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I've worked in greasy spoons where hot dogs sold for 85 cents and coin transactions were the norm; I hardly expect a customer to charge a quarter cup of coffee. But in nicer restaurants, where servers don't bark orders across the room and salads don't arrive to the table encased in plastic wrap, coins are nothing but trouble -- any server who's picked up a check presenter and immediately showered their feet with the coins tucked inside it knows exactly what I mean.
Some of the blame clearly lies with the coin-fearing credit-card companies that issue said presenters, designed to accommodate only plastic. But there's really no reason for most restaurant customers to use change in the first place. What's the harm in leaving $72 when the bill's $71.88? Can a server not be trusted for a moment with an extra 12 cents?
I find coins so messy that I typically ignore them, even if it means I end up shouldering a portion of a table's bill. If a guest gives me three twenties to cover a $58.43 bill, I'll return $2 – knowing most guests will leave me both singles. While some of my fellow servers are far more punctilious, I still haven't figured out a good way to sort coins in my apron or rationalize the dead weight of a few rolls of dimes.
The worst offenders on the coinage front aren't the exact-change givers, who I'll assume are trying to be helpful. It's the folks who treat the check presenter like a collection plate, emptying their pockets instead of working out a proper tip. "Oh, I'm sure she'll want this," guests say as they drop dozens of grubby nickels on the table.
While few servers are so wealthy they can afford to refuse tips, a general guideline is: If you don't want your handful of spare change, your server probably doesn't want it either. There's something very Scrooge-y about showing one's gratitude in pennies, no matter how many.
Do you think there's anything inherently wrong with paying in coins?
| Sure, why not? | |
|---|---|
| No way. |
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10-14-2009 @12:52PM jill said... I am sick to death of reading posts which state, "If you can't afford to tip, stay home!" What a ridiculous statement! How about this, "If you can't afford to live on what a server makes, find a new job!" or " If you can't afford to pay your employees a proper wage, don't own a restaurant!"
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10-14-2009 @12:54PM Jason said... "These comments are so frustrating. Everyone always says the same thing "this author must hate her job" or "this writer is such a whiner" I don't understand why you are all so mad at the author. You don't HAVE to read the post."
Amanda, just like the grumpy commenters don't have to read the post, you don't have to read the comments...
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10-14-2009 @1:34PM Megan said... "Although, judging by some of the comments here, I'm not sure many of you will like him.Probably cause you (like me) never waited tables."
Not jumping on you when I say this, Jon, but most of us here have been servers (Which is why Hanna's omments are not well received)
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10-14-2009 @10:50PM Sarah said... Coins are legal tender. That means even if the company or server doesn't like them a big fat tough luck. Coins do add up quite nicely if one works for tips in a coffee shop - that large cappuccino cup could hold $40 or more in a 6 hour shift....
I can still remember when the Sacajawea dollar coins came out and a lady in our town refused them as she decided they were not "real money". She ended being ridiculed in the local paper as the town idiot. Apparently she didn't keep on common news. And as well, people who refuse paper bills every time a new version comes out - becuase they are to lazy to read the news!
My point is, if I want to pay with a reasonable amount of coinage, you have no grounds to say no. Unless your store decides only accept cards!
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10-15-2009 @1:24PM Lauren said... To Jill - In many states servers are paid far below minimum wage. I believe that it is still $2.13/hr in Virginia. As you can imagine, this wage may not even cover the taxes that must be subtracted from their "paycheck". It is expected, by the state, that this meager wage is supplemented by tips. Therefore, it is you, the customer that is paying their salary, not the restaurant owner. Additionally, you are often tipping the bartender, back wait and dishwasher, etc with that tip, as well. Please consider all of this before deciding not to tip. And yes, at least in Virginia, if you can not afford to tip, please find another option.
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10-15-2009 @5:53PM jill said... Lauren, I always tip close to 20%. Even so, I don't agree that someone who can't afford to leave a tip shouldn't dine out. A tip (perhaps we should go back to calling it a gratuity) is something given voluntarily in gratitude for good service. It is not an obligation. What we actually need is a law that requires restaurant owners to pay their employees Min. wage at the very least.
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10-16-2009 @11:22AM amanda said... @Jill,
A gratuity is indeed given voluntarily, but what if the service is excellent -- simply superb -- and you have no money for a gratuity? Adding a gratuity at a restaurant is our cultural norm. If a person doesn't like the institution of tipping or cannot afford to add 15% to 20% on to their meal, I think it's clear that that person either needs an attitude adjustment or needs to pass on dining out.
I think we're living in an increasingly discourteous society. Feeling entitled to pass on a tip when the service was not lacking is very telling of a person's pettiness.
That said, I also find the tone of Raskin's writing rather petty and accusatory. If I leave coins, it's because I received them in change and probably didn't even count them in figuring out my tip.
