I’ve decided that nothing can surprise me anymore, especially when it comes to working in a restaurant. Once there was a time where I would be shocked by a lousy tip, aggravated by a parents’ lack of parenting skills (letting their little nugget children run all over the place while I’m trying to pass out hot soup, letting their snot-nosed kids cry and throw temper tantrums, and so on), but now, nothing surprises me.
The other day I was working a lunch shift. I had a table of four old ladies first. Now, as adorable as old people are, they have a bad rep for not tipping the best. Then, a fellow server and I were sat a party of 20. Technically, another server should have been on it with us, but we said that we could handle it. On those 2 tables alone I was at almost 30 dollars, so I was feeling pretty good. Then came my last table of the day…
Three adults, two children, and one stroller. They ordered: three soup, salad, and breadsticks lunch, three soft drinks, two kids drinks, two boats of alfredo, and one kids fettucini alfredo add chicken. Their total bill was 43.88, relatively. Since I was feeling generous, I let the fact that the mom was sharing her 4 bowls of soup with her son slide. I should have charged them for an extra bowl, but didn’t. You’re welcome. After coming to the table one last time, the grandma handed me the black book and said, “It’s all yours.” I said thank you and went to close out the table…they were 10 dollars short. When I rushed back to the table to inform the old bat that she was short, she said she “thought” she gave me two 20′s. I fanned the money out to show her, and she reluctantly gave me the second twenty. I closed out the table, and was glad to receive a $10 tip, since their little monsters destroyed the table. When I turned the corner, however, to go clean that table and tip out to another server, I was face-to-face with grandma.
“How much money did I give you?”
“Fifty-four dollars on a forty-four dollar check.” I fanned out the money once more…
“No let me see…” the woman said as she started to LITERALLY take money out of my hand. “If I take these four singles…how much will your tip be?”
“About six dollars…on a fourty-four dollar ticket…” She fiddled with her four dollars, and was about to give me another two or three dollars, but then said, “If I give you anymore, I won’t have enough for groceries…” Needless to say, I was completely dumbfounded and shocked by the audacity of this woman.
“Sorry…”
Looking blankly into her eyes, I just said, “No, no…it’s fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. It’s fine.” What else was I going to say? I couldn’t tell her, “no crazy lady! That’s my money now!”
“Ok thanks! Have a good day!”
“Uh-huh..”
