #2

[karliejai]

Originally Posted by stylinexpat

The waiter should have learned a lesson. I don't think you made a mistake. He did not go out of his way to ask you nor did he go out of his way to give you smaller bills so why should you go out of your way to give him full credit and a full 20%+ tip when he made no effort on his part?

The waiter has a job of which he gets paid for by his employer and that is to service his customers. For extra service he may get a tip.

this aint europe son...

[stylinexpat]

Originally Posted by karliejai

this aint europe son...

I agree with you about this ain't Europe but..

Whether it is the US,Europe,Asia or the Middle-East when one goes to a restaurant they are the customer of the restaurant that they enter. The employees that work there are the employees of the restaurant and they are employed by the restaurant to service the customers of the restaurant. I mean what was the guy to do Go up and get change so that he could tip the waiter 20%. $5 of $20 is roughly 25% of the bill. That is too much to pay, especially when the waiter did not offer full service. The waiter did not offer or allow the customer the option to pick how much he wanted to tip the waiter. He really did not go out of his way for the customer he was servicing but as mentioned by the poster in the first post most likely wanted a $5 tip so he did not bother getting ones for him. This may or may not be the case but why bother for those that don't bother

[panicos81]

Originally Posted by karliejai

douche #2

I dont know how it works in the US with the waiters salary but here its not lets say minimum wage plus tips. its your salary and the tips are over and above. So i dont feel obligated to always tip even if the service is mediocre.
Call me a douche all you like but the waiters should do their job exceptionally to get a tip as someone else would do in his work to get a bonus..

[Seminole]

Originally Posted by panicos81

I dont know how it works in the US with the waiters salary but here its not lets say minimum wage plus tips. its your salary and the tips are over and above. So i dont feel obligated to always tip even if the service is mediocre.
Call me a douche all you like but the waiters should do their job exceptionally to get a tip as someone else would do in his work to get a bonus..

In the US there are two minimum wages. When I worked as a server years ago it was $5.50 an hour for the employees who didn't get tipped (busboys, hostesses, etc) and around $2.15 for employees who receive tips. So servers don't leave with nothing at the end of the night but $2.15 an hour definitely doesn't cut it.

[Comet]

I would have asked for singles, and because he tried to pull a fast one like that, instead of saying tipping him 3$, I would have tipped him 1.50$

[panicos81]

Originally Posted by Seminole

In the US there are two minimum wages. When I worked as a server years ago it was $5.50 an hour for the employees who didn't get tipped (busboys, hostesses, etc) and around $2.15 for employees who receive tips. So servers don't leave with nothing at the end of the night but $2.15 an hour definitely doesn't cut it.

well that makes sense then..

[48Laws]

Busboys generally get a percentage from the waiter/waitresses at the end of the night/shift. That's an industry standard.

Bar-backs get a percentage of the bartender's tips who themselves may get a cut from the waiters/waitresses.

If a waiter/waitress has a zone that can seat 8 tables and people generally eat within an hour. If they get an average $5-$10 tip per table per hour, that's approximately $40/$80 per hour over an 8 HOUR SHIFT respectively!!!!! If you're in the right restaurant, you can make a killing and that's CASH.... TAX free.

Even if the busiest days are Thursday through Saturday, if you can clean $320 per day (@$5 x 8 table x 8 hours), MINIMUM, over those three days, that still about grand CASH a week!!!