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10-16-2009 @2:40PM Megan said... I rarely eat out, and when I do its the local Chinese food place. I always leave them a tip, and its almost never change. I know they are super busy and I don't want the poor waitresses to have to deal with counting it and trying to hurry up and make room for more customers. The only time I've left change is one time we left our favorite waitress a pyramid of quarters. It was later at night and not so busy and when she counted it, it was well worth it to her.
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10-17-2009 @10:41AM Megan said... Amanda, I think the fact that those of us who actually have been servers disagree with Hanna should speak volumes. I'm not sure why you think that = "treated like lesser people."
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10-20-2009 @5:30PM Rachel said... To Spring1, you are a hypocrit! You yourself are so concerned about that blasted 31 cents from several years ago, and yet you think nothing of wanting someone else to give you extra change, even up to a dollars worth of it? You are pathetic, cheap, and completely into yourself and your own money far more than any consideration for another person or server. The server brought back your change, thanked you, and apologized...but not quickly, well enough, or thoroughly enough for your happiness. I have never worked as a server, but I can still remember being taught when I was very young that you treat *everyone* with respect, especially people who are in a difficult and low-paid position of serving or other "help" industries. You have reached a new low in comments I have seen on AOL for being kind to your fellow human being.
You need to hear this well: Get Over Yourself!
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10-20-2009 @11:14PM Spring1 said... Rachel
"To Spring1, you are a hypocrit! You yourself are so concerned about that blasted 31 cents from several years ago, and yet you think nothing of wanting someone else to give you extra change, even up to a dollars worth of it?"
I am NOT STEALING it as THEY DO THOUGH, that is the HUGE, HUGE DIFFERENCE HERE!! That waiter STOLE our money WITHOUT our PERMISSION to keep ANY PART OF IT!! Don't you get that we didn't want the 31 cents, it's the fact that he STOLE it(took it without even asking us if it was OK WITH *US* since it was **OUR** CHANGE, NOT HIS TIP YET)!!
As far as "WANTING" someone else to give me extra money, that is for the STEALING that he did. As far as someone giving me let's say 35 cents instead of 31 cents is ****THEIR***** CHOICE to make if the server wants to give more of **THEIR OWN MONEY**!! They should give me back exact to the penny change as far as I am concerned.
Wanting more from the waiter that stole was because he stole it. When you steal, you need to MAKE-UP for you doing something MORALLY WRONG like that and DELAYING PEOPLE FROM LEAVING AS HE DID TO US!! I feel you want your customer's money, then CARE about your customer's money. What goes around, comes around. He stole, we stole his tip, plain and simple!! We showed him he can't be that LAZY as to not get someone coin change since it was HIS JOB to do so. We showed him it's NO OK to decide for the customer WHAT AMOUNT THE CUSTOMER WILL BE TIPPING OR IF THEY WILL BE TIPPING!! The CUSTOMER ONLY GETS TO DECIDE THE TIP!!
HOW am I being a hypocrite when the WAITER STOLE FROM US by doing something MORALLY WRONG FIRST, huh? Two wrongs DO make a right!! It's called KARMA!! You do wrong to us, we do wrong to you!! We won't let anyone walk all over us. Our waiter's money was important to him, so WHY CUSTOMER'S MONEY isn't treating with JUST AS MUCH IMPORTANCE as HIS MONEY, HUH?
"You are pathetic, cheap, and completely into yourself and your own money far more than any consideration for another person or server."
You are WAYYY THE HECK OFF BASE!! We have tipped MANY of times over the years 25-26% LOTS of times and even tipped 30% 4 times. We still tip 20%-22% for GOOD service due to that my husband has a huge say so about that he feels it's too much to tip 25% unless we are at a fine dining restaurant. I feel personally the ones that do work hard and give us good service, should receive 25% at least. At least he is ok with 22%. We just recently tipped that. We also sometimes have had servers not ring up soft drinks on purpose, so we tip based on the original amount BEFORE the discount and by them giving us something for free, we tip bigger even more so that we appreciate them giving us something for free. Trust me, most of the time, it's done on purpose, because we have been going out to eat almost every weekend 2-3 times a weekend sometimes, which lots of restaurants have servers that will purposely not charge you for soft drinks to increase their tip. I have even read online that a waiter said he got permission from his manager to do this for some of his regulars he liked.
I don't get WHY do you think that someone that just wants things the way they are supposed to go(getting your change back EVERYWHERE ELSE ISN'T A PROBLEM such as McDonald's or Wal-Mart) is CHEAP? We aren't cheap. We go by the SERVICE. We don't pay with cash ever. That time we paid with gift certificates due to that my husband bought some for gifts and we had a couple left over due to we used deals such as buy $100 worth of gift certificates get $20 free or something like that. If we ever would pay with cash again and the person didn't return even one cent, there goes their tip. It has NOTHING to do with being cheap. It has to do with the PRINCIPLE of it. You get your change everywhere else back, WHY because someone makes tips, they think they can take it ahead of time by deciding for the customer WHAT AND HOW MUCH TO GIVE, huh? That's worse than asking if you want change, because you are already keeping part of the change without the customer's permission to do so. There shouldn't be any servers keeping parts of customer's change at all, EVER!! THAT IS STEALING!! You cannot LEGALLY DO THAT!!
