Eric:

Good post.

My wife used to work in the restaurant business. In TX the hourly wage was $2.13/hr for wait staff. Might have gone up a few pennies since then. My wife was always honest reporting her income, and thus never once received a check as her hourly "wage" could not even cover the tax deductions she needed to pay on her tips.

Second is the tips problem. No offense West Texas, but it appears to be generally cheap (I mean REALLY cheap) here when it comes to tips. When living elsewhere my wife normally averaged 2X to 3X times the tips she made when she worked here.

If you don't leave a tip (15% if the food arrived at your table, 20%+ for good service) your server just wasted their time working for you.

Plus, as Eric said, the server is the face that has to deal with the problems. If the manager screws up and doesn't schedule enough people, who has to deal with the customer? If the cooks get the order wrong, who has to deal with it?

Oh here is another nice part of being a server. Where my wife worked, the server was also your "cashier". So say someone orders $50 in food, eats, and then leaves the restaurant without paying while you are in the kitchen bringing someone else's food out. Guess who gets to pay for it? That's right, the server. Because of that, there were times when my wife worked an 8 hour shift and came home with something like $20 to show for it.

So let's see, working as a server sometimes involves:

* Long late hours
* Dealing with poor management
* Dealing with bad customers
* And to add insult to injury, not always getting paid (tipped) for the above

What's not to love?

My wife doesn't work as a server anymore either, but it's not because she went to the oil field.

It's because the management at that time was very unprofessional and unorganized and the customers were cheap.

And she worked at one of the nicer national chain restaurants in Odessa where average plates are $10 - $20.

First, I don't disagree with anything you said at all. At all, at all. I'm a big tipper, personally, and catch a lot of flack for it from my family (who are average, not low tippers).

However...and I realize this is just tilting at windmills...wouldn't it be nice if the restaurant industry woke up to the 21st century and just started paying their servers a living wage? I suspect people would still tip - but then it could truly be a tip rather than a mandated-by-convention thing. And maybe people would feel less put-out by the whole idea.

I admire people who wait tables - I know it can't be easy. And these are folks who we need, unless we're going to stop having table service at sit down places.

Stewart's restaurant report is located here: http://www.mywesttexas.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=18803811&BRD=2288&PAG=461&dept_id=475626&rfi=6

Yes, waiting tables is hard work, something I know I would never be good at. But if you have chosen to do it, then don't get annoyed at me the customer.
Just 5 days ago at Olive Garden I had a server roll her eyes at me. This was after the 2nd time we had to ask for silverware. A little over a week ago at On The Border we had our order come out completely wrong (i mean not a thing right). In this case however the waitress (who was obviously handling more tables than usual) was gracious and did her best WITHOUT rolling her eyes. This waitress got a nice tip, even though there was a mistake. The Olive Garden waitress received about 5%.
We eat out quite a bit, and yes We understand that it is rough finding help at the moment. This does ot excuse rude behavior by waitstaff. In the past month, aside from the incidents above, I have had a waiter flat avoid coming by our table to refill glasses, as well as that of other tables; I have had a waiter answer their personal cell phone in the middle of taking our order (taking at least 2 minutes to tell someone that they got really drunk the night before)and one of my favorites a waitress telling us she "was too busy to fill our chip basket, did we really need more".
Now i have had some good service as well, don't get me wrong... but it seems of late that the attitude is getting much worse. I fyou don't like "serving" people then go find a different job. When I go to a restaraunt I am not only paying for the food, I am also paying for the experience. And while I can be understanding of circumstances beyond the waitstaff's control I will not be understanding of things that are completely within their sphere of control, like their attitude.
When served well I tip very well, but when served badly I tip accordingly.
I agree with the poster who said the restaraunts should pay a standard wage and then the tip would actually be that. Because everyone does have the right to earn a living, but at the same time I shouldn't be expected to pay for a job that was essentially not done.

C - you rock.

Another thing...with the abundance of waitperson jobs in Midland...you can be as rude as you want to the customer. If you get fired, you walk next door and get another job. Big deal.

I'm so excited for the Cracker Barrel to open until I think of who might be working there. I haven't had decent service in Midland in 2007...but the best has been IHOP.

my ex-girlfriend used to work at a chili's here in austin, and it would actually make me mad to hear some of the horror stories of things that happened to her.

sadly, those that treated her the worst - and that were the most demanding - were christians; no one wanted to work the sunday afternoon crowd. no one. the chili's she worked at actually started paying time and a quarter just so their employees would work sunday afternoons. a track (tract?) is NOT a tip. that's a terrible, terrible idea. if you were too scared to talk to them in person about Christ, don't even let them know you were a christian.

i look at the life of Christ and think, would He have said: "you provided me bad service, so therefore, you'll get nothing in return." no. in fact, His life was lived with the exact opposite values: to those who deserved nothing He gave everything. sometimes i get bad service in a restaurant. sometimes the waiter/waitress is short with me. and you know what? i still give them a good tip. precisely because they don't deserve it. because, in however small a way, i can show them the same thing Christ showed us: what you do - or don't do - doesn't reflect on your worth. perhaps giving them a good tip even when they don't "deserve" it - and my guess is that they usually know when they don't anyway - will brighten their day, and they will be kinder to the next person. and even if that doesn't happen, i am ok with myself, knowing that i did what i could. i am not responsible for their heart, only mine. as i wrote recently on my blog, "an eye for an eye" is no longer a valid excuse. what a consumer nation we are.

eric's point is completely right on, and i would even go a little further: if you walk into a restaurant even CONSIDERING giving a smaller tip should you receive "bad" service, just turn around and go back out.

