Church goers= terrible tippers

[SimplyMe]

I can totally see the Maxwells and Duggars giving tracts or fake bills as tips as mentioned in this article. How sad. Are they really dumb enough to think they'll win over people to faith by ripping them off?!

http://www.holyobserver.com/schedule-ch ... ello-tips/

[lilwriter85]

I could see either family doing something like that. I read somewhere online about a incident in which the Duggars didn't leave a tip at restaurant. It could have been a rumor because part of the story was that the restaurant they were at allowed children under 10 to eat for free.

[FundiesInMyFamily]

Its really Fucked up how the ones who stand up and shout "look at me I'm a good christian!!" the loudest are the ones who act like a christian the least. It comes up in almost every thread we talk about. Bill Maher says all the time how he wishes that the "christians" would act more Christ-like.

[Cordial]

My high school (12+ years ago) boyfriend, who I am still in touch with, said a few years ago that his New Years Resolution was to "tip more accurately." What he meant was that he would follow some supposedly long-ago-skewed "rule" that you are supposed to tip 10% for average service, and give more or less only based on the quality of the service. His feeling was that rampant overtipping was leading to the decline of quality service, because servers had no incentive to be decent. He had been contributing, he decided, to this grave social ill with his generosity, and he resolved to no longer do so.

Put a lot of thought into it.

I just have to laugh. It is one thing to hold that opinion but to make it a New Years Resolution is seriously weird and crotchety for a man in his twenties.

[apple1]

My high school (12+ years ago) boyfriend, who I am still in touch with, said a few years ago that his New Years Resolution was to "tip more accurately." What he meant was that he would follow some supposedly long-ago-skewed "rule" that you are supposed to tip 10% for average service, and give more or less only based on the quality of the service. His feeling was that rampant overtipping was leading to the decline of quality service, because servers had no incentive to be decent. He had been contributing, he decided, to this grave social ill with his generosity, and he resolved to no longer do so.

Put a lot of thought into it.

I just have to laugh. It is one thing to hold that opinion but to make it a New Years Resolution is seriously weird and crotchety for a man in his twenties.

Perhaps this person should try paying his bills by working as a server for a while. I suggest a state that observes the federally-mandated minimum wage for tipped employees of $2.13 per hour, and a willingness to pick up the most undesirable day to work for servers, that is Sunday. :roll:

[batwing]

I was a waitress in high school. Every Sunday a mom and her daughter would come in for lunch and we'd all fight over who got stuck with their table. They would take up the table for like 2 hours, order a bunch of pain in the ass type foods, and then the tip was always a note that said, "god bless you!!! :) :) :)", a starlite mint, and a tract.

I made $2.13/hr at the time, plus tips. This was not in the dark ages, this was 2002. For the time she sat at my table I could've had one or two parties that actually gave me something that would pay for my gas to get home at the end of the night.

Every server hated this woman.

[MamaJunebug]

Bless you all! I tip 20% routinely unless service is terrible. Then I still tip 15%.

And I eat out ... more than I should. ;)

Just a word from an opposing POV and experience.

ETA: And I'm a church-goer.

And my kids who were hosts and waiters while they still were church-goers are the ones who sternly trained me so to do.

Just sayin'.

(But you have given me a hint as to why my favorite restaurant only opens on Sunday for Mothers Day. if you're going to be closed one day a week, and you are a pretty-looking place with fabulous portions and prices at lunch, I can see where you might be attrractive to amateur diners-out. :D )

[lilwriter85]

During my server days I was left without tips a few times, but I never got tracts. I did have low tips. I had tables of two leave me quarter sometimes.

[Ruby]

When I was in college, I waitressed at a little out-of-the-way BBQ. The food was delicious, but not expensive. Tips were typically not great. If I averaged 50 cents per customer, I considered it a decent night. It only happened once, but I did receive a tract for a tip.

