Reflections From a Country Girl

We’ve all had one.  

A bad waitress or waiter experience can ruin a perfectly good meal.  I bet you can recall at least one time when you were tempted, even if you didn’t do it, not to leave a tip.  

I’m also betting that you more than likely have had most of your waiters and waitresses do a good job at making sure you were well taken care of while under their watch.  

Those are the ones I want to talk about today.  

I deal with waiters and waitresses at least three or four times a week. Most of them have been super to work with and have been very good at dealing with (what my son so lovingly says) my “high maintenance” food orders.   You see, when you’re allergic to certain foods it definitely becomes a factor at a restaurant. He often says that it takes me longer to order than all the other people at the table put together! 

My son and I say when service is good at a restaurant that we should leave a good tip.  For us, a good tip is 30 – 50% of the bill. We feel good about that when we walk out and often wait to see the wait staff’s face when she/he opens the payment folder.  

I have a wealthy friend who is the ultimate tipper. 

I was with him and six other friends several weeks ago.  As our Mexican restaurant dinner ended and it was time to pay the bill I realized I had not gotten one.  I asked for one and the waiter smiled said it had been taken care of.  

It seems my friend decided to pay for all our dinners that night.  The waiters had been awesome and kept our glasses full, scooped up our dirty dishes quickly and had smiles on their faces all the time.  I just thought it was good service as I had always seemed to find at Mexican restaurants.  As I saw my friend hand the waiter two one hundred dollar bills for the “tip” I smiled, too.  

“That was an awesome thing to do.” I said to him quietly after the wait staff left the table.  

He proceeded to tell me that he has been blessed with a business that’s been successful and he likes to tip well when he can and that he gets much joy from doing that.  

He explained that he was in Texas at a bar once and it was packed.  The two guys on the other end had obviously had a bit too much to drink and were the obnoxious kind of drinkers.  They yelled for the “bar bitch” to come get them another round.  

My friend was furious. The bartender had been great to the customers and he felt like going over and punching their lights out.  Of course, he did not.  But he did do something to make a point. 

He paid the bartender and told her he wanted to give her a tip over on the other side of the bar.  He walked around and edged his way between to two guys as he proceeded to tell the bartender she was the best he had ever had and pulled out two one hundred dollar bills to give to her. 

Years later he went back to that bar when he was in town on business.  It was quite that day and the same bartender was there. He engaged her in conversation and asked what she generally got as a tip. She told him around $3 for several hours of drinking. 

He asked what her biggest tip had been and she proceeded to tell him that story about his generous $200 one.  Something he said tipped her off to the fact that it was him that had done that.  

She said  “Mister.  I had always been in hopes I could thank you one day for that.  You see, I had some unexpected car expenses and didn’t have any extra for my son’s birthday present. When you gave me that large tip I was able to get him a present.”

My friend says it’s worth giving good tips when you hear things like that.  He also told me of the time he put at $1,000 tip in the bill folder.  

He left the restaurant and the waitress came running out to him. 

“Mister. Mister.  You made a mistake.” she yelled. 

He explained that he had not and that he needed to see the folder.  He said “Because you were so honest, I want to share this little extra with you.”  He proceeded to put another $1,000 bill in the payment folder. 

My wish for you today is that you treat your wait staff with utmost respect as they serve you.  You may not be able to tip them like my friend, but be good to them if they give you good service.  They work hard. 

~ Joellen

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 19th, 2008 at 5:14:pm and is filed under Jobs & Careers, Life & Events, Living Life to the Fullest. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.