Waiting; The True Confessions of a Waitress by Debra Ginsberg Page A

the coun try of my mother’s birth. I asked him what city he was from and he confirmed that he’d grown up very near my mother’s family. As the evening progressed, I learned that he was actually a boy hood chum of my uncle’s. By dessert, we had discussed our fam ilies, traded stories, and marveled at how small the world was that we could end up meeting in such a way. When I presented the bill, I was confident that I’d be receiving quite a nice tip. In fact, they left nothing at all. Since I was sure there had been some mistake and because I felt I’d formed such a bond with Mr. X, I approached the table and asked them if their meal had been satisfactory and if they felt they received good service. They assured me that everything had been just fine.
    “Well, you didn’t leave me a tip,” I said. “And I’m just won dering why.”
    “No, there’s no tip,” Mr. X barked. “Your prices are outra geous.”
    “I’m sorry, but they’re not my prices,” I said. “I don’t have anything to do with that.”
    “Doesn’t matter,” Mr. X frowned. “There’s no tip.”
    Several months later, I found myself working the cocktail area of the same restaurant. It had been a very quiet shift until a pro football player with the San Diego Chargers came in with a date. He ordered a bottle of Cristal, which was the highest ticket item on the menu. I chilled a couple of glasses for the two of them and set an ice bucket next to their table. We exchanged a few pleasantries while I opened the champagne and poured out two glasses. I asked if there was anything else I could do for them, and he told me that they were going to have dinner shortly so I could just cash him out. The bill came to about a hundred and fifty dollars. He paid with a credit card and wrote in a hundred-dollar tip. I thanked him profusely, but he waved me off, grinning broadly, and told me it was his pleasure.
    I’m not sure that there is a way to adequately explain these types of extremes except to say that tipping itself creates a bizarre psychology. Consider these examples, if you will.
    After assuring me throughout his dinner that everything was perfectly fine, a customer of mine once left me a very low tip. He also left me a note explaining why. I am including it here in all its glory (which is to say with all its unintelligible language and spelling errors intact).
     
This 10% tip was given due to the servis was good but not up to stades. The plates should have been taken by the busboy. The crumbs cleaned at the end of the meal and small things like a ‘marrow fork’ given with the Osobouco. Thank you for your attention to this items and your tip will be 18–22% of the Bill. I hope this helps.
    It helped, all right. I’ve rarely had such a good laugh. This note, which I have kept for many years, completely made up for the lack of tip. In spades.
    Going from the ridiculous to the sublime, there is the tale of my friend Lucy. One night, in her exclusive high-end restaurant, Lucy waited on a man who told her, “I’ll give you fifty dollars right now if you can tell me which song this line comes from: ‘Say, can I have some of your purple berries.’ ” Lucy knew imme diately and told her customer, who responded by jumping up with joy. She was the first waitress who had known, he claimed, and he’d asked every server who had ever waited on him. It was, he said, an absolute triumph. Did he give Lucy the fifty dollars? Indeed he did, plus an additional fifteen as a “regular” tip.
    Scientific studies on tipping (and there have been several) say that servers can increase their tips by touching a patron lightly on the shoulder, writing “thank you” on the check, or introducing themselves by name. But anyone who has waited tables longer than a few months knows that a controlled study of something as wildly variable as tipping has little validity. Every diner is differ ent. Some are impossible to please and would leave a lousy tip even if