At this point in my life, I was well on my way to fundieism. I had already gone from grades K-12 at a parochial school. I attended home church every Friday night, and joined one of the Christian student groups at my university which met several times a week. I listened only to Christian radio, and had gotten rid of my "secular" records and tapes. I was a *good* girl, or at least was striving to be, in every guilty sense of the word.

So not only did these two guys stiff me out of $1 for good service, they assumed I was ignorant of their brand of Christianity. It made me very angry. Still annoys me quite a bit.

The best tippers? A group of guys from Kentucky who worked at a nearby plant would have lunch at the BBQ every Saturday. They were courteous customers who called me ma'am, and sometimes left as much as a 50% tip.

[xReems]

My boyfriend and I eat out sometimes but whenever we go out, we always tip generously, especially if the waiter/waitress took care of us. I have friends who are waitresses at restaurant and most of their income comes from tips.

My family and I went on a cruise last December and towards the end of the vacation, they put a card in our cabin that asked us if we could tip the Maitre'd of our formal dining restaurant. My dad gave a $100 tip (8 day cruise, went to that restaurant every night, plus he's a generous tipper). Well, the family behind us were conservative Christians (why they went on a cruise baffles me--too much defrauding!) and overheard the husband saying "I think $10 is more than generous." Wtf, you're on a cruise, moron, for 8 days, and you think $10 is MORE than generous?! Oh yes, that's so much.

[BlackHawk]

I never had it all that bad as a server. I made 2.15 an hour plus tips. I did have the typical shitty customers who didn't tip, but I seemed to get a lot of little old ladies who loved that I would smile at them and I'd get HUGE tips from them. For some reason, I would always get the generous old ladies out with their friends or whatever... and for each bill I'd get at LEAST a 60% tip, if not more. They were some of the sweetest people I've ever met!

That said, one of my worst days of being a waiter was getting a tract from a party of 17 who complained to the manager to get the automatic 18% gratuity removed from their bill. We had a policy that any group over 8 people automatically had an 18% gratuity added to each bill. You could always opt to add more, but it was there. It was written on every menu, it was verbally told to you when you walked in with a large party, and it was again reminded to you by your server before taking your order. I reminded them, I know the hostess told them when they sat down because I was standing waiting to get drink orders. Either way they complained to the manager, who was a typically great guy who was a customers first person. So he removed it, thinking they would still tip. Seriously, 17 people, 8 different bills, cmon people! But nope, they all paid exactly their bill and when I went round to collect the folds after they left, I had 2 tracts. I was so pissed I couldn't see straight. They took my tables for 4 hours, were so demanding I ended up giving up a few tables to another server so I could focus on the party, and then left me not so much as a damn penny for a tip. (In case you haven't noticed, I'm still bitter about this one!)

[Trynn]

Goodness. Leaving a tract with no tip is so rude. My christian friends have been known to leave tracts before, but always WITH a monetary tip. And they would calculate the tip so that they wouldn't give too little. They weren't worried about giving too much. I couldn't imagine just giving a tract. I don't even think that would cross my and my christian friend's minds.

[Austin]

My boyfriend and I eat out sometimes but whenever we go out, we always tip generously, especially if the waiter/waitress took care of us. I have friends who are waitresses at restaurant and most of their income comes from tips.

My family and I went on a cruise last December and towards the end of the vacation, they put a card in our cabin that asked us if we could tip the Maitre'd of our formal dining restaurant. My dad gave a $100 tip (8 day cruise, went to that restaurant every night, plus he's a generous tipper). Well, the family behind us were conservative Christians (why they went on a cruise baffles me--too much defrauding!) and overheard the husband saying "I think $10 is more than generous." Wtf, you're on a cruise, moron, for 8 days, and you think $10 is MORE than generous?! Oh yes, that's so much.

$10 for eight days? OMG. Maybe they had never cruised before, but that is ridiculous!

