Customer Removes 20% Gratuity Automatically Added To His Restaurant Bill Because Of How His Server Looked
The customer claimed his server looked "trashy."
PeopleImages | Shutterstock Tipping culture in America is a hot topic. Many people feel that gratuity either shouldn't be as high as it is or shouldn't be paid at all. Because of this, many people will try and make up any excuse in the book to avoid leaving a tip, which seemed to be the case for a particular customer who decided he had a problem with the automatic gratuity because of his server's appearance.
In a Reddit post, a restaurant server admitted she was shocked when a customer revoked her tip and then complained to her manager that her piercings ruined his meal. Appearances aside, you can hate on tipping culture as much as you want, but the fact remains it's here, and that means participate or don't eat out.
A customer removed the 20% gratuity automatically added to his restaurant bill because he didn't like his server's piercings.
The restaurant server explained that she had been taking care of a family at a 7-top table a few years ago, and the dad had been the one who paid for the table. During her time serving them, he had refused to look at her and would have other people order his drinks and food.
"One of the dishes came out wrong (not my mistake, it was the kitchen), and it got fixed. When the bill came out, he scratched out the gratuity and decided to go speak to my manager. At the time, I had burgundy hair and maybe 3 facial piercings," she recalled.
Reddit
In a screenshot of the receipt, the dad had indeed completely scratched out the 20% automatic gratuity and had written that while the food was good, the service was "poor" and "every order was wrong." To make matters worse, he scratched out the 20% and changed it to 15% on an almost $450 bill.
The customer told her manager that the piercings she had were 'trashy.'
As if altering the tip weren't bad enough, this customer took his complaints to her manager. Interestingly, he chose to simply write on the tab that the service was bad.
His complaints about her appearance were made directly to the manager as if he didn't want any permanent record of his hatefulness. "He proceeded to tell my manager my piercings were trashy and that I should not be working in such a nice establishment," she continued. "His daughter went on to make a [Google] review talking about the food but didn’t say a word about me."
Not even considering the fact that most servers depend on tips for their livelihood, refusing to leave a gratuity for such a superficial complaint is just cruel. Having piercings, tattoos, dyed hair, or even funky color nail polish has absolutely nothing to do with a person's ability to do a job well.
As long as tipping is tied to salary, participating in the practice isn't really optional.
It's understandable why the practice of tipping has become so heated in recent years. Thanks to automatic screens, tipping has shown up in a variety of consumer-facing industries where it shouldn't exist. From self-checkout to fast food, Americans are starting to feel like tip screens are more of a money grab than an actual tip for service.
It's true that tipping began as a way for customers to applaud and reward outstanding service, but now the practice has been tied to salary. That means withholding a tip hurts the server's bottom line, and in today's economy, that's cruel, especially when it's done for a superficial reason like a person's personal style preferences. This kind of attitude just feeds into the outdated notion of what it means to look professional.
Tipping servers really isn't optional anymore, even though technically it's not required. An estimated 21% of U.S. adults say tipping is more of a choice, 29% say it’s more of an obligation, and 49% say it depends. It makes sense that the majority of people feel that way. It does depend. If service is truly terrible, which let's be real, doesn't happen all that often, withholding or reducing a tip might be warranted.
But if you're hating on tipping simply because you think the practice should be abolished, well, until that actually happens, you can't opt out. Actually, the solution is quite simple: If you don't want to tip, don't eat out at restaurants.
How we treat people matters. A server's job is literally to bring people food, not to meet anyone's subjective beauty standard.
Nia Tipton is a staff writer with a bachelor's degree in creative writing and journalism who covers news and lifestyle topics that focus on psychology, relationships, and the human experience.
