As someone who spent a summer waiting tables at a pizza joint in Baltimore, I can’t think that tipping less is a good idea. People who work as wait staff get paid less than minimum wage (I got paid $1.99 an hour in 1987) and depend on tips for their “living” wage. The job is relentless, hectic, and demanding. Customers (who are always “right”) can be kind but more often it seems they get off on being heartless, entitled bastards. When you add in sports (we were in line for the stadium), booze, and the typical -isms that seem to script people’s behaviors toward strangers, getting a shit tip is like a slap in the face, insult AND injury.
Don’t Forget to Tip
It's come to my attention
that Americans are now
tipping less and less.
What's up with that, people?
Do you think the job
of bringing food
to your table, of getting
your drink order right,
of putting up with your
condescending off color
jokes and wink wink
nudge nudge behavior
is a treat? Do you suppose
the piles of wet towels
you threw all over the
hotel room floor or
the vomit you spewed
over the bathroom tiles
is but a blip in the story
of that housekeeper's
crushing afternoon? And
is the caddy who hikes
your expensive bag of clubs
from hole to hole
unworthy of a true gift
at the end of the weary
course simply because
he's only fifteen? I would
end this screed with
a stern admonition
about caring for others as
we'd like to be cared for
ourselves but suspect that
I'm preaching now to
the choir -- dear poetry
reader, I bet you tip well,
and often, and with a smile
in your bleeding heart.