We tip 20% almost always, sometimes more. The server has to be intentionally rude to get less than that. Mistakes happen and sometimes service is slow, but that's often not the server's fault. My college son is a line cook at a popular chain restaurant and things go wrong in the kitchen all the time. It's just the way things go sometimes. And we forgive incompetence, unless we perceive it to be intentional. I guess the mother in me comes out and I think of my sons and their first days on new jobs and would hope people would cut them a break if they messed up an order or something.

[flojo]

I am totally anti tips based economy - all it does is screw over servers. 2.13 per hour is a sick, twisted joke, leaving someone's ability to pay for the basic necessities of living on generosity. In Japan we don't tend to tip, nor do we in my home country - instead service staff are paid a reasonable wage, included in the price of the food. Honestly, this also make I easier for e - what I see is what I pay.

However, when I visit other countries (Inc. The us) I go out of my way to find out tipping procedures, and try to leave good tips. Anything else is cruel.

[batwing]

The best tippers? A group of guys from Kentucky who worked at a nearby plant would have lunch at the BBQ every Saturday. They were courteous customers who called me ma'am, and sometimes left as much as a 50% tip.

The best tippers I ever had were a boys varsity basketball team that were on the road. We were a 24 hour type place, and they came in late at night with their chaperones. They not only tipped really well, but they filled out comment cards with hilarious little notes that went straight to my boss. :lol: And I had the ugliest uniform in the history of uniforms, so it's not like I was strutting my stuff and they were so enamored of my defrauding beauty that they gave me extra money.

[Deleted02]

It's been my experience that the people in my community that go to church are very low tippers. Sometimes I go with my grandma's Sunday school class out to eat breakfast or dinner. They tip terribly. I know they are older and live on a fixed income but they could do better than a $1 tip. There is usually a party of 10-15 when they go somewhere. I always tip generously when I go with the group. I have to hid it under my plate so I don't get criticized. :roll:

[BravaAmica]

I waitressed at an Olive Garden in NC. Our saying every Sunday was, "10% for God, 5% for you!" I was told, by the same group that patronized our restaurant every Sunday that I was going to hell because I was working on Sunday. I finally told them, "Well, people love to go out to lunch after church. So I have to be here." They would also never tip, have a huge group of at least 25 people (with seperate checks, no less). The servers there finally rebelled by giving them the minimum standard of service (giving them pitchers of water to refill their own drinks, not checking back as often, collecting their checks immediately). When they complained that they were going to tell their friends how poorly they were treated, a guy I worked with answered, "Please do. Tell everyone at your church."

I did a Beth Moore bible study a few years ago (ugh- don't ask!) and there were several paragraphs in it about how xtians had a bad reputation at restaurants. She did say one thing I agreed with (surprise!). She begged the reader to SHOW the love of christ by being polite and tipping appropriately instead of being rude to the server and leaving a tract. She also made a point to tell the reader not to say the server is going to hell for working on a Sunday.

[Clementine]

Perhaps this person should try paying his bills by working as a server for a while. I suggest a state that observes the federally-mandated minimum wage for tipped employees of $2.13 per hour, and a willingness to pick up the most undesirable day to work for servers, that is Sunday. :roll:

:o I can't believe that it's even legal to pay an employee two bucks per hour!

How much are you supposed to tip a waiter?

(Here, service is included in the bill, but a waitress probably makes at least $12/hour. Still, a lot of people leave a tip if the service was good, about 10-15% of the bill.)

[Swamptribe]

It's been my experience that the people in my community that go to church are very low tippers. Sometimes I go with my grandma's Sunday school class out to eat breakfast or dinner. They tip terribly. I know they are older and live on a fixed income but they could do better than a $1 tip. There is usually a party of 10-15 when they go somewhere. I always tip generously when I go with the group. I have to hid it under my plate so I don't get criticized. :roll:

Criticize back. Most people don't realize wait staff get taxed on a percentage of their total sales to compensate for the taxes they should pay on tips. If their food sales for the night are 300 bucks, and the state taxes on 8% of those sales. They have an additional 24 bucks taken out of their wages for taxes. If they only made 15 bucks in tips that night, they are loosing 9 bucks for the privileged of working. Explain that to the cheap old biddies. Somebody needs to point it out to them.

