Seven Rules for Being Kind to Waiters

Customers can treat waiters and fast food clerks very badly, sometimes amazingly badly. Some of it’s just inconsiderateness or selfishness, but some of it’s a cowardly assault on the defenseless. Here is a waitress’s response.

Our eldest son worked for a couple years in high school and then summers after at a Quizno’s in an affluent, boutiquely little town, and dealt with obnoxious people every day. One summer a young woman working there became a particular target, with people sometimes asking her how stupid she could be, and her co-workers at the cash register end of the line liked to tell them, “You know, she’s a classics major at Harvard. She sight-reads ancient Greek and Latin.”

Here are my personal rules for rewarding waiters:

1) Tip well. Then add a dollar. (I’m thinking of pubs and coffee shops here. Adjust the addition for more expensive places.)

1A) Tip by time as well as the price of your meal. If you’ve taken up a table for longer than the usual customer, add what the waiter would have gotten from the customers you displaced. If you don’t want to do that, don’t stay that long.

1B) Tip by what would have been the total cost when you order a special, like a two for one wings special at the pub. The waiter shouldn’t suffer because the restaurant is drawing in customers with a good deal.

2) Ask for everything you want when you order. When you want something else, like more water, say “When you have a chance” and mean it.

3) If you forgot something, wait till the waiter comes back to ask for it. And only ask once, even if you then realize you forgot something else, unless the restaurant is half empty.

4) Pay attention to the rest of the restaurant and if it’s crowded or full of demanding people give your waiter a break.

5) Say “thank you” as if the waiter were not doing a job but doing you a favor. Try to think of him that way and not as your temporary employee.

6) Be satisfied with the food you get, if you’re eating at a pub, diner, small townie restaurant, that is, the kind of places that don’t pretend to offer a fine dining experience. The food’s cheap because you get what the cook manages to make while making twenty other meals. The eggs are too runny or the toast too dark? Deal.

7) Tip well. Then add a dollar.

I’m tempted to include “Shame the customers being jerks,” but suspect this will usually just make things worse for the waiter. But, borrowing a line from the waitress, Thadra Sheridan, “Didn’t your daddy love you?” said in a concerned voice would be a good line to use on an obnoxious male, along with an equally solicitous question about the minimal size of his male member. But then you might be doing to him what he’s doing to the waiter, so maybe not.

Thanks to Bobby Winters for the link.