To the morning customers in the shop: I am a person, not a machine. Coming over to place you order is how it’s done here, not calling it out to me from the other side of the room. Though I may be employed to serve you food, I am also a human being with a brain and feelings. Would it kill you to say goodmorning? I’m just starting my day too, please don’t ruin it.
—morning shift
This article appears in Aug 13-19, 2009.
They should replace you with a machine….you know, like a vending machine that vends breakfast and coffee. Then everyone wins.
It can even smile and mention the weather.
LOL PAS…I think we’re on the same page here. Want to business partners? I’ll file the patents, you make the reservations for the Dragon’s Den and we can get the ball rolling.
Of course! Robots are IN and baristas are OUT.
I just put my hand up and snap my fingers while looking at my server. If they don’t respond, they lose their tip. They are there to serve, serve me.
hey fuckwit get me a coffee, two sugar, two cream, hold the attitude and suck my left nut for a tip.
I bet this person works at Coastal Cafe. They have a terrible system in place for ordering at the counter. Great food though…
And what’s with this tip crap. Mickey Ds, Wendy’s, etc I don’t think allow this, what make these shabby coffee douches think they’re any better.
Yelling across the room at someone or snapping your fingers is just bad manners…and lazy. It only takes a moment to walk over to the PERSON at the counter and speak with them. It is the disregard involved with these actions that anger people.
I can’t say for Mickey D’s, but Wendy’s and DQ both allow tips, it’s just really rare you get any. However, both of those, and McDs have the donation things for charity, and most coffee places just have tip bars. Just sayin’.
There’s a great sandwich and coffee shop in Vancouver where you establish an account and then you can text or fax in your order and give a time when you’ll pick it up – you arrive and it’s already made to your specs and the $$ has already been debitted – no mess, no fuss, no attitude
Why does everybody think that food/beverage requires or deserves a tip? They get paid to do their job like anybody else does.
Hey Basil…which place is it in Vancouver (that’s where I’m from!)? And I agree with you NGF….why does everyone expect a tip? When you tip a waitress at a restaurant it goes to the host/hostess down to the lowly dishwasher who work as a team to get you the food…tipping the cashier at McD’s seems pointless…they just turned around and grabbed your burger.
Same with in bars. If you bring me my drink to my table, maybe, if I ask you to make me “something girly with tequila” and you do, yeah I’ll tip you. But if you’re just grabbing a bottle of beer and taking the cap off, forget it.
T.I.P. means To Insure Promptness, as well, people use it to say thank you when their experience has been enjoyable.
Unfortunately, owners take tips for granted and decide to pay their staff minimum wage as a result. As well, in the more upper-scale restaurants, the waiters must pay around 5% of their sales total to the management so it can be distributed to the other staff. That means, if the waiter doesn’t get tipped, she/he is paying to serve you.
T.I.P.S. = To Insure Prompt Service
T.I.P.S. = Total Idiots Pour Suds
I don’t see why the customer gets blamed for the shitty deal servers get. Why should the customer have to supplement the income of the server? That just doesn’t make sense to me. I sympathize with the fact that servers rely on tips to earn a decent wage, but that is an employer-employee problem. Start demanding equal minimum wages. There are surely enough servers in Halifax that if they got together they could affect some real change.
I agree Miles, especially when the managers (who get paid much more than the staff) take the biggest cut. I would tip my busperson extra, because I knew that their cut was the lowest and they had worked very hard for me. I am sure my outspokenness had something to do with their eagerness to take my resignation :).
T.I.P.S = Titillating Interference Presents Species (only at Hooters).
HKM: If your manager was taking a cut of your tips, then you were working for sleezeballs. When I was a bar manager I never once took money from a server’s tips, not even when they tried to force me to (for helping them during rushes).
I’d just like to point out that the OP of this bitch isn’t whining about lack of tips, he/she is just asking to be treated like an actual human being and given some basic respect. Working in the service industry is pretty thankless, and most of those in said industry are assumed to be uneducated nitwits who are either too dumb or too lazy to get a better job. Well newsflash: when I worked at superstore 80% of our staff were either in some form of post secondary education or already had degrees. I knew of 7 people, including myself that I talked to directly on a regular basis who were university educated.
In any case, it wouldn’t hurt the general population to learn some manners, because I see a lot more rudeness these days than politeness. I even get ridiculed on a regular basis by friends because apparently my manners make me a “wuss.” Whatever, dudes.
PK, you should know by now that if the service industry is even mentioned in a bitch, someone’s going to turn the thread into an argument about tipping 🙂
See how much better things would be if it were all vending machines and robots? Utopian.
Basil, in many cases if you call any restaurant for an order they’ll do it and have it ready for pick up for the time you ask for. It may be a new concept in Lala Land but not here. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re a regular that having an account would be no problem.
Nevermind, you seem to have been a good manager. Not only because you were not greedy but because you were hands on. Waiters, like customers, want to show their appreciation for exemplary behaviour–whether it be with a thank you, a smile or a tip–because it IS appreciated (and not always forthcoming).