My sister used to tip badly. She and her friends would go out and stiff the waitstaff. Her excuse "we're poor, and couldn't afford to eat out if we tipped'. She stiffed a co-worker of my husbands one night, and we raised holy hell with her. The MIL used to insist on being a cheap tipper (we used to sneak back in behind her and leave a bigger tip). It only changed when her daughter started waiting tables for a living.

[Lillian]

Just wanted to say that I'm glad I live where tipping is pretty much non-existent! It seems to complicate things enormously. It's interesting to read about a whole aspect of social etiquette that I have next to no idea about, though. I can't imagine working for $2.13 p/h. My first job at age 15 was something like $8 and that was on the low side.

[Clementine]

Just wanted to say that I'm glad I live where tipping is pretty much non-existent! It seems to complicate things enormously. It's interesting to read about a whole aspect of social etiquette that I have next to no idea about, though. I can't imagine working for $2.13 p/h. My first job at age 15 was something like $8 and that was on the low side.

Me too! And in the US, you seem to tip so many people: waiters, taxi drivers, your hair dresser, hotel staff... I hope that European tourists study the etiquette before they go there, or else we must be seen as horrible and cheap customers.

How do you know how much to tip?

[DistantStar]

Leaving a tract is rude. Leaving a tract instead of a freakin' tip is unspeakably rude.

I tip well. Including on Sundays. With a group from church. They seem to like us fine, but perhaps that is because we aren't assholes!

[Jessica]

I had no idea waiters make that little! :(

[O Latin]

My boyfriend and I eat out sometimes but whenever we go out, we always tip generously, especially if the waiter/waitress took care of us. I have friends who are waitresses at restaurant and most of their income comes from tips.

My family and I went on a cruise last December and towards the end of the vacation, they put a card in our cabin that asked us if we could tip the Maitre'd of our formal dining restaurant. My dad gave a $100 tip (8 day cruise, went to that restaurant every night, plus he's a generous tipper). Well, the family behind us were conservative Christians (why they went on a cruise baffles me--too much defrauding!) and overheard the husband saying "I think $10 is more than generous." Wtf, you're on a cruise, moron, for 8 days, and you think $10 is MORE than generous?! Oh yes, that's so much.

Some people aren't intentionally being rude, they just don't understand that things cost more nowadays. My dad is like this. He thinks everything should cost what it did in 1975. He would probably think $10 was a great tip until my mom explained reality to him. Just because conservative Christians behave a certain way doesn't mean it's because they 're Christians.

Pardon any riffles. I'm on my iPad.

[GenerationCedarchip]

Some people aren't intentionally being rude, they just don't understand that things cost more nowadays. My dad is like this. He thinks everything should cost what it did in 1975. He would probably think $10 was a great tip until my mom explained reality to him. Just because conservative Christians behave a certain way doesn't mean it's because they 're Christians.

Pardon any riffles. I'm on my iPad.

I'd second that one. I waited tables for a bit and my experience was that the worst tippers were people who seemed to lack familiarity with blue collar employment, for lack of a better way to phrase it. There were plenty of church parties that tipped me well and there were plenty that didn't. I think it has more to do with understanding how servers' jobs work than with religion.

My best tippers tended to be factory workers, postal employees, contractors, etc... One of the local Baptist ministers was a regular and also much-loved by the servers because he was nice and he tipped well.

My worst tippers by far were local college students and the "ladies who lunch" crowd. There was a MOPS group that really infuriated me because they would try to get me to provide free babysitting while they lunched for eons. And if I got a 10% tip, that would mark an extra generous day for them.