I used to be a teacher. I have gone out to eat with other teachers and can officially say “most teachers are horrible tippers.” Unless they’ve worked in the restaurant industry, they are the absolute worst. They treat you like a student and have you fetch five hundred things and when they get excellent service, they leave a shoddy tip. I’ve gotten the impression from the majority of them that I’ve waited on that they look down upon me and think I’m a high school dropout with no career goals. Their way of “kicking me in the ass” to get career oriented is to leave a shoddy tip, to prove that the restaurant industry is not profitable.
I respect the teaching profession. It’s one of the hardest jobs out there. But just because you get a discount at Barnes and Nobles, Staples and on your car insurance because you’re a teacher doesn’t mean you get a discount at a restaurant. And chances are, looking at my academic track record and looking at yours, I probably outclass you in that department as well. I went to an Ivy League Prep school in NY (that was harder than my college) and went to a college that was recently named by Newsweek as one of “the New Ivies.” If/when I go to grad school, I’m looking at schools like Dartmouth, Middlebury and Yale.
Point is, you don’t know who’s waiting on you. Your waitress at Fridays might be enrolled in Harvard Law, so cut the shit. The restaurant industry, for the most part, is profitable. Some of my coworkers that I worked with two years ago are the most intelligent people I’ve ever met and everyone I worked with then had a college degree or was currently enrolled in college. In fact, I’d wager that 70% of waiters, waitresses and bartenders have a college degree or are taking classes. We’re not dumb people. And guess what? Unless you’ve got tenure, a masters and have been teaching at the same school for the past 20 years, we’re probably making more money that you and working half as hard. And I don’t mean to say we don’t bust our ass, but chances are that your students, principal and coworkers consume 90% of your time and thought. Whereas, when I walk out of the restaurant, I am done. I don’t have to grade papers, I don’t have to call parents and I don’t have to organize medieval banquets. I made a choice to take some time off and work in the industry and you made yours to become a teacher. I don’t walk into your classroom, enjoy your lesson and cut your budget in half, so don’t walk into restaurants, enjoy good service and leave half the tip you should have left. If you’re intelligent enough to be a teacher, you should be intelligent enough to do the math and know what an appropriate tip is. For fucks sake, CANADIANS and THE FRENCH tip better than you!
The Limeaide Story:
Today I had two teachers (a coworker used to go to their high school) order alcoholic fresh squeezed limeades. “I’d like a limeaide,” they said. “Alcoholic, or regular?” I asked. “Alcoholic.”
I’m at the bar, their drinks finished and sitting on the tray, making a black and blue for the guy at their table and in walks the teacher who ordered the drinks, straight up to the bar. She sees them sitting there, already made and says “we wanted raspberry ones. In your menu it says limeaide, made with citrus or raspberry rum.” Now, I can’t justify throwing away two perfectly good $6 limeaides. That’s money the restaurant loses and besides, they ordered LIMEaides, they should be LIME flavored. I did everything I was supposed to. “Well,” I said, “you said you wanted LIMEaide, so I used citrus rum. If you had asked for raspberry limeaides, I would have made raspberry ones. If you’d like, I would be happy to make your next round with raspberry rum.”
They drank every drop of the lime ones and the next person who joined them got a raspberry one. Half an hour later they still had sourpusses on their faces and were bitching amongst themselves that they were right and I was wrong. The two female teachers sitting across from them and the male teacher they were sitting with looked embarrassed to be sitting with them. Seriously! That’s like walking into the administrative office, saying “I want to talk to a middle school teacher!” “Well, here’s the homeroom teacher. Talk to her.” “What? Obviously I wanted to talk to the Math teacher! Your course catalog here says that students have Math, Science, English and History! How stupid of you to assume I’d want to speak to my child’s homeroom teacher!”
Here’s a “tip” for ya: you get what you order. If you order a LIMEAIDE, it’s going to be LIME flavored, dumbass. If you order a chicken quesadilla, it’s going to have CHICKEN in it. Likewise, your veggie burger will not be made from beef. It’s not rocket science. They probably would have left me a shoddy tip to boot, but luckily they had a big table, so I added the gratuity to be on the safe side.
xoxo
GC
