On Service

I'm not well off. I'm hardly poor, but I'm in no way rich. However, I still like to go out and be served a meal.

Why?

Because, I don't have to cook, clean or worry about having food in the fridge. I occasionally want someone else to take care of these details for me. My preferred haunt is GITSIS (git-sees) a little 24/7 diner on Monroe Ave. in Rochester. I like it because the food is good, the service dependable and the prices cheap.

However, when I went out for a meal this past week I left a $0.01 tip for the first time in my life, and whats more I left it as a credit card tip so there was no way the server would think it was a mistake.

Now, I have worked in a variety of restaurants for years, and I like to think I'm easy to please. Take my order in a timely fashion and keep my coffee cup full. That's more or less the extent of the required service and when I'm happy, I tip 20%

I'm not going to go into the details of the evening, suffice to say the server did not meet my basic two requirements. This is made all the more frustrating because I expect so little. It's just upsetting. I go out, spend money and am expected to tip. Yet when the service is bad and the tip is small the server blames the customer as being cheap as opposed to accepting that she may not have done her job.

If I were to write a piece of software for a customer that did not meet his basic needs I would not be paid. Is the customer cheap? No, I did not do my job.

I just wanted a cup of coffee, and a slice of pie, in a timely fashion.

That's all.