In a world where there are still millions of people around the world without secure access to food, I think it's really easy to take the idea of a restaurant for granted.
Once in a while (or whenever you can afford it and you're too lazy to cook), you can head out to many an establishment and have somebody cook for you. Whether you're craving some seafood or hungry for a burger, your food whims can be satisfied in an instant; your only job is to ensure that you pay the adequate cash to those doing the work for your hunger. Simple, really.
It's kind of sad, then, that some people fail to see the need to do that last bit properly; viewing restaurant workers working for (sometimes less than) minimum wage as being somehow unworthy of tips, stiffing them in all sorts of unsavoury ways. One such couple - who probably thought they were being super clever by doing this - have caught significant heat online for their pretty awful tipping method.
One thing you should attempt to remember about your restaurant server - that this couple clearly forgot - is that they're human. They're working long and stressful hours for little pay, and as such, they're probably prone to occasionally making a mistake. One thing you should definitely not do is attempt to leverage good service by threatening to remove their tip. That would be bad.
But it's exactly what one Facebook user did, boasting on social media that this trick employed by himself and his wife is imperative to getting "the best service of your life". Though the post has since been deleted, we've got a pretty good idea of how he tormented one poor waitress for her tip (which she needs to, you know, survive).
So, as this restaurant patron describes it, you start with five one-dollar bills (let's not get too crazy here) on the table, in clear view of the person serving you. “Don’t say anything to them,” he writes, before going on to explain how this all works. "If they mess up, you take a dollar away and so on. At the end of the dinner, however much is left, is their tip."
According to the Facebook user, the waitress did forget to bring the table bread (which did cost her a dollar), but made up for it by bringing along extra bread later, scoring herself the full tip! Okay, let's be honest; this is awful, and Atlanta-based news, weather, and traffic host (not to mention former restaurant waiter) Mark Arum summed up the mood in a single tweet.
Unsurprisingly, the rest of Twitter wasn't far behind, with some disparaging remarks. "I served for years putting myself through college," tweeted one user by the name of Randall W. Bond. "I would have ignored you most of the night for the satisfaction of letting you know your condescending $5 means absolutely nothing to me while i racked up $10-$20 tips from people that can actually afford to go out to eat."
Randall's wasn't the only angry response. Not by a long shot. "What a weird new way to be cheap and rude simultaneously," quipped one, while another added: "I agree. Why do some people treat servers like they are training an animal? If they do good then you give them a treat, if they mess up you rub their nose in it. Smh."
"Millenials [sic] are so disrespectful! Anyway, honey, let's make our less-than-minimum-wage server dance on eggshells for a $5 tip on our $80 dinner," joked a third, pretty much hitting the nail on the head here. If you can tell a lot about a person by how they treat waiters, then maybe this Facebook user and his wife should be given a very wide berth.
