First and foremost, I feel that I should say that I have never worked as a waitress, so I’m sure some will discount the rest of this entry because of that fact. But this entry has been a long time in the making and is the result of numerous observations in my experiences dining out at restaurants where there is wait staff involved.

It is customary for wait staff to ask diners if they would like anything to drink once they are seated. Wait staff almost always ask about the drinks first, leave, return with drinks, leave again, and then come back after an interval once the customers have decided what they want to order for food. And so on and so forth, until the bill is paid (inclusive of a hefty tip) and the table is cleared and the next round of diners are seated. Everyone who’s ever dined out before knows this drill.

Based on this pattern and my vast experiences dining out (yay college!), I’ve come to the following conclusion: The quality of service you get from your respective waiter/waitress depends on what type of drink you order.

If you order an alcoholic beverage (expensive), you are treated more attentively by the waiter/waitress. If you order a soda or a juice (average), you are treated decently. But if you order a water (free), good luck with getting the kind of attentive treatment the person who ordered alcohol would get!

It all comes down to the tip factor, doesn’t it? The more expensive the stuff you order is, the more expensive the bill is going to be and thus, higher the tip. Therefore, if you order an alcoholic drink or soda or juice (or anything other than water, really), there’s hope for a great tip yet. But if you order a water, more often than not you get automatically judged for being a cheapskate and one of the following happens: 1) the waiter/waitress tries to subtly hurry you along so they can turn over the table faster, or 2) the waiter/waitress tends to the rest of their tables before they tend to you. Hey, you just ordered water, so unless you order something monstrously expensive your bill isn’t going to be as expensive as the table that just ordered cocktails!

As someone who almost always orders water in restaurants, I find this all to be more than a little frustrating. I don’t always order water because it’s free. (Not that I’m complaining about the price.) No, I order water because 1) I can’t legally order alcohol as I’m underage, 2) I already don’t drink enough water during the day so whenever I get the chance to I drink it, and 3) it’s the healthiest option. If I’m out at a restaurant the chances of me ordering a small-sized, healthy and non-fattening dish are about zero, so the water will help me feel less guilty about what I eat!

What I don’t really understand, though (and this is where my lack of waitressing experience becomes a relevant factor) is why this beverage-ordering theory of mine impacts the quality of service by the waiter/waitress. I understand the whole final-amount-of-bill-affects-amount-of-tip thing, but the percentage paid in tips isn’t set in stone. It’s like a sliding scale; people pay anywhere between 10-20 percent. I’m far more likely to pay a 20 percent tip if the quality of service I receive is great; I’m more inclined to pay only 15 percent if the waiter/waitress blows me off after I place my order for water.

So, wait staff of the tipping world, take note: if you roll your eyes at me when I order water (this has happened before), it doesn’t matter how much the dishes I order are or what the final price of my bill is. Your tip is not going to be anything to write home about.

Tags: money, rants