AN OPEN LETTER TO PEOPLE WHO “DON’T TIP”
Well, if it isn’t the little asshole who could. I’m so excited to hear you explain how your callous, cheap, disrespectful behavior is actually part of a righteous attack on The Man for not paying everyone higher wages. It’s going to be such a thrill for you to explain to me how I need to be compensated; certainly that’s your business and I love when strangers try to teach my boss a lesson via my wallet.
Have I laid the sarcasm on thick enough? I want to make sure it’s as thick and zesty as the extra ranch you need for any foodstuff unlucky enough to be in your presence. Only with the amuse bouche of my sarcasm will your palate be truly ready for the curb stomping I’m about to give you, you stupid, selfish cheapskate.
I don’t know why you think sitting at a table in a restaurant for ninety minutes makes you an expert on the financial comings and goings of the entire business, but somehow that seems to be the way you operate. I hear people doing it all the time, espousing the economics of their penny pinching like there’s a fucking Microeconomics class at table 67:
“Well, look, I tipped $10. He’s got five other tables, and he’ll turn them four times tonight. That’s $200 a night, if not more! Servers make so much money, $10 is more than enough for our $90 dinner!”
You sound like a second grader trying to explain how we launch things into orbit. “Fire comes out and scares the satellite into space!!!” No, dumbass, those are just the things you’re seeing. Other things exist. Unless you’re the general manager of the goddamned restaurant, or have some kind of daredevil-esque superpower where you can hear the financial breakdown of the restaurant in the way the dishwasher rubs the plates or some horseshit, you don’t have a fucking clue where that money is going.
Look around yourself for a second, only this time, don’t look through all the staff in the room. Notice them. See the bussers, food runners, hosts, servers, bartenders, and the barback? THEY ALL GET PAID OUT OF YOUR SHITTY $10. In fact, in some restaurants, the server tips all those other employees based on how much food he SOLD that night, whether you tipped them or not. So, if the hypothetical cockshaft from before tips $10 on $90, and the server tips the rest of the staff 10% of his sales ($9), then the server will keep A FUCKING DOLLAR. So when you do your stupid math out again, if everyone tipped like you (that is, a complete shithead,) then they made $20 in a night! LOL SERVERS MAKE SO MUCH MONEY!!1
Did you think the server just takes all the money that everyone gives them and then crams it in their wallets? That’s like thinking that the store clerk at CVS takes home the money you give her for cigarettes and lip balm. Speaking of minimum wage jobs, here’s another thing nobody should ever say for any reason but do all the time:
“Waiters always complain that they make less than minimum wage, like we HAVE to tip them, but their boss has to make up the difference if they don’t make minimum wage.”
Okay, first of all, anybody who’s ever said this has obviously never made minimum wage. Minimum wage is like, very bad, as an amount of money to make. It’s literally the worst amount of money you can make. That isn’t a good baseline to hit, bro. Unless you’re at a fast food restaurant, the employees didn’t take that job to make minimum wage! Do you see how much shit your server knows? Like how they stopped you from ordering that dish that has gluten kind of hidden in the recipe, because you said you were allergic to gluten? That’s because their job takes effort and skill and intelligence— you know, the skills that PROFESSIONALS ARE PAID FOR. And guess who fucking pays for that? The goddamned customer! YOU, motherfucker who drank seven diet cokes, have to pay for that.
And on top of that, the employer only has to make up the difference if you fail to AVERAGE minimum wage in a WEEK, not that day. Guess they left that out of whatever hateful infographic you’ve been cross posting in “proud gun owners that are also walmart patrons and love mayonnaise” Facebook groups. So that shit never gets paid out, because, thank sweet merciful whoever-the-fuck, most people aren’t as rude, cheap, and stupid as you. And, for the record, I know for a fact that you’re stupid, because you say stupid shit like:
“It shouldn’t be my responsibility to pay their employees. Let the management pay them! That’s just the owners being cheap.”
Have you ever done a math problem in your entire worthless life? Did you just spend math class chewing on your own arm like it was going to turn into a bloomin onion? Because what the fuck do you think is going to happen if the restaurant pays everyone $20 an hour. That’s thousands of dollars a night. How does a business compensate for higher expenses? BY RAISING THE PRICES, IDIOT. You’re still going to be paying my salary by eating here. You can’t get out of that, no matter what the situation. If you think about it, restaurants do you a fucking favor by not doing it that way; would you rather pay $50 for a steak and the service, or $40 for a steak, and then tip based on how good the service is? Even people who aren’t cheaper than ikea furniture would still save money by tipping.
So pull the fucking boulder out of your ass. Part of eating in restaurants is tipping. So either do it, or stop going to restaurants. I’d prefer the latter, because I’m sick of walking you through every item on the menu only for you to order the filet mignon well done because fuck everything.
