You see, when a person doesn't tip, it tells the waitperson that they are not doing a good enough job, and since many of these people working this job ARE my age, the tips are how they supplement their already meager income. In fact, I work as a tutor and I make barely more than most waitstaff do (that is, minimum wage), and I make about $100 every two weeks if I'm lucky. That means I'm actually pretty dirt poor after gas for my car, parking fees, food, and other expenses - and even I know it's terrible manners not to tip someone during the rare times I actually get to sit down in a restaurant and eat. I always try to tip pretty fair for what I ate, even if it's not a large amount of money spent. This is because Dear Mrs. Momma Snicket always told Lil' Sugary Snicket that if one doesn't have enough money to tip properly, one doesn't have any business going out to eat at all - sound advice that I really wish more people would follow, since there's just not enough kindness in the world in general, unfortunately, so I always feel like I need to be extra kind to the people whose job it is to serve me in some way. I mean, you're nice to your car repairman, you're nice to the bus driver, and you're nice to your professor - all these people do you a service of some kind, and you'd be considered horrifically rude to act anything other than genial towards them. So why is it that so many people, in particular religious zealots, seem to believe that this is okay?
Ladies and gentlemen, that article from The Consumerist shows images a fake $10 religious "tip" left for a waiter trying to save money for a game he wanted (likely because he didn't really have disposible income and tips ARE his disposible income). Okay, so the fact that the waiter was saving up for a game and not for college textbooks sounds bad, but the fact that the person doing the tipping even thought that faking the waiter out with that kind of trick is just cruel. I may be a Godless heathen, but I respect Christianity as a religion and I believe that Jesus Christ really did have good messages to tell (and it's a shame that people twisted his teachings so badly in the present day to reflect what THEY want to believe). However, I have never approved of this type of "holy-roller" religious preaching, and I definitely don't approve of it being done in this manner - and you shouldn't either, regardless of your religious background. The fact is that this is morally wrong, and there are at least five good reasons why it is morally wrong. For starters...
- It's rude as Hell. Tipping is a practiced example of good social manners for a reason. Your waiter is doing you a service by serving your food and taking orders. They're the reason you even get food at all in a restaurant, from the lofty lux steakhouses of New York's elite crowd down to the plebian sex appeal that is Hooters. Their job is to put their best face forward to show the sunny side of the establishment they work at, and they work a tough job. They get enough shit for getting an order wrong and they're usually the ones who panic more than the chefs do when something isn't going right, because they work the floor and they see what needs to be done and when, and where. They are in short the order-keepers of a restaraunt, and they do not deserve to be treated like scum just because they work such a low-end job (in the words of comedian Rodney Dangerfield, "no respect, no respect at all."). That's why you get them apologizing to you so much if something goes slightly awry. I once was eating at a childhood favorite restaurant of mine, and I had ordered a salad to eat. This particular eatery served all salads with croutons on them, and I forgot to ask them to not add said crunchy deathbits. "I don't like croutons," I said to my grandmother, whom I was eating lunch with, and the waitress who had served my salad overheard me. She actually apologized and offered me a new salad, which I refused; she then brought me a bowl for the croutons. We tipped her extra just for accomodating my dislike of croutons that I had neglected to mention. Even if a waiter doesn't do these little extra things, they still deserve a tip because they work a difficult job. Therefore, the kind of religious pseudotip offered is like rubbing that poor waitstaff's hard work in their face - nobody who is poor wants to find what they think is ten dollars only to realize it's a sham. That's almost like handing a child a lollipop that tastes like cough syrup. Which brings me to another point...
- It goes completely against Jesus Christ's teachings on helping the less fortunate. Think of the typical image of a young waitress - someone who is working on a major in college and needs extra money for herself to pay bills, have disposible income, and eat things for dinner that are not ramen noodles from a styrofoam bowl. She constantly has to worry about grades and college expenses, and if she's a much older student she may even have children to worry about. Now, I don't know how many people of my mother's age read this blog, and my guess is not many, but if there are any of you out there... how many of you remember being in college? The classes were expensive, the textbooks were costly, and the materials were essentially money pits. In short, you paid a lot of money, more if you took out student loans, and even more depending on what your major is. This translates into one very, very poor student once their parents' money runs out, and the result is a kid working at McDonald's to pay the bills. If you're religious, and even if you aren't, there's a specific teaching in the Bible that Jesus Christ said about the poor, a statement that is incredibly apt even if said poor person isn't homeless. In laymen's terms, it translates to "treat the poor kindly, because even though I won't be around forever, poverty always will". Now that's a good idea - if someone is clearly working minimum wage, like a waitress, that obviously means they are not making very good money, and may be working more than one job. Therefore, it makes sense to tip your waitress, even if she's not really that poor or is trying to earn money for the summer. A non-theistic argument is the Golden Rule, or "treat others as you would wish to be treated". If it were you, would you want someone giving you a preachy note about the Lord masquerading as something that could help pay the bills? What if you already had found God or otherwise had a spiritual awakening? Which begs yet another good point...
