Our reader Amelia recently sent us a letter elaborating on a rather juicy restaurant experience, raising eyebrow-raising questions about tipping etiquette, customer service, and the inevitable chaos of conflict management.
Here’s her full story:
I (30F) went out to a posh restaurant with my husband (30M) last night to toast his big promotion. Everything was going smoothly until it wasn’t—thanks to a waitress so packed with entitlement that her attitude could barely squeeze through the restaurant doors.
The bill came, and I graciously left a $10 tip on top of an $85 charge. As the waitress picked up the money, she physically sneered and spat out, “Ten bucks? This isn’t the 1950s anymore, you know.”
My jaw nearly hit the table. Her tone was as cold as yesterday’s leftovers, and my husband’s eyes blew up like saucers.
“Excuse me?” I shot back, my annoyance flaring up like someone’s bad haircut. “I think $10 on an $85 bill is quite generous.”
The waitress’s eyes almost rolled out of her head. “It’s a standard 20% tip these days, cheapskate. Do you even know how to calculate that?”
Her arrogance was a dark stain on what should have been a lovely evening. That $10 amounted to over 11%, which, by any reasonable metric, is a respectable tip. But logic seemed lost on her.
“You know what,” I snapped, my temper boiling over. “With that nasty attitude, you don’t deserve a tip at all!”
I promptly swiped the $10 bill back off the table. The waitress’s jaw dropped so hard it almost broke through the floor. She erupted into a tirade of insults, cursing and hollering like a reality TV reject. Other diners turned to get their evening’s dose of drama.
My husband was mortified. Finally, the manager had to appear and physically drag the hysterical waitress away from our table. We just left, our once-celebratory mood completely soured, and no tip to be had.
I’ll concede that I might have overreacted, but her obnoxious behavior was the match to my dynamite. Treating a paying customer with such blatant disrespect—she really didn’t deserve anything extra. However, there’s quite the debate brewing among my friends and family: should I have swallowed it instead of unleashing my inner beast and causing a scene? What say you?
