Allow me to elaborate on my previous "waiting on the owners" experience. Well, not really the owners, but the owners daughter, her husband (who held some sort of made-up position in the company that was created by father-in-law) and their four children, which the servers lovingly referred to as "Demon Spawn of Satan." OK, maybe they only had two kids, but when they were pitching violent temper tantrums in the middle of the dining room during a Friday lunch, it certainly seemed like four. Needless to say, when we saw the happy family enter the restaurant every server had an immediate need to use the restroom, smoke a cigarette or go get ice from the scary basement cooler. And the server stuck waiting on them dealt with belittling adults and bratty kids. I worked at this restaurant for almost two years and neither the owner nor any of his family, which I constantly waited on, bothered to learn my name, despite my name tag proudly displayed on the lapel of my short sleeve oxford shirt. They dubbed me "Pocahontas" as I usually wore my hair in two braids. Thankfully I have no Native American ancestors, so I wasn't offended by the nickname... uh, I guess. At the end of the fiasco of waiting on this family, one could at least be assured there would be a 20-25% tip waiting for you, to compensate for your pain and suffering and all was right with the waitressing world.
My latest experience with the restaurant owner was absolutely lovely... well, all except for the end part. It started by her quizzing me on the soup of the day, the lunch special and drink specials, which I passed with flying colors, followed by drinks, a course of soup, lunch entree and even dessert. The entire meal was perfectly pleasant. I delivered their $45 check, and anxiously awaited what I thought would be a fat tip to start my day. After handing me the check back, I was told to have our general manager comp the check. "Great!" I thought- she's not even paying out of pocket, so I'm sure to get a nice tip. After they left, I went back to bus and set my table to find a whopping $4 stuffed under an ice tea glass- less than 10% of the check. What the what? I quickly tracked down an assistant manager to ask how the owner generally tips, since I was convinced there must have been something wrong with my service. "Terrible" was his response. Oh. I started to ask around with the other servers. Their responses were all the same- that I was lucky to get the $4, as the norm is $1, no matter what the check. Absolutely appalling. I would have been less offended if no tip were left at all. At least then I could have justified that she has the mindset that she doesn't have to tip any server, that waiting on the owner should be "an honor" or "expected" or some crap along those lines. Instead, she had to count out those four measly dollar bills from her purse and consciously think about how many to leave. A sure-fired way to disgruntle any server. Maybe she took into account the hefty $2.83/hour she was already paying me. That must be it.
