How to Tip - An Insider's Guide to Spit-Free Soup

Until I actually worked in a restaurant as a server, I was the guy who would just approximate a dime and nickel percentage, slap it on the table, and walk away. I wasn't a bad person, I was just an ignorant one.
But now, having spent seven months as a server at a full-service Italian restaurant, I think I am qualified to offer a few guidelines that will greatly decrease your chances of being the "cheap weasel" villain of side-station chatter.

First off, you've got to ask why you'd tip at all. You worked hard for your money, didn't you, so why go giving it away to someone who is already getting paid for their work? That's a good question, I guess, but if you're going to count quarters in a restaurant, then perhaps the first question you should ask is... should I be going out to eat at all? I mean, seriously. It will cost you at the very least twice (and probably three times) as much to eat in a full-service restaurant as it would to eat at home. If money is such an issue for you, maybe you shouldn't be wasting it on extravagance.

Still, if you're going to wallow in opulent decadence, here are some justifications for ending your meal with a nice, friendly tip.

While servers do get paid, the most they make is minimum wage. In British Columbia, Canada (where I started as a server) that minimum wage is 8 dollars an hour. In Ontario it is less, and servers there get paid only around four dollars an hour. In the U.S. there are a few States (like Oregon) where servers get paid minimum wage, but in most States the servers get paid HALF minimum wage, which in South Carolina (where I served last year after relocating) is around five dollars - so servers there make around two-fifty an hour. After taxes are withdrawn, the paycheck almost always comes out to exactly ZERO. In most other countries around the world, servers make almost nothing as well (so tip generously, you penny-pinching arrogant rich tourist stinkpot!), but suffice it to say that an American cannot possibly afford to live on serving wages without a lot of help from your tips.

Yes, restaurants could pay the servers more, but not only would that up the price of the food (the profit margin is thin in restaurants), you would get worse service - guaranteed. Serving is REALLY hard and stressful, and there are very few people in this world who will strive for excellence in a work situation like that if it doesn't directly affect their income. Servers are shift workers who will only get maybe three to four hours a shift where they're really busy, and if they don't get tipped really well during the peak hours, it's likely they won't make rent.

So tip. Tip generously. While a lot of servers are just young dumb kids, living at home and spending all that disposable income on booze and two hundred dollar hair appointments, a good number of them are single mothers, or students, or artists just trying to get by. If you can afford to blow money on the luxury of a restaurant meal, you can afford to generously tip.

What's a generous tip? Well, I'll tell you what isn't. Zero dollars is not a generous tip. Zero dollars is only justifiable if your server is obviously, blatantly rude to you. Not leaving her other table and rushing to the snap of your fingers is NOT rude. You are not the king or queen of the universe, and buying a twenty-dollar meal does not give you the right to treat another human being like crap. Even if you do tip her something between zero and ten percent and you are nice to her and you tell her what a good job she did, a dollar fifty does not pay the bills.

Ten percent is a tip you give if your server is obviously harried and running like mad and stressed and isn't really taking good care of you and when you ask for something you just get blown off. However, if stuff does go wrong, there is a chance it's not the servers fault, and that she is doing her best to make you happy despite this, so you should probably still consider tipping her fifteen percent anyways. That's standard, and she's probably having a rough enough time without getting jack-diddly from your seized-shut wallet. Let me repeat, loudly: FIFTEEN PERCENT IS STANDARD for decent-to-good service.

Twenty percent is a nice tip - if you're buying the cheapest thing on the menu, you should consider leaving this sort of tip. Anything over twenty percent is a really generous tip. Thirty-five percent (and higher) tips are wicked awesome. Be proud of yourself - no one is cursing your name in the back, or scratching the inside of their nose with the spout of your teapot.

Here are situations where if you don't leave a generous tip, you're really just a big trash can full of poop:

One: you've been really demanding. This could mean that you've made the server change something about every meal your table orders (extra mushrooms, hold the garlic sauce, substitute penne noodles for linguine... no, wait, make that wheat spaghetti... no, wait - do you have the colored tortellini?). This costs the server time and effort in three places: at your table, at the computer entering the order, and in the back, making sure the kitchen gets it right. It is complicated and your server has got other things to worry about, so be easy on her and if she pulls it off, be really nice. Another way to be demanding is to ask for lots of refills on everything. If there are refills available, it's your prerogative to ask for them - but be nice about it - you are not the only person in your server's world.

