Waiting; The True Confessions of a Waitress Read online

  My favorite bad-tipping memory, however, comes from Mar-cello, a waiter I worked with several years ago. Marcello claimed to be an Italian (although other Italians claimed that the way he spoke their language was barely intelligible) who grew up in Switzerland (there was very little proof of this) and had made his living largely through “import/export” (slang for just about anything illegal). Nobody could tell a joke worse than Marcello, and his punch lines were often so mangled that the humor would be in how badly he screwed them up. Well into the 1990s, Marcello showed up for employee meetings dressed like an extra from GoodFellas, wearing white jeans, shirts open to his waist, and white patent leather shoes. He was built like a very squat brick house and plowed through the dining room arms akimbo, mowing down just about everybody in sight. Marcello once slammed into me as I was carrying two mixed salads. He hit me so hard that the salads went flying, smashing on the tile in an explosion of glass, lettuce, and tomatoes, and knocked the wind out of me so completely it took ten minutes for me to catch my breath. At the time of Marcello’s fall from grace in the restaurant, he claimed to be studying law at a school nobody had ever heard of. We assumed it was some sort of mail-order scam that would be exposed, sooner or later, on a weekly TV newsmagazine.

  Marcello had been developing something of a bad attitude over a period of a few months. He was getting burned out and venting his frustration on whoever happened to be in his path. He started stealing desserts that other waiters had ordered and giving them to his tables in order to enhance his tips. He pretended to make mistakes on his drink orders at the bar and imbibed the results. He became very aggressive at the table and began getting complaints from the few customers who weren’t afraid of him.

  One night Marcello went through his usual drill, free desserts and the like, for a large party. He was counting on a fat tip, but he was out of luck and received something way below his expectations. Marcello proceeded to chase the customer out to the front of the restaurant and then, in full view of several patrons, loudly berated said customer for his penurious persuasion.

  “I didn’t tip on purpose,” the customer shouted back. “You were rude and awful. You’re an asshole, frankly.”

  “Va fa’n culo!” Marcello yelled. He then made the universal “up yours” gesture with his arm and fist and stalked off, muttering under his breath, “Call me an asshole? I’ll kill you, motherfucker!”

  The customer Marcello yelled at was a regular at the restaurant and was singularly unhappy. He, too, ended up getting his dinner on the house. Marcello was fired. Law student that he was, however, Marcello applied for unemployment benefits, claiming that he had been unjustly terminated. The case actually wound up in front of a judge, who told Marcello that telling a customer to fuck off was certainly grounds for termination. Marcello claimed that he never told the customer anything of the kind. “Va fa’n culo,” he claimed, was a form of greeting in Italy similar to, say, “Shalom.” The judge turned to the general manager (also an Italian) who had fired Marcello and asked him if this was true. The GM replied, “Not in the part of Italy I come from. Where I come from it means ‘fuck you.’ ” Marcello never received unemployment. Last we heard of him, he was doing “contract work” in Las Vegas.

  Admittedly, I have never had an experience that rivals Marcello’s. Generally, fear of losing my job keeps me from making any kind of fuss over a bad tip. Ultimately, I’ve found, it evens out. One table may leave me a lousy tip, but the one after it probably won’t. There are other factors to take into consideration as well. Perhaps a particular table didn’t anticipate the high prices and has come up short. Perhaps they’re too drunk or confused to figure the correct percentage.

  I waited on a three-generation family once who seemed to really be enjoying themselves. They had several dietary restrictions, so I ordered special dishes for them and recommended a couple of different wines. They took an interest in me and so I shared some details from my personal life with them. They were pleasant to wait on and they were very complimentary about the service. When I picked up the bill, however, I saw that they had written in a fifteen-dollar tip on a two-hundred-dollar tab. I was actually saddened more than upset over the low tip because I thought they’d really liked me. I spent the rest of the evening trying to figure out what I’d done wrong. A full week later, I was standing at the bar when I felt a tap on my shoulder. Turning around, I saw a woman from this same party.

  “I’m so glad I found you,” she said. “I’m very sorry about the tip we gave you last week. I didn’t realize until we left how low it was. My husband told me to ‘add fifteen’ to the bill and I thought he meant fifteen dollars instead of fifteen percent. It’s been bothering me all week because you were so nice to us. I wanted to give you this.” She handed me a twenty-dollar bill and smiled.

  While this type of scenario serves to reinforce one’s faith in the human race, it is regrettably rare.

  I have had two experiences that stand out as polar opposites on the tipping spectrum. Both occurred in the same restaurant. Viewed together, the two illustrate perfectly the peculiarity of the tipping system and its inherent contradictions.

