“Oh, this is great, I have exactly the right amount.” A woman says that is what her relative announced while counting out cash for the birthday lunch she was being treated to at a Thai restaurant in Virginia, and that her stomach dropped a little when she heard it.
The creator, who posts as @astoldbyindie, told the story on March 28 in a video with the question “Should servers confront for not tipping?” fixed on screen. By her account the exact amount did not include a tip, the waitress came back to the table to say so, and an offer to fix it on a credit card was turned down.
She describes the relative as someone “I do know to be cheap” who does not normally take her out. This time the relative was paying, and paying in cash. “In my mind I’m like, I hope they calculate a tip,” she says. “I really hope they’re not like giving exact change with no tip.”
She did not say anything at the table. She had no cash on her, only a credit card, and she had no view of the bill. “I never see the check,” she says. “I don’t even know how much it costs.”
The two were still seated, getting ready to leave, when the waitress came back over. She says the waitress told them something like this: if they did not want to tip, then next time they should “order takeout and don’t dine.” She is recalling the wording, not reciting it. “Never in my life have I expected someone to say something like that to me,” she says.
Partway through the story she stops to give her own position on tipping: “I think not tipping is crazy. I don’t appreciate tipping culture, but I do tip.”
Her first answer to the waitress was “Excuse me?” She says the waitress repeated the point, that people who are not going to tip should not dine in. “I had to like, put my adult voice on,” she says. What came next had two parts. The objection: “Hold on, you’re not gonna talk to us like that.” And the offer: “If you want a tip, I can run your tip on my card. Like, that’s perfectly fine. But this is inappropriate.”
She says she made both points a second time, that she could pay and that “this is not how you speak to us.” The waitress did not take the tip. “She actually denied me paying, like, giving her a tip,” she says, “and was like, I just wanna let you guys know.” The two of them left.
Looking back, she splits the blame. “While I agree we should have tipped her,” she says, she was not the one paying and is “not really gonna take too much responsibility on that.” She was annoyed with the relative: “I was like, bro, like, why are you like this?” On the waitress she does not move. “Tipping is like, not mandatory,” she says. “So the fact that you thought you could talk to us like that really blew my mind.”
When Someone Else Is Paying and the Tip Is Missing
She was stuck three ways at that table: she was the guest, she could not see the check, and she had no cash. Each of those has a fix.
Carry a few small bills when someone is treating you. With only a card in her bag, the one way she could add a tip was to go through the server, which is the conversation that went wrong.
Speak when the cash comes out. She heard “exactly the right amount,” hoped it included a tip and stayed quiet. One line covers it without correcting the host or asking to see the bill: “Let me get the tip, since you got lunch.” Then ask the server to run that amount on your card.
If that moment has passed, reach the server before the server reaches you. Stop at the register on the way out and ask to put a tip on your card. It is the same offer she made, placed ahead of the confrontation instead of in the middle of it.
If you are the one hosting a birthday lunch with cash, count the tip into the stack before you say you have exactly enough, and tell your guest it is in there. She spent the end of her own birthday meal wondering.
If a server does come back to the table, her sequence holds up. Ask “Excuse me?” so the comment is repeated and you know what was said. Say once that the tone is the problem. Offer the fix in the same breath, as she did with “I can run your tip on my card.” When the offer is declined, leave. She did not stay to argue the point.
