The rules of dining

Off Topic
61

I’ve worked in a pizzeria for the last 3 1/2 years, delivering and making pizza. Here is a list of grievances that I would like to share:

  1. People who don’t tip the driver. I can understand not getting a tip if the pizza is late, or if the driver was being a jerk, but when your pizza arrives hot and you didn’t have to get in your car and go pick it up, give the driver a couple bucks (and if the order is $70 worth of food, don’t just give the driver a dollar or two, pony up at least a five-spot you cheap bastard). Delivery drivers, like waitstaff, have adjusted minimum wages. I only make $5 an hour when I drive but I started at $3.50/hr.

      - sub-gripe:  If you can't afford to tip, then please tell the driver rather than send your kid to the door.  If someone explains to me that they don't have enough for a tip I am understanding about it, but too many times I have had to take money from small children who has no concept of tipping.  Finally, one time, a kid came at me with a $20 and wanted change.  I sent the kid back to get his mom and asked her how much change she wanted.  She got mad at me and had the nerve to consider me rude, and I said, hey, if you're going to stiff me, fine, but at least have the courage to look me in the eye when you do it.

  2. When a restaurant closes at, say, 10:00, that doesn’t mean that you should place an order at 9:50 and expect that everything on the menu will be available. Past 9:30 we only have pizza and cold subs for pick-up only. When they ask why they can’t have it delivered I have to explain that we have one driver on at the end of the night, he/she might already have deliveries or may be on the road, and then he would have to drive yours out, come back, then clean up, and not be able to get home till 11:00 when he’s only scheduled till 10:00. On certain occasions we will take the delivery if the house is close by. Maybe it’s just me but I won’t walk into a place of business 5 minutes before they close and piss everyone in the place off because I WANT AN OOMPA-LOOMPA NOW!!. Anyone who does is spoiled and selfish and has no thought for the lives of the people who have to re-dirty everything they cleaned and set back their schedule 30 minutes to an hour just to bring you something that you should have ordered an hour ago.

  3. This always gets me. People call for an order and they ask for a total. They get a total. You come to the door and they want you to itemize the bill. You itemize it. The pizza is this, here’s the soda, and this is sales tax. We also have a .50 delivery charge. Well, the customer gets huffy and doesn’t think they should have to pay fifty freakin’ cents extra for delivery. Look- take it up with the restaurant owner, not me. I don’t make those decisions, please don’t waste my time arguing about that, or about why our prices don’t already include sales tax, and don’t take it out on me by stiffing me out of the tip because you don’t feel as if you should have to pay sales tax and a small delivery charge.

  4. People who call at dinner time and ask for an entire list of everything on the menu, the price, and the total for five different hypothetical orders, please do me a favor and jump in front of a fast-moving train.

As for tips, unless the service is shitty, I tip rather well. I know what it’s like to have to work for that tip. And most servers/delivery people know that they have to earn it, it’s when we bust our ass to earn a tip and some skinflint decides not to give one that pisses us off. And like everyone else in the same industry, I remember who treats me well and who does not. The people who tip me well get their deliveries taken first even if it’s out of sequence. Those people are more likely to find a slightly better pizza in their box, or a little more meat on the hoagie. Those people will get thank-you cards with special discount coupons. I treat my customers the way they treat me.

62

I haven’t read the entire thread here, but I thought I’d put one HUGE gripe I have with waiters/servers – asking about change!

Give me the choice. I’ve had $8 dinners where I drop a $20 on the bill, and the waiter asks if I want change back. DUH!!! Let’s see, that works out to be 150% tip! I don’t think I’d tip my own daughter that much!

If the entire amount is theirs, I’ll tell them –

Waiter: I’ll be right back with your change.

Me: No, it’s all yours.

Waiter: Thank you.

So, to all you waiters out there, if you ASK the person if they want change back, don’t be surprised if your tip is small.

63

Why don’t they all factor it prepaid in the bill? Would be far simpler.