As far as the servers that didn't ring up the soft drinks, guess what? That's the server's underringing, therefore, if they are not ringing something up, that is between the manager and the server for stealing, NOT the customer. If we told the server and they made us wait for them to fix the check, they'd get stiffed unless they gave us something to make-up for our inconvenience, because if you are going to punish the customer holding them hostage by preventing them to leave, you deserve no tip over something that is in the customer's favor. We have gone through MANY, MANY overcharges over the years preventing us from leaving, so no one would blame us for not wanting that crap over something that's in our favor. Once, tipped 36% of the discounted amount due to the entrée that was around $8-$9 and the 2 soft drinks weren't on the bill. If we would have told her and she would have fixed it without any comp at all, stiff she would have gotten. WHY? You don't punish the customer like that with their time if you mess up in the customer's favor if you want their money. It's enough we have had so many overcharges that we had to wait to get the check fixed, even one time had to wait 10 minutes to leave for freakin 30 cents all because the waitress didn't compare the menu to the check to get it fixed from her manager ***WAYYY BEFORE*** BRINGING us our check since it was an entrée, she could have checked the price BEFORE we even got our food. She didn't apologize either. She got stiffed. The MANAGER gave us half off the sandwich($3.50). The price on the menu was $6.99, but was charged $7.29. My husband ordered it "AS IS", so no extra charges were included. The WAITRESS should have made sure the prices were correct before giving us our check since she is GETTING PAID to hand things to the customer's correctly as far as what is in her control, which this was 100% in her control to have caught since the customer can catch such an error of all people, so could have she. I am TIRED of the people that don't care about YOUR MONEY, but then when it comes TIP TIME, WE ARE SUPPOSED TO ONLY CARE ABOUT THE SERVER'S MONEY according to a lot of server's attitudes out there. The world doesn't revolve around the server's money. OUR MONEY IS JUST AS IMPORTANT AS THE SERVER'S MONEY!! WHY can't servers treat it as such, huh? I know why, because some are selfish and too lazy out there to care about what they hand their customers if it's right or wrong.
"I have never worked as a server, but I can still remember being taught when I was very young that you treat *everyone* with respect, especially people who are in a difficult and low-paid position of serving or other "help" industries."
See that is what I mean by that you think that the server's money is somehow MORE IMPORTANT than the customer's money. The waiter didn't treat us with respect to take OUR, I repeat, OUR COIN CHANGE!! I don't see the McDonald's cashier keeping my change. I don't see the Wal-Mart cashier keeping my change. WHY EVERYWHERE ELSE they give you your change back with no hassles, but OHH if someone makes tips, that means they have rights to STEAL all of a sudden? I don't know what planet are you from, but taking someone's money without their permission is STEALING, PERIOD!! If you make tips or not, that is MEANLINGLESS to returning someone's change and letting THEM, I repeat, THEM decide if or how much tip they want to leave.
"The server brought back your change, thanked you, and apologized...but not quickly, well enough, or thoroughly enough for your happiness."
No, the server didn't THANK me. The server did apologize, but when I told him about it, instead of stopping IMMEDIATELY as I WOULD HAVE, NO he went bring side salads to another table. What an A-HOLE!! I couldn't fathom not stopping IMMEDIATELY for knowing that I just stole someone's money to go get it. I went to find him by the kitchen, which he should have put the salads DOWN and gotten our change, but NO he delayed OUR TIME for his tip for the other customer's(VERY SELFISH)!! He deserved a stiff.
"Get Over Yourself!"
You need to get over yourself about that the customer's money is JUST AS IMPORTANT as the server's money!! You think these people are the only people that have low paying jobs. Some servers end up being customers as well. That doesn't mean they want their server to STEAL the tip BEFOREHAND!! You know that is MORALLY WRONG TO DO THAT SORT OF THING!! It's also ILLEGAL to take someone's change without asking their permission to do so.
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10-21-2009 @11:48AM waitress from HELL said... obviously you have never worked in a restaurant. Our state taxes 8% of our sales, so when some change flopping fool throws down a whopping 50 cents for a $12 ticket, well you can see I'm paying taxes on money I did'nt make. Example:
you make twenty $$ an hour, your boss thinks you slacked alittle on Thursday he decides you were only worth $15 an hour that day. But, you still have the same bills to pay at home. Get it. Thank God for over tippers......If you cant afford to tip go to Taco Bell don't dine out.
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