Eric, good topic ..... everyone, great discussion!

My own experience with service in Odessa-Midland (as is the case with everyone else commenting here, it's anecdotal) has been more good then bad .... but I have experienced both. We try to tip well on all occasions, and really well when the service calls for it.

We also try to be polite at all times .... even a repeated request is accompanied by a 'please' ..... and a 'thank you' when that request is met.

We try to make short, light conversation with the waiter ..... nothing that ties-up their time and pulls them from other customers ..... rather, something that reinforces the fact that were dealing with a person, not a food-service-automaton.

We also try to go out to eat at off-times - after the lunch rush, or before the queue starts filling with the dinner crowd - with two active children, that's actually pretty easy, scheduling meals around soccer practice and so on.

I try to keep in mind what both Eric and Justin have to say about the waiter being the point-man (-woman) for everyone in the business that might contribute to a meal being less-than-perfect (-acceptable).

As a high school and college student, I spent plenty of time on side of the exchange ..... doing everything from car-hopping at The Ranch Wagon in Shavertown, PA, to selling donuts at Winchell's in Albuquerque, NM ..... so I try to remember that experience, now that I'm on the other side of the exchange.

Kyle,

While I agree with the "idea" of what you are saying, i disagree in practice. Tipping someone just the same for bad service as you would for good service only teaches them that they don't have to work as hard to get the same reward. It is also a slap in the face to those servers who do a good job and go out of their way to make a dining experience pleasant. It is about taking responsibility. If you are going to choose to do poorly at your job then you are choosing to get paid accordingly.
This does not meant that there are not jerk customers out there.. i have seen many of them, and occasionaly been unfortunate enough to be at a table with them. And i have sometimes slipped an extra tip to staff I thought dealt well with them.
Remember waitstaff is part of the service industry, that means you are going to be serving others, if that is not something you like doing, then do something else.
I work very hard for my money, and when I choose to spend some of my hard earned money on what is supposed to be a pleasant experience I do expect to have courteous service. I do not think that is too much to expect. I do not expect perfection, but I do expect effort. I am expected to do my job everyday without being rude to the patients I deal with, I think it is not too much to ask the same of those I am paying for a service.

Another thing that would annoy my wife is when people would come in with gift cards.

Say they spend $60 on their meals, but have a $50 gift card. Then the bill they actually have to "pay" is only $10. Very often they would just tip on the discounted amount leaving $1 or $2 on what was really a $60 check.

$1 or $2 after hauling $60 worth of food to a table and spending 30 - 45 minutes waiting on someone really stinks.

Maybe that is why servers are in bad moods sometimes... because the last person just left them a bad tip and they realized they spent the last hour working for $4.

Justin, I have to weigh in on that gift card thing which, to me, is such boorish behavior as to be unbelievable. In those few situations where I've been the fortunate recipient of a restaurant gift card, I've not only tipped on the full amount of the check, but gone significantly above, figuring I'm still coming out way ahead vs having to pay for the whole thing out of my pocket.

Tipping only on the net cash ranks right up there (or down there) with leaving a gospel tract instead of cash: don't -- under any circumstances -- do it!

I guess we've been lucky. We eat out with our friends about once a week, sometimes more. When we eat out, we don't see it as an everyday thing; it's a Meal Out. And we treat it accordingly: if we can't afford to tip well, we don't go out. And if we don't get good service, we don't go back; or, if we want to go back, we ask for a waiter we've had and like. We've had excellent service at all the restaurants we frequent. Perhaps it's our attitude. Perhaps it's our tips. Whatever it is, we all have a good time and a good meal. Sure, things are slow. Sure, there are mistakes in the orders. Sure, things are not as clean and snappy as we'd like. But, please: it's a meal out! It's not life or death. If you keep having bad experiences eating out, EAT AT HOME. It's not a necessity to eat out every day. It's just not. And cheap tippers: don't even bother. We've gone out to eat with LOTS of people who think a $5 tip on a full meal is enough. It's embarrassing, and we try to slip in something extra to cover for it. The best advice? Treat your server as someone who's doing a job. Don't treat them as your servant. Don't treat them as someone who's doing a job you wouldn't be caught dead doing. Don't treat them as someone with whom you can't even make eye contact. Treat them as the people they are: someone's son or daughter or spouse who's working to make a living and trying to have a pleasant day while they're doing it. Make eye contact. Ask about their day. Talk to them. Leave your ego at home and have a great meal.

Ricë, I don't think luck has anything to do with your overall pleasant dining experiences. I think we each have a lot to do with making those experiences happen (or not).

In thinking about some of the comments left on this post, I tried hard to remember some similar unpleasant experiences we've had over the past few years. I came up with the proverbial zero-zip-nada (and we eat out a lot). I'm sure we had some poor, inattentive, sloppy service along the way, but it just didn't stay with me. Life's too short to take things so seriously (including the few extra bucks that are meaningless to me but important to someone else).