(BTW, they already do it in hotelry banquets where I live. 15%, nicely split 10% to the Maitre D and 5% to the staff. On a 10 000$ banquet, it adds up to 1000$ for MD and 500$ for the rest. But the best one is the restaurant where tips for the coat hangers all goes straight into the boss’ pocket … and it’s a high class restaurant to top it off. No split up at all. That guy should have undercover reporters sent to him. Ehehe. )

But then, a) couple of joes would want to start a price war b) some would disagree that they have to pay no matter what.

Here, the minimum wage for tipped people is just 1$ below normal minimum wage. I have seen tipped people make more in tips in a week than with their salary. Idem for potato shack waitresses that earn more than their mothers (paid at almost double the minimum wage).

Intimidation by custom (conformity) sure pays. Wonder why people don’t do it everywhere. Special that it is limited to small sectors though.

64

KnightRT - I’m not sure what you mean by “exists solely for satisfaction” - doesn’t anyone who works a job want to be satisfied? Do you bitch about your work, and how you are treated?

The unique thing about the service industry, is, well, you are serving people. And some people love to blow off all their shit and steam and anger and aggression on someone making minimum wage. Anyone who has worked these jobs before know what I am talking about.

If our restaurant included the appropriate amount of tip money in each bill, which they assume at 18% (this is already the percentage you pay if your party is 5 or more), the average bill for a 2 person party would go from 100 to 118 dollars. Honestly, I don’t know if this would fly with people.

Plus, people love the idea of the tip - the server is in their control, they can evaluate their job performance and tip accordingly. The problem is some assholes will never leave an appropriate tip, no matter how good the service is.

I’m not bitching about the type of food people order - I could give a shit less. All I am saying is DON’T expect, as someone mentioned earlier, for the medium-rare to look like it does at home, or for pork to be served dried out and well-done. And don’t throw a fucking shit-fit when it is served. This happens every night, and it is really obnoxious. There is absolutely no danger from medium-rare pork, or beef, or salmon.

I say not to order well done steaks because I am a prick. People who do so have no taste and are wasting their money. But, to each his own.

And finally, another rule I realized last night:

If you are eating at a restaurant, unless you are spending enormous amounts of money, take a hint when everyone else is gone, the wait staff is wearing street clothes, and the vacuum cleaner is out. LEAVE. If a restaurant closes at 10, and you are there till midnight, you most likely are being really really really jerky.

65

One more note about the rare food comment -

Yes, it pisses cooks off when you send back food, especially if it perfectly done (such as a nice fillet of salmon, rare in the middle and flaky on the outside)

However, I’m not saying you should be forced to eat rarer pork, or anything - but if you do decide to send it back, don’t get all pissed off, don’t blame your server, and understand that it might be you who is wrong, not the restaurant. Leave your expectations at the door, and if you want something done differently, ask politely and with an open mind.

Oh, and if you’re in a fine dining restaurant, don’t take your shoes off and walk around. k thx.

66

TonyG, your bank sucks balls. :slight_smile:

67

Steelyeyes: We are talking about waiter who are making upwards of 40-50 thousand a year (in New York or LA, even more), working 5-6 hour shifts. I seriously doubt the people in other countries are making that much, and it would be impossible to pay a person that wage and make a profit.

Also many foreign countries have socialized healthcare, and do not need to pay for health benefits.

If you want service in the USA, you better be willing to pay for it.

68

Man, just reading about the shit customers pull is pissing me off. I wasn’t made for the service industry, I’m horrible with customers, but the money is great for a college student and delivering has the smallest amount of interaction. Like the above poster said, I hate when a cheap ass uses their kid to do the dirty work. And I’m sure as hell going to ask if they want change if I have to walk all the way to my car and back. I only have one more grievance: If your buying a delivery order for a friend, ig a gift, have the decency to put a tip on there was well, because it sure as hell isnt’ a gift for the driver. And the receiver sure as hell isn’t going to tip for a free meal. I’ve gotten to the point where I just leave paid for “Gift” orders on the doorstep if the person doens’t answer. Man I really hate customers, I need to just sit in my car and honk until they bring the cash out to me.

