Ok Grandma.

doesn't fit with Axel.

Should I have added, "Got it memorized?"

Don't spend it all in one place!

Here a gumball, there a gumball...

If she was the type to chew her out a dollar is too damn generous for the service provided by someone of that caliber.

*he -should really check genders before posting-

Yes, he shouldn't chew her out, because he probably values his job and the minimal money he might make on tips - and his boss would likely fire him for sticking up for himself. However, the customer who did it to him does deserve it because what she did was blatantly disrespectful. Customer service in any sector is a two-way street, although corporate policy likes to forget this sometimes - making the employee bend over backwards, take verbal abuse, or get low-balled on a tip. Chewing someone out is usually different than verbally abusing and shellacking someone for a perceived wrong. It is an (albeit angry) way of telling them that they were rude or inconsiderate. Customers are wrong to think that they are above this type of criticism. Profit frequently overrides human decency when it comes to dealing with clients. The expectation is that employees will put up with endless shit to turn over a better profit. What this does is empower the customer to expect the employee to fold, and it allows the customer to be mean-spirited and rude. /rant

You're right. Tipping isn't required. Let's just let people fall on their face and get screwed by stupidly low minimum wages. Illinois is 8.25 an hour. Just try to support yourself or a family on that. OP doesn't have to be grateful for scraps and pennies rude people throw at him.

47 & 51 - State labor law allows OP to be paid LESS than the minimum wage because it's expected he'll get income from tips (it may be as low under$3). If you don't like tips, stop griping and try to change the law so OP and other servers can be paid a livable wage!

53 - the only ones griping about not making enough are the servers/their supporters not the ones who are saying tips are optional Seems they are the ones that need to lobby

Tips ARE optional, and that's the problem. The FML in question though showcases an outright bitch move on the part of the woman. She gave the OP a 2% tip. Is it her job to support the OP's income? No, not legally, and definitely not if he gave her crappy service (which, in this story, it is undefined). But giving someone a ten dollar bill and revoking it for a one dollar coin is rude, and it outlines what is wrong with this industry. Waiters(tresses) shouldn't have to rely on the charity of others to earn enough money to eat.

The big Catch-22 in a capitalist economy. One could change the laws to require employers to pay reasonable/living wages (no need for tips), but then the employers would either move their businesses or hire fewer people. Same with boycotting the business, etc... It's a race to the bottom, as far as wages are concerned. We're even seeing stuff like this with traditionally higher paying jobs, like nurses...

My dad always tells me that if you can't afford the tip, you shouldn't go out to eat.

59 - Servers do need lobbying. Complaining about tipping when servers' livelihoods depend on tipping (like in OP's state) IS griping. And rather hardhearted. When you choose to eat where servers depend on tips to live, YOU choose to make yourself part of the optional-tip system. If you don't like tipping, don't. But stick to places where servers don't depend on tips.

Good post #67. Capitalism is problematic because it relates directly to technology. If you look at the industrial revolution anywhere, workers experienced de-skilling, de-valuing, and complete reliance on a low wage because the skills they were required to have could be widely taught, allowing companies a turnover rate. In modern day we have the same thing happening - technological innovation, bureaucratization of jobs, and a continuous deskilling. As you say, it happens everywhere - nurses, food service industries, manufacturing, even white-collar jobs. Also, population booms make any job appealing because the more people you have, the more competition you have. Humans are simple economic units that are plugged into a mainframe and they can be taken out and replaced if they "malfunction" or protest the crappy conditions. The problem is lobbying does happen, people do protest, and the employer is always challenged - especially in cases like fast food or multinational corporations like Wal-Mart. I think the real problem now is that these corporations are so damned big that they have more wealth than some countries. How do you fight a menace like that without serious government support?

70 - the same argument could be made that those in the serving industry should stick to different jobs if they plan on it being their only income Comparable: Driving to restaurant: applying at restaurant Entering to eat: accepting the job Leaving a tip: waiting on a customer All of these are life choices....

73 - By changing governments, from local to federal. Americans have been here before -- late 1800s and early 1900s -- and made such changes. The lessons from those successes still apply.

74 - Life choices are that easy, huh? We must be living in very different economies. In mine, it's not as easy to get a better job as it is to choose a different restaurant. For all we know, OP could be working his way through college, or even have a PhD and can't find a better job yet (yes, I've met bartenders, servers, and cabbies like that).

