Are you a BIG tipper?

[j]

just another thought about good/bad service. If I've had exceptionally bad service I will go to the restaurants Website and file a complaint. This is appreciated by restaurants and helps them to focus on where a particular problem may exist.

Also..they usually will throw in a coupon for a free dinner or somehting.

[weatherlover427]

Me, I tip $1 if it's $10 or less; then from there I tip around 15% or so.

[Miss Mary]

Filing complaints is a very good idea. This reminds of an ill fated outing when both my girls were off school. Their district had a teacher in service day. We were going shopping, in a suburb across town. We drove past a quaint restaurant housed in a former train station. When we first entered we weren't sure if we seated ourselves or not. Another customer paying her bill said to seat ourselves. It was a little confusing. So we took a table. The waitress was chatting with a regular reading the paper, long after having his lunch. Drinking coffee, you get the idea. We were given menu's and the waitress was hurriedly washing several tables, talking to us over her shoulder. Not giving us eye contact. She asked what we wanted to drink, I asked for tea, Nina water (she's our health conscious daughter!) and then Laure merely asked - what do you have (she always wants root beer). This waitress said - oh honey, I don't have time for this! Well, Laura is my ADD child and tends to be younger socially than she should be, she burst into tears. And got up and walked to the car. What a situation I had on my hands. We all ended up leaving. I wanted to give that waitress (older lady who probably thought my kids were skipping school) a piece of my mind! But we ate somewhere else, our fun day out tarnished by her nasty attitude.

Thanks J for that reminder - I need to call the manager there and file a complaint! I don't usually complain and try my best to order promptly and courtesly but this waitress' work ethics left a lot to be desired. She complained to the regular customer as we were walking out. Guess b/c we weren't regulars we didn't deserve nice service.

Mary

[j]

OH.....and while on the subject of complaing...Me and the wife spent a night at a Holiday Inn in Nashville, once. It was actually supposed to be 3 nights but after the first night I told them there was no way in hell I would stay there another night. We were supposed to have a non-smoking room and it reeked of cigarette smoke. There was construction going on and half the hotel was blocked off with construction workers being routed through the same elevators the guests were using. Hallways were dirty and in general I thought they should have paid me to stay there. The manager of the hotel was a jerk and said that there was notifcation on the website that the hotel was under repairs. I informed him that he was wrong, and I had proof since I had printed out the pages from the website when making my reservations.

Anyway...to make a lobng story short...I did my usual contacting via the Corporate Website to file a complaint, and was rewarded with a personal letter of apology and an acknowledgement that in the future they would go as far as to contact customers who had made reservations at a particular Hotel that was under renovation even if those renovations started after reservations had been made to alllow customers to opt out if they so desired.

They also included $50 worth of coupons to be used at their Hotel Restaurants.

It pays to complain!

[george_r_1961]

I am a delivery driver for a pizza shop here, and consistently make more in tips than my fellow drivers. Why? Because I am friendly and pay particular attention to my personal appearance. As a "waiter on wheels" I strive to provide the best, fastest service possible, much like traditional waiters/waitresses. So when I go out to eat, which is frequently, the tip my server recieves is dependent on the quality of service provided.As it should be.

[Pburgh]

When my daughters were teens we ate out quite a bit. I've always been a good tipper and my youngest used to say that I tipped wayyyyy too much. When she was in college, she worked as a waitress. She had a quick change of heart. The work is hard, the salary sucks and your only source of income in the tip ----- I tip 20% or more depending on the service.

Plus, It's so easy to figure the tip, if it's 20%!!!!!!lol

Math is not my forte!!!!!

[Stephanie]

I generally tip 20%. I've also been known to walk out on occassions if we've waited for our meal for way longer than we should have. I know that many times it isn't the waiter or waitresses fault, but they also have to make sure that their orders are being attended to and if there is a problem, they need to be straight with the customer.

[DaylilyDawn]

When my hubby and I go out to eat, we usually leave a 15% tip for the waitress , 20 % if the service was excellent. At our local Outback, we have a favorite waiter who we always tip 20 % because he is an excellent waiter, never lets our glasses get empty before he has a refill ready, plates are remvoed as they are finished and he always asks about family members not with us. If the service at other places is not up to this standard, we usually tip 15% or less depending on the service.

[ColdFront77]

My parents and I usually tip between 15% and 20%, although my father doesn't think we should go that high.

In Massachusetts, the servers [waitresses and waiters] make $2.63) per hour.

On busy nights some servers can get up to has much as $25.00 in one hour; that is much better than $6.50 to $10.00 per hour for a lot of other jobs.

If they are good at their job they can make really good money. If they are no good, they shouldn't. Granted, they deserve the money they earn because it is not a pleasant job at all. Dealing with crabby old farts....

Exactly, Blizzard.