Two: you're a camper. When you come to a restaurant, you are paying for a meal - not a place to spend the night. If you want to chat for three hours over a cup of coffee, consider going to a coffee shop. Your server is assigned a specific set of tables, and if you hang out in one of them for twice the usual time, you would do well to tip her twice the usual amount.

Three: you change your mind about stuff a lot. Don't do this, but if you do it and your server obviously goes out of her way to accommodate you, be generous.

Four: if your table spends seventy dollars on meal and your server runs like a crazy cat to get things done for you, but you have a gift card that brings the bill down to twenty dollars, don't tip out your fifteen or twenty percent on the twenty dollars - that's just pathetic. Or if you're a whiney little punk with an overblown sense of entitlement, and you get a manager out and your meal for free because your chicken's a little tough or you didn't get as much steak sauce as you wanted or your server didn't get you your eighth water refill fast enough, don't think that if you then tip a hefty percentage on zero then you're doing the world a favor and striking a blow for justice. Just because you are a complainer does not mean that your server did not do a good job. Always tip out on the original amount of your bill.

That is just about it. Hopefully I've educated you to a point where you can tip with confidence, dignity and (we hope) generosity. I would like to finish up, however, with one final point: buying a meal in a restaurant does not give you the right to barge into another person's life and tell them what to think or do - tipping them really well just might.

There is a patron of my restaurant who comes in every week, spends up to ninety dollars on a meal for herself and her three children, demands all manner of attention, and then tips around one and a half percent. On the back of her credit card slip she writes the reference for this Bible verse: "for I know the plans I have for you says the Lord: plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future". Then she signs it, "God bless, Mrs. S**** and the girls".

Personally, the first time I served this lady I thought it was funny. I mean, c'mon... "prosper you"?!? The fact remains, though, that to the average server the message she is giving is this: "hey, there. I know you work a difficult minimum wage job and I know I make it even harder than usual, but I've got a tip worth even more than money... God wants to prosper you! Isn't that nice?" It reminds me of the Charlie Brown strip where Charlie and Linus, bundled up in warm winter clothes, see Snoopy shivering on top of his dog house. "Snoopy looks cold", says Charlie Brown. "We should go cheer him up", says Linus. So they walk together over to Snoopy, say "Be of good cheer, Snoopy", and walk away.

I tend to think that eating in restaurants as regularly as some people do is a stupid waste of money that could be put it into something useful, like starving people. If you need to celebrate something and you absolutely must go out, however, don't be like Charlie Brown, or the inscrutable Mrs. S****.

Tip like you mean it.

Josh Barkey is an author, painter, teacher and champion tree climber who lives in a shed in North Carolina, writing expansively on whatever comes to mind at http://www.barkingreed.blogspot.com

His current writing project is a spiritual memoir with the rough working title of "Anatomy of an Effup: How One Artist Lost His Wife, His Religion, and Most of His Fear", which he is currently posting in serial form on his blog.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Josh_Barkey

The Joy of Shopping

A woman, standing in a checkout line with a heaping shopping cart, told the clerk, “My husband’s going to be mad that I’ve shopped all day.” The clerk replied, “I’m sure he’ll understand, when you tell him about all the bargains you found.” The woman said, “I don’t think so. This morning he broke his arm, and he’s waiting in the car for me to take him to the emergency room.”

Do you lose track of time when sniffing out sales in search of that illusive, ultimate bargain? I sure do. But yesterday, I had a strange experience. I ran into Wal-mart and bought only the light bulbs I’d gone in for. I was back in my car within ten minutes. Even the husband was shocked.

It’s an eerie feeling to shop without a cart, spend less than ten dollars, and leave the store without checking out the sale racks. Normally, I go in for a couple necessities and emerge three hours later with an empty checkbook and a forklift loaded with purchases.

I should win the Nobel prize for shopping. I can turn a trip to the drugstore for toenail clippers into a shopping marathon. I lapse into a half-crazed shopping stupor when I disappear through those automatic doors, and I rarely leave without an overflowing cart full of handy items like the industrial size floor waxer I got for half price, or the duster on a twelve-foot pole -- which I’ve never used -- to clean those hard to reach places. (Heck! I don’t even clean the EASY to reach places.)