I don't know this tip situation in the US but it could be an honest mistake on her part. Maybe she needed the 9 dollars more than op and could not afford to tip better. If you give extra cash to the cashier would you expect being chewed out at wanting it back?

47,If you don't want to leave a tip take your cunty self to McDonalds

78 - the food industry isn't the only place to turn to for low level jobs in this economy.... Don't blame the consumers (who keep the companies in business) for not giving you your wages, blame the company.

82 - if you want more money take yourself to apply at McDonalds. Same logic, no?

I'm sorry, but chew the lady out for something that could have been an honest mistake? Maybe she couldn't afford the $10. Coming from someone who's family is having a very rough time, on the very very rare occasions you ever have any extra cash, it's nice to eat at a nice restaurant. Sure, I know that being a waiter/waitress is shitty income, around where I live, they legally get paid less than minimum wage, but be grateful for that dollar. It's a dollar more than you had before, afterall. If she was doing it to be a ****, then yes, she deserves a good chewing out. I'll probably get thumbs down but I don't really care. Never judge what's going on unless you know for sure what the situation is.

#96 if you dont have money you dont go out to eat. i used to be a server making 4.25$ an hour. you cant live on that. and that dollar shouldnt be treated as a dollar is better than no dollar. we get shit tips for busting our ass and on top of it we have to tip out bartenders/bussers. luckily i moved on from serving, but everyone should have to serve at least once and i bet everyone would sing a different tune

#96 - I'm fine with a couple of hypotheticals. Whether or not the server gave her bad service, whether she was poor, etc. However these are not the core of the argument. Both parties might have valid claims, but the reality is that some states have ridiculous laws that enable employers to pay their workers less than minimum wage. As I've said before, this is not necessarily the customer's fault - it shouldn't be their responsibility to pick up the slack for a greedy corporation. Whether or not the woman was poor still wouldn't negate the fact that the labour laws in some states are seriously flawed. Since we don't know if crappy service was provided, or if the customer was poor (why would she be eating out if she was?), let's stick to what we do know.

Actually, minimum wage for tipped positions is often less than $3.00/hr, because they assume that people are basically going to give tips, and nobody's bothered to correct them on that matter.

your Dad is a smart (and decent) guy !

#96 I agree, what if she's on really low fixed income? She relies on that money to get her thru the month, and often times, senior citizens make less than a grand for the whole month off of retirement. So that 10 dollars might very well have been needed. As a server OP has a chance to make more money, this older lady, however did not. If a server deserves tips because they rely on the money, to get by, then this older lady deserved her money back, because she might very well have needed that money to survive on. See how that goes both ways?

#47 people like you make servers want to spit in your food. I deliver and if you ever said that to me you'd be lucky to even get your food mildly luke-warm. And I would Damn sure be very insistant that you be treated as such on any visit thereafter.

No shit it sucks.

No Vacuums suck

You kinda sound like you want OP's day to be ruined...

no it was fine. they were still nice people

Sadly, food prices would probably be higher if we had minimum wage. I would rather just have regular paychecks coming in over tips.

Funny how you go to the extreme of saying all Americans are bad at tipping. I tip well because I used to work in the food industry. My family tip well. My friends tip well. **** you. :)

When did I say Americans are bad at tipping? I implied that America and its system involving tips and actually requiring them for the waiters etc. to get by, is a flawed one. But if you want to feel offended by something that wasn't even said, I guess that says more about you than me. Maybe next time take the time to re-read whatever you're trying to feel indignation over.

I tip well every time I go out to eat hoping that my generosity will come back at me. The system is flawed.

The system is very flawed when a tip (a show of gratitude for the service performed) is something that is expected.

I agree, 27. I'll tip well if the service is okay, but I still don't like it. We come in to eat. It's unfortunate that your employer doesn't pay well, but it is not the customers job to pay your wages.

I always tip, but the service determines the amount. The better you are, the more you're going to get. A waiter provided awful service and chewed me out just a couple of days ago for some stupid reason as I sat quietly in the corner. He got a tip, but it wasn't much.

I couldn't agree more. I will tip only when the service is exceptional. Working as a waitress I made minimum wage just like everyone else. Don't like the pay? Get a different job. Tipping should never be expected.

