Tales of a Waitress: Stereotyping Tippers (Old People)

Old People

Older people are one of the hardest groups to serve. Mostly because it seems they believe in A+ service with a C- tip.

Like children Older people tend to have interesting food preferences and are not very patient at all (must be because they don't think they will have much time left?) One of the advantages of having an older couple is that they usually order wine (which means that the price of their meal will go up substantially...but not necessarily the tip).

Most servers are very happy when wine is ordered because of the increased tab but wine is also something that takes times. First we must fine the wine in our cabinet, than get the correct glass according to the type of wine (red, white, Champlain...ok Champlain isn't exactly a wine but it does have its own glass), make sure the glass is perfectly clean (the crystal seems to always have spots no matter how well cleaned), measure out the wine (5 oz) and than present the wine to a table (by someone over 21yr and has their liquor distribution licence).

Since many of our servers are under 21 yr they ask me to do this for them. It is fine on a slow night but on nights that are crazy (which I think tonight will be) wines are my worst enemy! But nothing can be worse than having a table order a bottle of wine because that involves another set of presenting and for the life of me I cannot pronounce my Italian wine correctly (which makes me look pretty silly).

Sorry for that little wine rant...the drinks are a beautiful color and come out of a beautiful bottle but after smelling that alcohol all night I just feel sick.

Anyways...Old people....Big tab....Small tip....and that's just the way it seems to be.....

Hopefully someday they will see that 10% is no longer the norm but an insult. Although I could see by the time I am their age that 20% will not be the norm either (or we will just have robots serving us...or our meals come out of vending machine type things....ohhh the future sounds scary!)

{chels}