  The first involves a man who has since become a regular customer in my restaurant. On one of his first visits, however, he sat down with three other men in my section. They seemed a crusty lot and were fairly demanding, but I’d decided to try to make the most of it and chatted with them while I was at the table. Mr. X had an accent I recognized as coming from the country of my mother’s birth. I asked him what city he was from and he confirmed that he’d grown up very near my mother’s family. As the evening progressed, I learned that he was actually a boyhood chum of my uncle’s. By dessert, we had discussed our families, traded stories, and marveled at how small the world was that we could end up meeting in such a way. When I presented the bill, I was confident that I’d be receiving quite a nice tip. In fact, they left nothing at all. Since I was sure there had been some mistake and because I felt I’d formed such a bond with Mr. X, I approached the table and asked them if their meal had been satisfactory and if they felt they received good service. They assured me that everything had been just fine.

  “Well, you didn’t leave me a tip,” I said. “And I’m just wondering why.”

  “No, there’s no tip,” Mr. X barked. “Your prices are outrageous.”

  “I’m sorry, but they’re not my prices,” I said. “I don’t have anything to do with that.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Mr. X frowned. “There’s no tip.”

  Several months later, I found myself working the cocktail area of the same restaurant. It had been a very quiet shift until a pro football player with the San Diego Chargers came in with a date. He ordered a bottle of Cristal, which was the highest ticket item on the menu. I chilled a couple of glasses for the two of them and set an ice bucket next to their table. We exchanged a few pleasantries while I opened the champagne and poured out two glasses. I asked if there was anything else I could do for them, and he told me that they were going to have dinner shortly so I could just cash him out. The bill came to about a hundred and fifty dollars. He paid with a credit card and wrote in a hundred-dollar tip. I thanked him profusely, but he waved me off, grinning broadly, and told me it was his pleasure.

  I’m not sure that there is a way to adequately explain these types of extremes except to say that tipping itself creates a bizarre psychology. Consider these examples, if you will.

  After assuring me throughout his dinner that everything was perfectly fine, a customer of mine once left me a very low tip. He also left me a note explaining why. I am including it here in all its glory (which is to say with all its unintelligible language and spelling errors intact).

  This 10% tip was given due to the servis was good but not up to stades. The plates should have been taken by the busboy. The crumbs cleaned at the end of the meal and small things like a ‘marrow fork’ given with the Osobouco. Thank you for your attention to this items and your tip will be 18–22% of t
he Bill. I hope this helps.

  It helped, all right. I’ve rarely had such a good laugh. This note, which I have kept for many years, completely made up for the lack of tip. In spades.

  Going from the ridiculous to the sublime, there is the tale of my friend Lucy. One night, in her exclusive high-end restaurant, Lucy waited on a man who told her, “I’ll give you fifty dollars right now if you can tell me which song this line comes from: ‘Say, can I have some of your purple berries.’ ” Lucy knew immediately and told her customer, who responded by jumping up with joy. She was the first waitress who had known, he claimed, and he’d asked every server who had ever waited on him. It was, he said, an absolute triumph. Did he give Lucy the fifty dollars? Indeed he did, plus an additional fifteen as a “regular” tip.

  Scientific studies on tipping (and there have been several) say that servers can increase their tips by touching a patron lightly on the shoulder, writing “thank you” on the check, or introducing themselves by name. But anyone who has waited tables longer than a few months knows that a controlled study of something as wildly variable as tipping has little validity. Every diner is different. Some are impossible to please and would leave a lousy tip even if their waitress offered them a full body massage, never mind a light touch on the shoulder. Others will tip high if their server just leaves them alone and remains invisible. The fact that there is no way of telling which way it’s going to go with a particular table is part of the challenge and excitement of waiting. Natural disasters and lazy busboys notwithstanding, how I fare on a particular table, night, or week is entirely up to me and my ability to mold myself to the customer.

  Servers dislike being punished, certainly, but they also feel uneasy being rewarded unjustly. I can recall plenty of instances where waitresses receiving exorbitant tips have approached customers and asked if they really meant to leave so much money. It’s a way of getting affirmation (because hardly anyone errs on the side of too much) for a job well done. And perhaps because financial success at this job does require living by one’s wits, waiters (even those who swear that they’re quitting at the end of the shift) want and need to take pride in what they do.

  Unfortunately, this very philosophy leads to the formation of certain prejudices on the part of waiters and waitresses everywhere. The same radar that allows a seasoned waiter to know what a particular customer needs also cues him to anticipate the amount of a tip based on a patron’s gender, age, profession, and nationality.

  For several years I’ve worked in a city that thrives on a healthy tourist trade. The restaurants here regularly serve people from all over the world as well as a large group of (mostly moneyed) locals. Ask any waiter in my restaurant to describe his ideal table and he’ll tell you “four businessmen in suits.” Preferably stockbrokers from New York. The worst? Probably a party of Frenchwomen with children in tow. For better or worse, customers are instantly categorized as soon as the waiter approaches the table (sometimes even earlier). Every waiter and waitress I’ve worked beside agrees that almost everyone from the East Coast can be counted on for a good tip. They also agree that Europeans are the very worst tippers. I’ve actually seen fights break out over which country, France or Germany, has the cheapest diners.

