Friday at the bar was so slow. I worked open to close and had about a dozen tables all day. By 11 pm I had $60 in my pocket for the day.
Stacy started talking about wanting to leave at 9 pm. By 11, she was holding her stomach and saying she didn't know what was wrong with her, but she felt like shit. Manager G thought she was faking. I didn't care. Fifteen minutes before this, I had a group get drinks from the bar and walk out to the patio. Yes, the patio. It was around 50 degrees. I knew they would be staying until close, so to avoid serving them I offered to let Stacy go home. She was out the door less than 10 minutes later.
I ended up making $80 in that last 2 1/2 hours behind the bar. It was still ridiculously slow, but people tip bartenders more at a sports bar.
Earlier in the night I served a family from Austria. Their English was poor, so it took a while to take their order, but they were very nice! I thought that they were from Germany because one of the adults kept saying "Danke" every time I gave her something. At the end of their meal, after picking up the check, I said "you're welcome" in German. It was an attempt at being polite/clever. When they all looked at me with blank or confused faces I asked if they were from Germany. When they informed me they were from Austria they did not seem at all offended, but I was slightly embarrassed. I recovered quickly with "Oh, well it was my pleasure, really. Have a wonderful night." I guess "Thank you" is the same in Austria and Germany, but not "You're welcome." Who knew? They left me $5 on $78 leaving me to wonder what the tipping habits are in Austria.
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7 years ago
7 comments:
The tip was probably pretty good for Austrians. A lot of countries just work on salary so tipping is foreign to them. My wife who is from Iceland made $4000 a month with no tips back when.
In europe you don't have to tip so yeah they probably thought that was a good tip :)
I figured as much which is why I was not upset about the amount. I would like to say though that I would research such things before traveling. It's a shame there isn't a good way to communicate that in America servers depend on tips.
To them it was probably a great tip. I know it was small...bummer.
My friends and I went to a chinese restaurant a couple of weeks ago, and at the end of the meal one of my friends said she had the check and plopped down her plastic, so me and our other friend offered to leave the tip. The little asian waiter took her card up and brought it back. Two minutes later he came back to collet her credit card slip. He took about four steps, turned around and came back and said, "What, no tip?" We were all flabbergasted, especially me, as the only server in the group. "It's that easy?" I joked. But we were all really offended. I wonder if thats ok in China?
I don't want to judge people by where they are from, but when I'm wearing my apron it is hard not to be nervous when I wait on Europeans for this reason! They leave the worst tips!
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