Tipping At Buffets

I was eating alone in a Chinese buffet restaurant today. This is something I whole-heartedly recommend, if for some reason you want to feel ashamed of yourself in multiple ways.

There's something immensely sad about eating in restaurants alone. I mean, I'm married with like two or three kids. I should have moved past the fear of being alone by now, but I still feel like a complete failure in life when I am sitting in a restaurant by myself. Add in the fact that it's a buffet, and the fact that I am a fatty who can easily put down five pounds of deep-fried meat that's been sitting in some kind of glaze...and you get the idea.

As I finished my third plate of food, I watched as the quiet Chinese(or something"-ese", at any rate) girl came over to take my plate. I felt bad for her, because it seemed like a lousy job. As far as I could tell, she didn't speak any English other than "Coke or Diet?". Waitressing jobs in general aren't the most fun, but at least in most jobs you can pass the time by small-talking with customers or sneaking out back for a smoke break when the boss ain't looking. The language barrier had killed any small-talk options for her, and she seemed to be the only person working there(except for the owner who worked the register up front) so she couldn't rely on co-workers for entertainment.

I also felt bad for her because I was planning on tipping only one dollar, and it looked like a slow day for the restaurant. I kept wondering if everybody else were as cheap as me, and I kept wondering whether or not I had just hit the place before the lunch rush or if the place is always nearly empty. If my suspicions are correct, she could not have made more than 18 bucks for the day.

My first thought was that I should stop being a cheap SOB and tip her more than a dollar. But should I really have to? I mean, it's a buffet. She didn't have to memorize my order, and she didn't have to bring me my food on a wobbly tray. All she really did was take away my plates when I was done. I'm sorry, but that's bus-boy work. And I don't tip bus-boys.

(Sure, she did refill my soda for me, but really I could have done that myself. Plus I wasn't even completely finished when she took my glass away, which kind of irked me. Perhaps it's my OCD in action, but it bothers me when a half-drank cup is then filled up again. You can't mix old-soda with new-soda, people! It's just not right.)

Then again, even doing bus-boy work is pretty tough when I'm the customer. My leftover dirty plates are flat-out gross, there's no denying it. Though not intentional, I always manage to leave my plates in the worst possible position for pick-up by a third party. The entire perimeter of the plate is usually covered in some kind of sauce, making it impossible to pick up without soiling your thumb and forefinger. My fork is usually dangling half-way off the edge, causing it to drop to the floor as soon as the plate is picked up(hitting the table on the way down, splattering more sauce everywhere) . And of course, there's also a dirty napkin stuck to the underside of the plate, which I have used to spit out pieces of meat that had too much fat for me to chew. So as she walks to the kitchen with my dirty plate, pieces of half-chewed meat drop to the floor as the stuck-on napkin slowly unravels beneath the plate. Truly a disgusting scene.

So with that in mind, maybe she does deserve more than a dollar. But you know what? I didn't ask her to do this. She doesn't have to pick up my dirty plate with impeccable timing, picking it up exactly two seconds after I have taken my final bite. (I'm eating alone, don't forget--I have plenty of room at the table to just shove one plate out of the way to make room for the next.)

She doesn't have to wipe down my table every time I get up, and she doesn't have to replace my Chinese animal calendar place mat just because I spilled broccoli on it. I didn't ask her to do any of these things. Do I appreciate it? Sure. Does she deserve more than a dollar? Absolutely. I just don't see how it's my responsibility to ensure that she gets paid appropriately for the things she volunteered to do. If I had to give her more money just because she did things for me that I never asked for, then by that same logic I would have to pay homeless people every time they wash my windshield for me. Sorry homeless people, but no dice!

So she got a dollar, and I got to feel bad even though one dollar easily covered the customary 15% of my $6.00 bill.

This isn't a new feeling for me. My tips are planned mentally in advance, and I'm too stubborn to stray from my plan. So every time I go to a restaurant, I am either faced with a good waitress and the nagging feeling that I am undertipping, or I am faced with a lousy waitress and the nagging feeling that I just got suckered out of 15%.

Since I felt bad about only tipping a dollar for good-to-pretty-good service, I also wrote down my phone number on a napkin with a note that said "call me. My wife loves to 'experiment'." I also smothered my lips with General Tso's sauce and then kissed the napkin, to make it look all seductive. I am expecting a call any minute now. Aaaaaany minute...

I would like to open a restaurant where customers can tip in advance, and then the waiting staff will provide quality of service to match their pre-paid tip. If you give a good tip, they will be really friendly, and they'll small-talk with you about the weather. If you give them the standard 15%, they will still be nice, but might bring you the wrong order. When you tell them that they brought you the wrong order, they'll smile and then get you the correct food items, but you can still tell they're kind of irritated. They might forget to refill your drink, but will comply if you ask them. If you decide not to tip, they will spit in your food and steal your credit card info if you aren't smart enough to pay with cash.