Tipping

While I was at work tonight, there was a problem in the kitchen. The printer broke and a lot of the orders didn’t come through. I scrambled to get everything out in time, and the chefs in the kitchen did their part putting them together as fast as possible.

Only one table really felt the error, two men eating grilled Halibut. One was an older white man, kind but oddly out of place. The other looked Indian, and his accent suggested the same. He seemed to speak English poorly at best, and the white man would repeat everything I said slower and louder to him, as if my English were somehow harder to understand.

When I brought the plates out, I told him, “I’m sorry for the delay. There was a… miscommunication in the kitchen.” I imagined that my annoyance with the kitchen probably showed on my face.

“Yes, delay,” the older man barked. Then he ordered a cup of hot tea and another house wine.

I do acknowledge some fault in the situation. I should have stopped at the table and explained the situation before bringing the plates. I also was busy and probably not at my most personable. Anyway, I wasn’t the least bit surprised when I got the check back and the tip was 12%.

Hours later, when the restaurant was winding down, I picked up the check from my last table. I had to stay pretty late with one table, but I didn’t mind because it was a nice couple having a nice dinner and the tip was probably going to be pretty good.

But when I turned the corner and opened the book, the check was blank.

“Oooh MAN!” I groaned aloud. There was a rookie waiter standing next to me.

“What?” he asked.

“This table… they I’m sure they left me a check, but the dude took the wrong slip! I don’t know what the tip is!”

“Does that happen a lot?”

“Occasionally. Usually I can just get the tip off the indentation the pen left when they signed the first slip. But it doesn’t look like he had it on top…”

“So what happens now?”

“Well I’m supposed to call it 0.”

“Ooh.. that sucks.”

“Yeah… screw it, I know these guys were going to tip me. I can put ten bucks on here, its less than 15%.”

“Yeah. People don’t read their credit card statements anyway.”

“Well some of them do, you do have to be careful. The rule around here is that if there’s a complaint, you have to pay the entire check. But if you get away with it, you’re fine.” I looked over his shoulder. Standing behind him was the old man from the earlier table. I had to switch very quickly into customer-mode, and I wondered how much he heard.

“Can I help you, Sir?” I said in my waiter-voice.

“Well… I was in here earlier. And there was a delay in the food arriving, and in my mind I blamed you and that wasn’t right. So here.” And he handed me a five dollar bill.

“Thank you, very much sir. That’s very nice of you.” I really appreciated the gesture.

“However, I do think I left something here. A check, folded in three. Can we look?”

“Well, certainly, sir, but if there were a piece of paper under the table I would imagine that the bus girl took it.” We walked over to his table and glanced on the surrounding floor. There was nothing.

“Listen, I’ll go ask the bus-girl. She may have found it.” I said it and actually believed it. On Father’s Day the same girl had saved a Father’s Day card in the bus station for hours, and immediately found it for me when I asked for it. So I knew there was hope.

She was 19, and probably second-generation from Korea, China or Japan. I’ll admit I can’t tell which. She was tiny, probably no taller than 5 feet and extremely skinny. And very, very sweet. You might come out of the restaurant angry at management, customers and everybody else and she would belt out a few bars of Mariah Carey and you couldn’t help but laugh.

So I went and asked her if she ever found the check. I knew that if she found something important like that she would have immediately known it, and she just looked at me with genuine concern that she hadn’t found it. I felt kind of bad for even asking her, since I really thought it bothered her.

“It probably looked like garbage,” I said. “Don’t worry about it. It’s not your fault.”

I went back out and explained to the man that I couldn’t find his check.

“Oh that’s ok. I’m not even sure I left it here anyway. But thank you for your concern. If it does turn up, here’s my card.” He handed it to me. He was a Reverend for an Episcopal Church in Richmond, one of the worst ghettos in the Bay Area.

He left and the bus-girl stopped next to me.

“That sucks. I feel bad for him.” she said.

I made sure I gave her extra when I tipped her out that night.

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