Tripping, Tipping on Tips...

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...Too many places online tell you that no matter how shitty the service is that you MUST tip! I don't agree!

If a waiter or waitress wants to keep their customers, keep their job and keep their employer in business they need to do their damn job!

I've gotten really tired of the, "but I'm OWED a Jooooob!" whine by whoever is making the current whine. I've served at counters. I've done my time at fast food. And garnered tips! which is harder than hell! I've served bar at pizza places! I've sold jewelry on commission. I've had some pretty crummy jobs to make ends meet and to help pay my way through college and I get that waiters and waitresses don't get minimum wage. Thus it behooves them to serve their customers.

Because you want to know a secret? Lean closer....MOST CUSTOMERS FEEL DAMN GUILTY IF THEY DON'T TIP! So if we aren't tipping, there is a good reason! And it's not that our panties are in a twist, or that we're in a bad mood! Normally it's that we've gotten such crappy service that we just can't justify laying down any more money we really can't afford to reward such crappy behavior. I don't reward toddlers' crappy behavior; why would I do it with adults? They don't learn from it either.

So here are the rules I learned from my Dad about tipping (this was a while ago, but my income hasn't gone up since 1996, so my tips probably won't either. Your income probably does, so you can adjust for income!)

Excellent service:
20%+
Fair service
10%-15%
Borderline
5%
Maitre de: (bribe for seating)$50+ depending on snoot factor of place and maitre de
Note: doesn't normally work for females, females either have to dress the part, or end up by the kitchen door, or equivalent. just sayin'
Chefs or Bus boys 5%
Bellhops $1-$10
Maids $5-$20 depending on length of stay
Bar waitresses the change from next closest denomination or 10-20% of round
Hairdressers, box people, door men, valets $1-$10 depending on location

VERY BAD SERVICE, so bad you want to tell them you would have tipped, but their service sucked!!  $0.01

But nowadays I always feel like everyone has their hand out for a handout. I'm on a fixed income and I compute a tip into the cost of my meal when I go out. But it also means I go out much less frequently. Those dollars are hard to come by in my life.

So when that time is ruined by shitty service. I don't take it quietly, or lying down. I only have about 4 or 5 restaurants I can even still eat at with my medical conditions anymore since most of them use food with additives or preservatives I can't physically eat. So the few I CAN eat at, I work into my schedule selectively.

I know I'm probably a dinosaur. But this dinosaur has a very limited food supply and a limited budget like the rest of the world is coming to, and gee, maybe if more people valued their pennies and realised that the single penny they saw on the table was actually the message of one MIGHTILY PISSED OFF customer, they might mend their service and keep their restaurant, their job, and the economy going.

I've been told by friends of mine that women are the WORST tippers so they get the worst service. Especially women in SUITS. It always makes me giggle. Because I would probably be one of the better tippers, if I'm treated decently. But when I'm ignored or treated rudely, watch the f* out! I will be in your face. I will take my cane and my drink up to the drink station and fill it. I will tell your manager I had a crappy meal AND I will report it on the website. Because I am just THAT fed UP with SHITTY service. So the next time you think you have this little old lady with the cane in the corner with her book pegged. Think twice! of course, they might be spitting in my food? who knows?

just my 1 or 2 cents of a tip...ped off goddess....

Things my Father taught me...

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...going introspective as I and my daughter visited my parents' graves last month. I try to make it a habit to visit their graves at Willamete National Cemetery on my Dad's birthday so it's a happy memory, not a sad anniversary, like a death anniversary. I want to think of them as they were while alive.

I got thinking about the eulogy I gave for my dad at his funeral. Up until the last minute I wasn't sure I was going to but it just felt right. Dad's world had narrowed so much in his last years as his health failed and he wasn't working. He seemed to retreat more toward the past and family became ever more important to him, and I've come to understand that. The family I love and the things I had left undone for them became much more important to me after I had a heart attack scare a few years ago. I now know that my dad was told that he had a limited time to live because he had congestive heart failure and was trying to set things up so that my mom would be in good shape to be covered and okay. He always cared for her in his quiet way.

But back to the eulogy...the one huge lesson I remember from my dad is that you can learn just about anything you want to do from a book. And he put that into practice most of his life. He never let the fact that he didn't know something stop him from trying to do it. It was just one more challenge he hadn't learned about. I think some of that attitude came from his life's career (and one of mine) which was as a computer systems analyst. Which, if you are a good one, means that you intimately understand all the processes around the computerized systems you are bringing into being so that you can streamline them, design the correct supporting data structures and implement the training necessary for all people who are impacted by the system. To do this you have to have a deep understanding of the business process you are automating. Books can definitely come into play in this process. My father in fact possessed a business degree, as do I. His was in Management I believe, and he had certificates as a Data Wiring Operator (early computer programmer), and Systems Analyst well before colleges or universities offered the degrees as well as classes in COBOL, FORTRAN and a few other languages like me. My degree is in Project Management (probably following in Dad's footsteps...we were both Aries! And I wrote code in even more computer languages than he did. LOL and ended up a Systems Analyst and Computer Network Project Manager.) My Dad had also worked as a Draftsman and worked on a graduate degree in Engineering which he had never had the time to finish with his growing family.

But my Dad also was in the Air Force during the Korean War as part of the DEW line as a control tower officer and pilot. And when he got out he built a mobile home for he and my mother, and my older brother and sister, from scratch. Then a site built home...by reading about the codes and looking at blueprints and doing the wiring and the plumbing and the metal work and the rest of it pretty much by himself, or with his wife and kids help. As one of his kids I can attest to it. He had an almost endless belief in his power to learn anything, and he could. He passed that on. Before I entered high school I sweated pipes and soldered them and wired the electrical in our house and helped put up the sheetrock and do the taping, did the rebar and helped pour the cement, placed pier blocks and did rough and finish framing. The only thing I never did was lay carpet. (Thank you, God!)

 I really hope I've passed on this same type of belief to my children. I think I have. Because when something new comes up as a question that needs to be solved or done they don't necessarily turn to a book, or Mom or Dad, but the computer comes out, the internet is fired up...google is queried and youtube's brain is sucked dry. And low and behold the answer is found and the project is accomplished! So Thank You Daddy, we love you still and we appreciate your legacy!

from the puzzled  goddess of knowledge....