The only reason tipping is expected in most places in America is because waitresses DON'T make minimum wage. Here, in Virginia, minimum wage is $7.25, but for waitresses it is only like $2.50. So yeah, tipping is expected, because they don't make minimum wage must like everyone else. If they could get a different job they would.

Servers make money from tips, and when you go out, run up a $100 tab, and then don't tip? The server LOSES money on you, because they have to tip out 3-10% to food runners, kitchen staff, etc. and they end up in the negative. All of this could be avoided if we raised servers up to minimum wage, but then those of you that don't tip would throw a huge bitchfit because the prices of the food would go up significantly. I'm sure some of you had an arrangement with your parents where you'd get allowance for doing chores. Imagine if you did all your chores without fail, and when it came time for allowance, your parents refused to give you anything because they felt that they shouldn't have to pay you to do chores. You're doing the same thing. You can't expect excellent service, and then refuse to tip. Believe it or not, we remember the people that don't tip, and we tell our coworkers about them, so that if you come in again, chances are you'll get shitty service since we know you don't tip anyway. Personally, I'm not going to waste my time giving you excellent service if I know that I'll get nothing for it. Your refusal to tip comes out of my pocket, because regardless of whether you tip me or not, I still have to tip out based on the size of your tab. I'm not going to wait on a table, have them order $100 of food, get no tip except for a nice note written on a napkin, and then have to tip out $3 when I didn't make any money. Imagine if you did all of your work, and your boss commended you for your performance, and then instead of paying you, just wrote you a thank you letter. I'm sure you'd all tell him exactly where he can shove it. You're all doing the exact same thing to your server.

41, you may have made minimum wage, but nowadays servers generally make $3 an hour or lower. If we made minimum wage, we wouldn't complain about not getting tips. Where I work, servers make $2.77 an hour. Does that amount seem like it's liveable to you?

41, I just realized you live in Canada. The United States has a COMPLETELY different system when it comes to restaurant wages and tipping.

Anybody feel free to correct me, but from what I've heard from waitressing friends, if by the end of the week if your salary(including tips) doesn't equal up to what minimum wage would've been, the company has to make up the difference, is that not true everywhere? I know that's how it is at Texas Roadhouse.

Absolutely not the case at all restaurants 89. There are times my sister (a waitress) gets a paycheck stub for $0.00 because she didn't even make enough to get anything after taxes come out. Of course this is because most of her tips are cash and undeclared, but nonetheless the company does not have to pay her a cent extra just because she didn't make any money directly from the employer/declared tips.

Ironically, despite all this talk of tipping, waitresses often make more than minimum wage. Primarily this is because they make at least minimum wage, even if their boss has to make up for what they don't make, so they're always making at least minimum, and sometimes more. From what I hear they often make a lot more than minimum wage, every waitress I've met says they make between 50-75 a night, then over 100 on good nights, tax free since taxes come from their actual paycheck. Minimum wage in a standard day you'll make around 58 dollars, before taxes, so the average a minimum wage worker gets is substantially less than what the average waiter will. So, honestly, as a minimum wage worker, I can't really take waitresses who complain about their pay seriously.

that's not anyone else's problem though.

Do you like cheaper food or more expensive food?

Wow #48, I can see you really don't like tipping huh? Well if you have money to go out to a restaurant and expect good service and receive good service, then you should always tip. Waiters live from tips and it's just wrong to not tip.

Once again 48, you don't want to tip take your bitch self to McDonald's. I doubt the poor servers want to deal with your shitty attitude

100% agree

@48 100% agree not the customers fault at all. the only country that expects tips is America. no where else.

Yeah, well #94/95, this WAS posted in America where waitresses DO rely on tips as their primary income because they don't make even half of minimum wage.

I'm guessing you haven't had much work experience? It would be very bad for the company had they refused to give the tip back and the OP likely would be fired. It would also reflect badly on their resume should future potential employers have called their previous work places and found out the reasoning for their termination

Maybe she needed the 10 dollars, you don't know her story.

True, but she probably shouldn't have spent so much if she wouldn't be able to give a decent tip.

If she had 2+ kids with her a $45 meal for 3 is actually pretty cheap at a non fast food joint.

It doesn't matter if she only paid for herself or if she had kids with her. I simply meant you don't go to a sit down restaurant when you are trying to save money. That's what a quick trip to the store or fast food is for. If you go to a restaurant you should make sure you have enough to pay the bill and leave a decent tip depending on service. One dollar is a terrible tip for a $45 bill.