Bad Tipper? Beware of Your Waitress on BitterWaitress.com

Tipping at restaurants is always an ongoing debate amongst restaurant-goers and wait staff, with the national consensus resting at 15% as acceptable, and 18%+ for great service. At the 10% range, most wait staff are aware that either service was poor, or they had bad luck with a particular customer. Many restaurants track credit card tip averages as part of their rewards and sales systems, enabling top servers to perform at the best level, and finding areas needed for improvement in customer service.

When a bad tipper becomes a frequent guest at many restaurants, the wait staff is usually the first to know; information on tipping trends seems to spread fairly easily, and the general knowledge and culture of the restaurant establishment will dictate how this is handled when the customer walks in the door.

But now it’s when they walk out of the door that reality may bite with more than a pinch. Sure you leave a bad tip one day because you weren’t up for calculating a well-deserved 18% service (the easiest way to do this, is simply multiply your bill by ‘2’ to get 20%, then subtract that same number divided by 10, for the final amount). Your worst-intentions may even lead you to leave a less than stellar tip ranging in the 2-5% range (an unacceptable standard for any wait staff). Once you sign that credit card, take your receipt, and leave the restaurant, karma is left to do the work.

And now it can do it publicly; with the help of sites such as BitterWaitress.com, angry servers are posting your name, tip amount, percentage, and details of the transaction (e.g. ‘plays golf as bad as he tips’) for the world, and their fellow servers, to share. BitterWaitress.com offers an area entitled ‘War Stories’ where users can relate on their gripes, concerns, and experiences on ‘Mommy Issues,’ ‘Thoughts on Waiting’, and other industry-related conversation. Forums provide a ‘bantering’ and Q&A platform, while the ‘In the Biz’ section takes in an insider’s look at the restaurant world, most of which center around NYC. The ‘Gossip’ and ‘Soapbox’ sections are populated with current happenings and declarations of dining occurrences across the country.

Finding your name on the site’s bad tipper database is certainly a jolt to anyone’s conscience; self-awareness and a fair tip are always appreciated when ‘sharing the wealth’ with your server. Frequent restaurant goers may benefit greatly from visiting sites such as these, gaining an insider’s look at what goes on behind the scenes.

If customer’s needed a chance to see how their actions can create waves of impact, they can do it on the internet. When calculating the tip, many customers do overlook the fact that wait staff make well below minimum wage on an hourly basis, are involved in heavy physical labor, and deal with an enormous amount of people-pressure. The high-stress job can be both lucrative and very unrewarding at the same time. Although less-than-appreciated service will usually result in a lower tip, tips are a vital part of the server’s hourly work; if a server doesn’t get their well-deserved recognition, the internet is now opening up avenues for opportunities to fight back.