  (Of course, in Europe, the service is included in the bill, so the argument can be made that these guests are unaware that they are supposed to tip in this country. However, the level of sophistication among our European patrons implies that they are, in fact, aware of this American custom and simply choose to feign ignorance.)

  As far as gender goes, there are some unwritten rules that almost always apply. Men (unfortunately this really is true) usually tip better than women. And men tip pretty waitresses best of all. This is probably due to complex psychological reasons best not gotten into here. There is one customer in particular, a regular diner in my restaurant, who becomes enraged if he sees a male waiter at his table. “Get me a girl,” he always says. “I want a girl to wait on me.” Women (at least in my experience) tip lightly in general, but tip waitresses worse than waiters. I have given away countless tables to my male coworkers upon encountering unbridled hostility the minute I approached a table of women. The younger the women, the tougher they are to wait on and the lower the tip at the end of the meal. I swear I have actually heard hissing at some of these tables when my back was turned. Frankly, I can do without these women, who threaten my fragile belief in universal sisterhood. I’d much rather give up the table and let them torture a waiter for two hours. Incidentally, I am not alone in my observations of gender-based tipping policies. Those silly studies, already mentioned, back me up completely.

  Finally, there is one type of customer who transcends all boundaries of gender, age, and nationality. That customer is a fellow server. When waiters and waitresses dine out, they can always expect exemplary service. Who but a fellow waiter can understand better that the kitchen is slow and that the specials have run out at 7:30 P.M.? Who else can relate to the fact that you’ve got an obnoxious party of six bent on making you work like a slave for every penny of the tip they might not leave? In our restaurant, coworkers receive better service than celebrities. In addition, they can count on getting the straight dope on what dishes are of debatable quality that evening and what looks good. Often, the server will convince the manager to buy dessert or the chef to make up a plate of appetizers. Waiters from other restaurants also get plenty of attention and often commiserate on the state of the business. An extremely generous tip at the end of such a meal goes beyond professional courtesy, it reflects a deep emotional bond. This expectation does generate a certain amount of pressure, for as any server will attest, waiters who stiff other waiters have a special spot in hell marked just for them.

  I have been on the receiving end of waiter prejudice several times and I don’t enjoy the feeling. I have a friend I visit several times a year and we always pick a new restaurant in which to eat. Both of us look younger than we are and both of us tend to dress casually. My friend is an eccentric genius type who is very successful in his field. Having been forced to wear vests and wingtips in the early part of his career, he now actively dresses down. I never identify myself as a waitress when we go out and I’ve been amazed at how many times our server checks us out and frowns disapprovingly. Sometimes we get service that can only be described as spotty, and I know it’s based on this initial impression. My favorite part of this game is when the check comes and my friend pulls out his Platinum American Express card and lays it on the table. There is invariably a look of shock and dismay on the server’s face when he realizes his misjudgment. If we’ve been treated really badly, my friend will hand me the check and say, “You decide what to tip.” Then he’ll turn to the server, gesture to me, and say, “She’s a waitress.” Naturally, neither my friend nor I ever leave less than a 20 percent tip. That would be to needlessly tempt fate.

  These experiences have taught me that pigeonholing any customer before the end of the meal is a dangerous game. Even if the past dictates that a party of Australian surfers will probably leave a handful of change on the table, you just never know. There is a lottery aspect to the whole thing. Again, this is part of the job’s challenge and one of its joys as well as one of its pitfalls. This is also why so many waiters and waitresses dislike preset tips, despite the fact that such tips remove a certain anxiety from the process. Not only is there no incentive to excel when the tip has already been determined but there is no possibility of receiving a bonanza at the end. In short, the thrill is gone.

  When my boss at Petit Morsel instructed me to surrender my tips to the common pool, I knew nothing of percentages, Tippers International, or the history of the gratuity. I knew only that those I waited on were thanking me, specifically, for taking care of them, and by doing so, they were acting in accordance with natural laws that had been in place long before my teenage existence. Really, after so long, not much has changed in my understanding of this very basic philosophy.

  I continued
working at Petit Morsel for a couple of weeks after my boss’s ultimatum. During those shifts, I kept almost all of my tips, saving only a couple of dollars for the jar. I resented having to duck and hide my tips, especially when I felt it was so unjustified, and left the restaurant angry every night. Finally I quit in disgust. My family was extremely relieved. The whole experience left a bad taste in my mouth, which persisted until I left for college several months later.

  A recent check confirmed that Petit Morsel is still in operation. Since it’s been almost twenty years since I worked there, I am very curious about what the menu looks like now and how the staff functions. Is there still a community tip jar, I wonder, or do the servers get their due? When I decide to take a tour of my old stomping grounds, Petit Morsel will certainly be on the list. I plan to go prepared, ready to press a big fat tip into my waitress’s hand.

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  three

  the back of the house