Slate "The Lousy Tippers of the Trump Administration"

[NRaleighLiberal]

They were exhausting, impossible, stingy, and cruel, just like at their day jobs.
By MOE TKACIK
FEB 03, 20215:50 AM

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/02/trump-administration-tippers-fine-dining-dc.html

snip

When Trump supporters started dining at our restaurants (which wasn’t enough—with no large steaks on our mostly seafood menu, business plunged as the last Obama veterans decamped for Big Tech gigs), the experience was painful for all. Baseball caps violated our dress code, so for those more decorated Trumpets, most meals began with an unwanted amuse-bouche of flambéed persecution complex. Knowing they would otherwise tip badly, I’d fall all over myself to send them little comps—a round of prosecco even if I wasn’t sure that seat 3 was 21, gratis simple salads for the 90 percent of guests who hadn’t ordered apps, gelato and a few slices of “celebration” cake at the end of the meal—and they would still, more often than not, tip less than 18 or even 15 percent, which wouldn’t have been ruinous if the tip-out had been less than 10.5 percent of sales.

My most polite guests during inauguration weekend 2017 were a consultant who charged a $30 ride back to his hotel on my Uber account and never paid me back (though he did leave a fawning Tripadvisor review, which was not nothing) and a man whose date was so verbally abusive to me he literally asked how much I’d charge to let him take me to his party instead. Once I got a manager to concoct a fake military discount for a guy who asked if we gave military discounts (we didn’t), and still that guest tipped 10 percent. (“You’re lucky,” one of the old heads at the restaurant told me. “One time I had a Marine write ‘Zero dollars, my SERVICE is my service charge.’ ”)

Our owner’s then-wife had tried to boost morale by assuring us Republicans were typically pretty good for business once their administrations got staffed up. Sen. Ted Cruz, for his part, had been an impeccable regular: gracious wife (poor thing), amenable to Sancerre at any price point, takes literally 15 seconds to order, reliable tipper, doesn’t make you “work for it.” That’s how you knew he wasn’t a real Trumpist, because the Republicans who followed 45 to town were exhausting, impossible, often stingy, and—because the restaurant was never busy enough anymore to soothe the sting of a bad table with a full section—memorable.

The perma-scowling almost-billionaire Wilbur Ross, Trump’s commerce secretary, became a regular despite what always seemed to be a vibe of great displeasure enveloping his presence when I approached his table. He ordered the cheapest wine on the by-the-glass list and didn’t tip more than 14 percent, no matter how often you topped him off without charging. His fellow near-billionaire Gary Cohn, Trump’s first chief economic adviser, was a bigger spender who still couldn’t bring himself to tip more than 18 percent, though it’s possible this was retaliation for my failure to remove every pin bone from his turbot, which was one of the first I’d deboned. (They say the big perk of a blue-collar job is the ability to leave work at the workplace, but here I am years later still wondering why some obnoxious banker stiffed me $15 after I’d meticulously removed at least 96 percent of the bones in his fish.)

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just picked out 4 paragraphs - these people really do suck...just like we thought they did. A long, good, sad read.

[underpants]

1. 👀 reading when I get home

Thanks.

[misanthrope]

2. Back in my youth, I spent several years in the F&B industry

Almost a couple of decades, really. It didn't take long to see the correlation between difficult customers and poor tippers. It was obvious both characteristics were simply a matter of someone's conscientiousness of others, their capacity for empathy.

[Pompoy]

3. That waitress is way to the left of AOC

She was pissed off at Hillary, and even Obama.

[Staph]

4. Back in my university days in the mid 1970s,

I waited tables for a year to pay tuition and bills, in a restaurant that served lunch on weekdays and had a dinner theatre on weekends. I learned quickly how to give good service, or even the appearance of good service on one of those impossibly busy days.

The worst tippers were the bankers, who came in for lunch and ordered the most expensive thing on the menu and left a 10 to 25 cent tip on a $5.00 bill. That's 10 cents, not 10 per cent!

Weirdly, the best tippers were insurance salesmen and little old ladies. If you oh-so-mildly flirted with the insurance gents, and fussed over the little old ladies, they'd leave a dollar tip for their $4.00 lunch.

I have since come to believe that everyone needs to work in some sort of service job, waiting tables, fast food, retail, whatever. You will really appreciate your education and the better paying jobs that the education will allow you to get.

[misanthrope]

6. What else you learn

You learn there are good and bad people in our world, many of whom will surprise you.

You learn that some folks view "servers" as "servants" and sometimes seem as if they are taking out all their life's frustrations on them. At heart, those people are bullies. Sometimes they are simply entitled.

You learn how our adversarial economic system too often seems to reinforce the worst aspects of human behavior.

You learn our society is content to exploit the laborers in our service economy and none more than restaurant/bar workers. That's why it is routinely estimated to be one of the most stressful jobs we have.

You learn that true kindness goes a long way. I recall waiting on a large family who were obviously of very humble means, folks who had "come into town" to celebrate a special occasion. They were unrefined without being crude or rude, genuinely friendly and very conscientious. Though they couldn't afford more than a 10 percent tip, I didn't really care because they were such a pleasure to interact with and seemed so over the moon about the experience.

It made up for the surfeit of doctors' wives who couldn't bother acknowledging your humanity or flatly told you what to do for them instead of politely requesting it.

[meadowlander]

7. +1.

I worked as a cashier at a grocery store in town when I went to college. One day when there were really long lines (not anyone's fault just a busy time) one of my professors came through talking on the phone to someone else. She didn't recognise me and said, very loudly on the phone so that half the store could hear "Well, I'd be there already except this checkout girl is retarded."

I handed her her bag, said "See you next week Professor Y" and moved on to the next person while she rushed out of the store.

[pansypoo53219]

5. BUTBUTBUT the rich are the masters of the universe.

they must be coddled.