I’ve found some great bargains over the years, like those cute little nets you put over your paper plate to keep flies off your potato salad. Too bad I can never find them when we have picnics. Then there were those ten-cent pantyhose. Now that’s the sort of discount you don’t see every day. I’m sure I’ll need them eventually, even if they are iridescent orange and sized for pygmies.

I once picked up some adorable little brushes made especially for cleaning test tubes. I don’t have test tubes, but my industrious, obsessive-compulsive husband uses them to scrub light bulbs, door knobs, and loose change.

I was so proud of the wok I got on sale in 1983. I haven’t had the chance to use it yet, but last year my clever grandson discovered that it worked well for melting down gold jewelry.

And what about that great deal I got on old Monkees albums? At ninety-eight cents each, they were a steal. Guess what everyone on my Christmas gift list is getting this year?

I’m the poster girl for Shopaholics Anonymous. My drug of choice is the Dollar Store. The last thing the husband shouts as I leave the house is, “Be strong! Stay away from the Dollar Store!” He understands that when it comes to the lure of those treasure-laden aisles, I’m as helpless to resist as a monkey who has sworn off bananas. As I once heard another addict remark, I can have a real shopgasm there. I’ve been known to push not one but two carts around in that funland. Children follow me and stare in amazement as I load the baskets till their wheels go flat. I stock up on things like lug nuts, nose hair trimmers, hair nets, ear wax remover, parakeet food, and kitty litter. I don’t have a cat or a bird; but strays might end up on my doorstep someday, and I’ll be prepared. After all, everything in the store is only one dollar, so why not splurge? What a rush! Till I reach the checkout counter and the clerk announces my total of $387.

The husband doesn’t understand about sales. He couldn’t care less that I saved ten dollars. All he sees are the double digit figures on the receipts. He’s so old fashioned, he thinks you shouldn’t buy something unless you really need it. I hate the way his lips turn white and form a thin, straight line when he looks through the check register. Then the veins in his neck bulge out and I know he’s beginning to get peeved with me. That’s when I know it’s time to lock myself in the bathroom till the storm blows over. I sometimes take six showers a day.

H.M. is a twice-a-year shopper. Every Christmas Eve at 11:00 P.M., he takes his annual five minute dash through the open-all-night drugstore to pick up whatever is on the end of the first two aisles. Family members are always surprised by his unique gifts, like the battery powered tweezers, Power Rangers toothbrush, and the package of Snoopy Band-Aids I received last year.

His second shopping spree takes place during the Vernal Equinox when he spends a total of seven minutes purchasing his new summer wardrobe. He goes into race mode when his feet hit the floor of a store. He never uses a cart and doesn’t try anything on. He grabs whatever is nearest the checkout counter. I run to keep up, as he tosses items over my arms.
The next day, I inevitably trudge back to the store and exchange it all because the shoes are three sizes too small and the shirts are size 6X.
I know better than to send H.M. to the grocery store. I once gave him a list with three items on it and he didn’t get any of them. Instead of canned tomatoes, he brought home beets. I got a bag of flour instead of sugar; and rather than picking up oranges, he bought a case of grapefruit. We HATE grapefruit. He says he makes mistakes like these because he doesn’t read labels. Always being in a hurry, he simply grabs whatever looks like the item he’s after. I think he does it on purpose so I won’t send him to the store again.

Maybe I should be a little more like him, though. Think of the time I would save if I spent less of it in search of that ultimate bargain.
Actually, I don’t need to shop at all to find the deal of the century. I’ve already found it -- and not just the deal of this century, but of every century.

The best deal ever has been called “the pearl of great price” (Matthew 13:45) which is worth everything you can sell to buy it. It’s a deal God made two thousand years ago. He paid a ransom for you with the life of His only son. It purchased your freedom from the power of sin and death.
The blood of Jesus bought eternal life for every person who is willing to accept His gift. You won’t find a greater deal in any mall on earth.

Marsha Jordan Author of "Hugs, Hope, and Peanut Butter" hugsandhope@gmail.com http://www.hugsandhope.org Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Marsha_Jordan