"There was a girl came in one morning and I watched her slap herself in the face for a good ten minutes, she was so high. She was like, SMACK! SMACK!...grabbing her face... and feeling her eyes. Her eyes looked like someone had a Playstation controller moving them around...Dance fever! Disco fever!

We were sittin' there tryin' to figure out what kind of drugs she was on."

--Barry, a waiter at an all night restaurant in the East Village

So we're back to more about tipping. I wish I could get my head around it. Why certain people tip well and why others don't. I started talking to cab drivers, in part because I think they deal with many of the same issue as waiters: trying to quickly judge people for economic potential. One cab driver from Senegal told me that he hates picking up single black men because they often ditch and don't pay, and an Israeli told me that the worst tippers are people from "Park Avenue," meaning wealthy customers.

After some thought, I've come to the conclusion that there is a mind meld between waiter and customer. If you the two of you happen to make a connection, then you are more likely to get a good tip. But then there is the issue of the customer base, and the waiter never gets to choose who comes in the restaurant.

So after getting all philosophical about it, let me add that some customers just fucking suck. And if you don't tip the waiter 'cause you're trying to save money on food costs, or because you really couldn't afford the restaurant in the first place but you're taking your date there anyways to try and impress and increase possible panty play...Rot in hell. Get a new business plan. Get some fucking class.

Here's Roger who works downtown of NYU talking about his worst tippers.

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A stereotypical, brutally honest, and it's bad to say, but a really bad customer...is a lot of times, like a lower class, African-American person. It's horrible to say, but it's true. They will run you around the most and tip the least.

Everything will be wrong with their order. The drinks won't taste right. Everything will have to be special-this has to be well done and make sure the fries are crispy, and make sure this is this way, and this is this way. And then it's, "Thanks." And they'll throw down a dollar

That's always a bad customer. And you can always tell. It's not all black people are horrible tippers, but you can spot them. It's the gangster sort of look, sort of lower class, don't go out a lot. It could also be any other sort of race as well, but you can get this feeling.

You get to the table and you're already thinking, "They're gonna' send everything back and they're not going to like anything. They're gonna' sip on expensive Henessey all night and...they're gonna' leave me a dollar."

Old Jewish women are the same kind of way. They're picky and crabby and then it's, "You're kinda' cute. Here's a dollar."

You can just tell that certain people are going to run you around and make you work harder than the tables that will give you a nice tip. Some tables will give me a 25% tip and I know I didn't deserve it. They had to call me over three times 'cause I was watching TV, I forgot to refill something, messed up one of their orders. And they will leave me a nice tip.

But some people you'll work really, really hard for and you find fifty cents or nothing.

12:34:13 AM     comment []