Tips are not a regular occurrence at my workplace. This is probably because we are more fast food than fine dinning and also because I reside in a land where the 10% tip gets ignored constantly. I don't hope for tips, they are just nice to receive and makes you feel appreciated for the job that you did. However, my policy is that as long as the customer is nice, courteous and not an outright meany, I'm quite happy for that to be my tip of table. Though, cash, undeniably, is always a good.
So here is the setting of one not so ordinary Saturday night.
- Fifty person reservation. (Our tiny restaurant only holds a total of fifty-five, uncomfortably).
- A grand numbered birthday party.
- Lots of kids of walking/toddling age. (Can already see the dilemmas there).
- Some pre-ordered set menu meals, approximately five separate meals.
- Each person paid for drinks as they went, separately.
- Each person had to pay their own amount via the hostess.
- Guests would not sit down so therefore giving out meals was difficult.
- Maneuvering around guests to get to tables was pretty much impossible.
- A lot of 'excuse me' and 'please' from the waitressing staff.
- Only appreciation was from the two hostess, every other guest just thought that we were in the way.
Everything had run pretty smooth, in spite of the chaos, until we got to the end of the night where payment was due. While I have the utmost respect for the Hostess; she did a brilliant job in organising people and payment at the end of the night, it was the other guests that I felt were rude and selfish.
There were a lot of guests drinking alcohol that they had brought in themselves. This was fine, and a very cheap corkage fee was charged per person who consumed the alcohol. I let the Hostess deal with this after explaining it to her and she seemed to understand the situation.
When she had come to pay she had forgotten, not deliberately, about the corkage issue. I told her the waitress had counted about fifteen individuals consuming alcohol. Before she even got a chance to answer her husband, who was one of those consuming the alcohol spoke quite forcefully.
Hostess'-Rude-Husband: I don't think there was that many people.
Me: Well, sir, the waitress had kept an eye out and there was that many counted between them.
Hostess'-Rude-Husband [in an agressive manner]: I don't think so. There is no way there was that many people drinking.
While we may have been slightly off in numbers due to people moving about there was a least ten or more people drinking. Then all of a sudden everyone was interested in money. Everyone had something to say, over the top of the hostess. She tried quietly at one point to tell me gently that we should count the numbers. Then all of a sudden one of the ladies decided to speak loudly to me.
Ungrateful-Lady: We left them a big tip. If they want to count that many people then they can take it out of their tips.
Are you kidding me?
This made me angry and dumbfounded. Yes, tips are usually founded on what is leftover from the whole number. However, after working a whole night, dodging and running around fifty people. It would have been thoughtful that a deliberate and nice tip was left. Not some snotty leftovers. It felt like despite the hard work and effort to ensure everyone had a good time, it was only worth the change.
Corkage is cheap, in fact its so cheap that any pocket change could pay for it. It is not about how much tip is 'left over' to us in the end because it doesn't really matter to the whole total, its the procedure. I have to write down how much corkage there is and charge accordingly so that my boss knows what was going on. Putting a few less corkage does not really change my tip situation at all, it is no advantage to anyone.
Finally the amount of corkage charged was settled. The hostess had a list of people and we went through it quickly checking them. Whilst it did not really settle my mind, it was better than nothing, and the hostess had not been aggressive nor uncooperative.
In fact, the guests had somehow manage to sneak in bottles of soft drink into the restaurant whilst we had a large range in our fridge. Due to the chaos, we didn't know until later when we were cleaning up. Otherwise I would have charged them our price of soft drink and fight that down tooth and nail with Hostess'-Rude-Husband and Ungrateful-Lady.
Lesson from the night? Big party functions are messy. There is no way to have one that is straight forward and follow the rules. So next time there is corkage involved, there will definitely be a better system in place.
They left an approximate tip of $10 for fifty people with a bill total of approximately $500.
The next night I got a $20 tip from a group of twelve people of a bill less than $200. (With very little hassle and very little 'extra attention' given).
1 comment:
Excellent point--it always amuses me when I get those kind of tips back-to-back. Just last night I got $10 on a $100 check from people who sat forever and got great service, and $12 on $60 from a family there less than half an hour. Nuts!
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