He Definitely Didn’t Deserve a Tip
At a mexican food restaurant with a girl I’m getting to know. It wasn’t a date, really, it was just like hanging out and getting to know each other and we decided to go grab a quick bite.
Anyways, I’ve kind of gotten into this horrible habit of only paying with my debit card and never having cash on me. As you probably know, a lot of times when you pay using debit/credit over a certain amount (I believe it’s 5 or 10 dollars) places have you sign a receipt that they keep.
The receipt the guy at this place handed me had a place to leave a tip.
Since I’ve been to this place a couple of times before, I know how the service works here (you order at the register, go and sit down, they call your number, and then you go up and receive your food) so I didn’t leave a tip.
I’ll tip at this place/places like this if I order something specially made or something with extra toppings on it and they don’t charge me but, other than that, I really do not see the need to tip.
They aren’t bringing your food to you, they aren’t doing anything out of their way, they aren’t bussing tables, there’s simply no need to tip.
Anyways, I don’t leave a tip and the guy just says “Wow, big spender here.” I look up at him and am like “What?” because at this point, I honestly have no idea what he’s talking about.
It didn’t even register in my mind that he could possibly be upset that I didn’t tip, because he’s doing nothing to warrant a tip.
He just stands there and takes orders and calls them out; a job that he is paid an appropriate wage to do with no extra effort needed to be put in.
It’d be the same as tipping someone working a register in a grocery store or at a McDonalds. Well, back on topic, the guy ignores me and says to the girl I’m with “Glad you’re dating such a big spender.
He can’t even afford to tip. How do you think that’s going to go further down the line in your relationship?” She’s just kind of baffled, I’m just kind of baffled, and at that point I just decided it was best to ignore the dude and go sit down, so I shrug it off with a “Whatever.”
After a bit of an awkward sit, our food comes up, so I go up to get it and decide to just get it to go.
We grab our drinks and our burritos and walk out of there while the guy gives me dirty looks and keeps calling me “Big spender”, only to sit down on a bench near the restaurant and find our orders are completely wrong and nothing near what we ordered at all, as well as our drinks only being filled halfway.
I’m normally not that picky, and would have just said forget it and eaten it and wrote it off as more trouble than it was worth to fix the order, but I’m here with a girl and didn’t want to look like a pushover.
We take our food into the restaurant, where I explain to the guy that our order is messed up and our drinks are only half full.
He says “Oh, complaining about your order and couldn’t even be bothered to tip? Now you’re putting me through all this trouble and can’t be bothered to tip.” and just keeps rambling on with crap like that while a line forms behind us and he finally goes to fill up our drinks.
He comes back and says “Woops” before he pretends to trip and sends our drinks flying all over me and the girl I’m with. I demand to speak to his manager and he immediately stops playing his little game.
Basically saying anything to beg us not to talk to his manager and even offers us our money back on the order, but I refuse and keep demanding to talk to his manager until the cook in the back finally hears what’s going on and goes to get him.
The manager comes out, the girl I’m with and I both explain what happened, and the kid keeps babbling that it was an accident. The manager takes me and the girl I’m with in back to get us cleaned up and, after that’s done, invites us to watch the CCTV footage of what happened along with the kid who spilled stuff all over us.
The kid clearly trips on nothing and deliberately sends the drinks flying on to us. The manager fires the kid on the spot, explains to us he had only hired him on for the summer since he was a long time friends son and that the kid had been acting like a total jerk the entire time he was employed, but the manager regrettably turned the other cheek since it was his friends son.
The manager was a really nice guy and paid for our meal as well as gave us a card each that gave us 10 free meals at his restaurant.
He even went in the kitchen and cooked our orders himself, gave us them in to go bags, and paid for a cab (we had walked) to take us back to my place so we wouldn’t have to walk home in sticky clothes.