- You may be preaching to the choir. You may have all the best intentions for that person's soul in the world, but the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. If the person is already Christian or Catholic, your message is falling on ears that have already recieved it, and since the majority of America follows some sect of Christian teaching or another, there's a good chance that your message will be ignored or tossed in the trash for raccoons to be inspired by. The other option, one you'd probably hoped for, is that a non-Christian will read it. However, this will also backfire. Do you know why? Because there's more than one religion out there, no matter how right you believe yours is. If a a Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, Hindi, Neopagan, Jain, Zoroastrian, Rastafarian, Atheist, or Agnostic waiter picks your message up, they're going to scoff and toss it in the trash, because they've heard all of it before. If they heard the message the first time and it didn't gel with them then, it's not going to now. You see, Pavlovian conditioning doesn't work unless you have a real incentive for a person. Tips work this way because if a person sees they are getting a tangible reward, they may work harder the next time. It's a way to guarantee continued actions. Converting a person to Christianity does not work that way, however, and all the preaching about hellfire and damnation will not change anyone's minds - they'll just think you're a very religious person, or worse, that you're a nutty zealot that believes that wearing any skirt shorter than the bottom of your knees is a sin. Worse, you may horribly offend the person in question, and if it's something you don't want to do, it's offend your waitstaff. In fact, that's my fourth point.
- Sooner or later, if you keep doing this, you're going to offend someone. That someone may be able to get you removed from the restaurant if you're repeatedly a bad customer, or worse, do something to your food before it reaches you. We've all heard the urban legends and horror stories of picky customers who sent food back too many times and came down sick with syphillis the next week because the waitstaff jerked off into their food to get back at them. We've all heard the proverbial "chef spitting in the food" tale handed down lovingly from rumor mill to rumor mill. While there may be no real risk of it happening, food contamination can and does happen. There really are examples of vegans who were rude placing orders that ended up eating a vegetarian dish that had meat juice in it placed there by a disgruntled employee. The invention of potato chips suposedly stems from a chef that became angry at someone who kept sending his potatoes back repeatedly, so he sliced them thin, fried them, and salted them. That worked out okay and potatoey goodness was born, but it may not work out so well for you. The waitress' job may be to put on a happy face, but as any Joker fan worth their salt can tell you, not all smiles show happiness or good will. Some merely show teeth and a cue that said person's sanity is slowly unravelling, and this is the smile than the angry waitress wears when she has to play nice even though she's working with an unreasonable customer, and an angry waitress is a terrible thing. She could oversalt your low-sodium dish before it gets to you. She could ask the cook to put hot sauce in your ketchup bottle that she brings you. She could have the chef cook your burger well done when you ordered it medium well. There are many little things a disgruntled waitress can do besides deal with her boss when you are being unreasonable - and in the case of repeatedly shirking a tip, she has every right to be vengeful. After all, what kind of greedy bastard just up and doesn't tip? And oh, look, my final point's arrived.
- It makes you look greedy, and greed is one of the Seven Deadly Sins. Come on, cheapskate, if you're gonna buy food you have to tip. It's good manners. If you're such a skinflint that you won't lay down a nice tip for someone that isn't a snarky, ironic religious message or a lone penny, then you don't have any business being anywhere else than counting your money, Scrooge McDuck. It may not be your intention to not tip the waitress, and you may believe this is a good tip, but it's just not and it makes you look more like Mr. Krabs in a swimming pool of money he's made rather than a good Christian. It makes the waitress and everyone around you think that your first name is Ebeneezer, and that's not a good place to be, because the waitress will remember that behavior if you're a repeat customer, and what she says gets spread to the manager, every other waitstaff, the chef, the hosts/hostesses, and anyone else along the grapevine. If you think that a religious message masquerading as ten dollars is a good way to piss everyone in the restaraunt off, you're correct. If you think it's a good way to endear yourself to a single mother working as a waitress trying to make ends meet, then you're so dead wrong you might as well be six feet under. Furthermore, it's hypocritical to shirk a tip in this way since you aren't just appearing to be greedy, you're appearing to be greedy AND you believe that greed is something that God generally frowns upon. In other words, you look like and probably are an enormous hypocrite, though I'm sure plenty of people have already told you that if you're the kind of person whose faith is so shaky that you need to preach to the person serving you your burger just to feel better about your spiritual well-being.