69

Ever tried tipping before the meal is served… you get great service!

I worked as a waiter for a while. It can be tough, and most servers are doing the best they can. Sometimes they have too many tables or the kitchen is running behind. Alot of things people blame on the server sre not the server’s fault.

70

The waiter is making $50K on wages and tips, cool. All of that money is coming in the front door in a wallet and being left behind, part as cost for food and the rest as a tip.

If a guy spends $100 on food and $20 on a tip his wallet is $120 lighter when he leaves. If the food cost $120 and the waiter gets paid out of that, even the same $20, things work out the same. The economics don’t change, just he expectations. Sure, the patron feels like they have control but we all know that most decent people are going to leave a good tip rather than deal with any hassles unless the waiter is an out and out prick. If you factored in the people that leave crappy tips and tried to equal the same pay you’d probably have a 13-15% increase in prices.

If the patrons knew the gratuity was included and the service and food were good the place would stay open. I used to have a business and all of my competition nickeled and dimed the customer for every little service on top of the cost of the product. I charged more up front but that’s all they had to pay and they knew it. Our product was the best, the atmosphere was great, and we regularly took business from the other guys.

It’s all in how you relate to customers and potential customers. If they accept they they are honestly getting a decent deal they don’t mind parting with the money, especially in businesses that deal in disposable income like recreation and restaurants.

For some reason you can’t do that with furniture though. It’s been tried and it failed. You have to have a “big sale” every week and advertize your ass off to stay afloat in that market.

71

Jared NFS,
The bank I use is my little ol local bank. For the most part I like, but yes the service charges piss me off somthin fierce. I mean, it stinks when I get charged EXTRA money to take money out.

Speaking of grocery stores. I feel sooooo bad for cashiers sometimes. It always amazes me how people can get so angry over trivial things. Like when a customer will THINK a certain item is on sale and when they find out it actually isn’t…they get all huffy and puffy and yell at the cashier like it is their fault. I mean, learn to read a freakin sign for crying out loud!

Oh, and this has nothing to do with restaurants, but it pertains to customer service in general. When I was in school, I worked at a Hollywood Video and I can’t even count the number of times I had to bite my lip to not go off on a customer. For instance…I think it is common knowledge that Friday and Saturday nights are the two nights where the majority of people will rent movies. Whenever we had a BIG movie come out like “Shrek” or " Lord of the Rings" we would usually have a promotion where we said, “Guaranteed in Stock or the next one is free.” So if the movie happened to NOT be in, you would get a free voucher and it would be free the next time you came in. Great right??? Well, people would go ballistic on me if a particular movie wasn’t in on a Friday night. I had more than few start yelling at me. I just wanted to say, “Hey fuckstick…its a Friday night…what do you expect? Do you think we have a copy for every single person in the city??” All they would see it the “Guaranteed in Stock” sign, and they wouldn’t see “or the next time its free” portion. Shit…its freakin FREE the next time you come in for crying out loud!! Jeez.

72

I have a question to busboys that me and a friend were discussing. Is it rude to place your napkin, has to be paper, cloth is unacceptable, on your plate. I do it out of courtesy to the busboy or waiter so they don’t need to touch my dirty napkin with their own hands, so I place it on top of my plate. But some lady who I was having dinner with said that was very bad manners and should be done. What’s the general consensus on this?

An intriguing mind wants to know?

Biz

73

Well, there are a couple things about napkins. First, since you specificed paper, you are most likely not at a “fine dining” restaurant, or at a nice restaurant for lunch. So, I don’t think there are as many “rules” as there might be at dinner service or in a really uppidy place.

However, from a practical standpoint, napkins make bussing more difficult, because you have to balance many plates, bowls, silverware, etc. on one hand, and the best way to do this is with plates that lay flat on top of one another.

Another thing, napkins are going to have to be touched by someone, either bussers or dishwashers - trust me, we wash our hands a lot in this business.

So, no, I don’t think it is rude, but probably best just to put them aside (and definately NOT in the water glasses, another pet peeve of mine)