Word to the wise: If you mess with the tips of the New Haven Independent’s teacher-by-day, waitress-by-night diarist, don’t think you’re going to get her phone number. Instead, you’re going to end up starring in her online diary.
Oct. 2, 2005
Last night, a customer messed with my tips in an attempt to be cute.
Word to the wise: Do not mess with tips because you will end up looking like a jerk, especially once everyone reads about it in an online diary.
Begin vindication:
Last night was a great fun night at the restaurant. I was having a great time with my tables, fooling around, cracking jokes. It was great. I had a table of three — “two guys and a girl. One of the guys came late and I was giving him a hard time about everything for the entire night, including placing the dessert they were all going to share in front of only other two, far away from him. He was laughing and the other two were laughing, too. We were genuinely having a great time and I was genuinely excited to be working with them.
So, when it came time to present the check, I dropped it at their table and walked away. When I came back, I noticed that each person wanted to pay with a separate credit card. I rolled my eyes, made some joke about splitting checks being a hassle, etc. The table was great. We laughed and life was grand.
As I looked down at the check, I noticed someone had written this:
“So much depends upon a red wheelbarrow. Also, what’s your number?”
I figured this was from the guy I was giving such a hard time to. While I was having a great time waiting on him, I wasn’t going to give him my number. I just don’t do that. It’s not right.
So I wrote back: “Like the dessert, No Para Ti!” (Which in Spanish, is totally grammatically incorrect for “not for you.” It should be “nada para ti,” but that’s beside the point.)
I rang through their three credit cards and dropped the checks back off to them. I heard them all laugh at No Para Ti and then they got up and left, calling “Thank you! We had a great time!” And I waved and was really happy.
Until I looked at their receipts.
While two of them, the girl and one guy had left me 20 percent each (which was awesome, thank you — ¬¶), the other guy — “who had asked for my number — “left this cute note where my tip was supposed to be: “no para ti.”
Okay, okay. Ha ha. Big joke.
No. Tips are the way I make money. Instead of being funny, he was messing with my income. He was making a statement that said, “If you don’t give me your number, I won’t give you money.”
You had better believe I told everyone. I told my manager, the owners. I told all the servers and the bartenders. No one could believe what a shitty move that guy had played. All of us understand that tips are our income. If a customer withholds a tip for any reason, he or she should understand that he or she is affecting our income. We all know I’m not waiting tables because I think it’s fun. I do it because I have to do it to get by.
My boss later said that I should have gone back and made a fool out of him. He was making a fool out of me by withholding a tip because I was withholding my phone number. My boss said I should have approached him in front of his friends and called him on his move, thereby embarrassing him.
But why settle for embarrassment in front of just the friends, right? Why not publicize the event online and send another PSA out at the same time? So here goes:
1) Anyone wanting to get a server’s number at any restaurant should know he or she will likely not give it out.
2) If a server does not give out his or her number and you still want it, the best way to get it is not to withhold a tip.
3) If you withhold a tip for as superficial a reason as a phone number, you will most likely end up embarrassed, either at the table in front of friends, or in another forum, like an online diary.
End vindication.
Sept. 30, 2005
My last period class today was horrendous. I felt terrible. I felt mean. I felt like I was doing something wrong. I had to call three parents, send one student out of the room, and pull another out into the hallway to talk about disrespect. My day was not good.
Until Adam came in to say hello.
Adam is a freshman boy who struggles with learning disabilities. But he is one of the sweetest boys here. So calm, so respectful. Very quiet.
After most kids left the building after the bell, Adam walked in and asked me about the homework assignment. I asked to check his assignment book to see how he’d written it down, and he asked if I could write it down for him again because he’d “misplaced” his book.I told him to look a little deeper in his bookbag — “maybe it was stuck down there extra deep.
Lo and behold, out comes the assignment book. I was messing around with my papers, shuffling them around the room and my grade book while Adam wrote down his assignment. We talked briefly about an upcoming project that Adam will be working on — “a collection of original vignettes about his life and himself. And then out of the blue, he says, “I don’t feel very confident about myself. I don’t really have much to tell people about me.”
At this, I stopped shuffling my papers and took a look at him. He kind of looked off to the side and was silent. I said, “Well, Adam, what if I knew you had your insecurities? What if I already knew you felt the way you do? And what if I said I designed this project because I want all students to see themselves as complex, complicated, interesting people with lots of stories to tell? How do you feel about that?” I continued talking about insecurities, telling him that I have plenty of them.
“But Ms. Coggio,” he replied, “no one would ever think you have insecurities! You’re so happy all the time!”
“Oh, Adam. Just because I don’t wear my insecurities doesn’t mean I don’t have them. The trick is knowing how to deal with them when they arise in your mind,” I said.
So I told him that mostly when I feel insecure, I laugh, or I spend time with some close friends. Or go out and “party like a wild child.” When I said this, he laughed and said, “Well, I guess we all have to deal with it in our own ways.”
At that moment, I was holding some of the quizzes his class had taken. I looked down and found his and said, “Here’s your quiz. Do you want me to correct it now?” He responded, “Well, not if you’re too busy — ¬¶” And I got down to work immediately.
He got a 100%.
“Looks like you got an A+, sir,” I responded. “Do you feel pretty good?”
Adam smiled and said, “I guess so. Yeah, pretty much.”
And as I walked over to my desk, he said this:
“Ms. Coggio, on the first day of school this year, you told us that you wanted us to feel good about being in school and you wanted us to feel good about ourselves. And you’re helping me feel good about myself. It’s your spirit. You’re a good person.”
And as he’s speaking, my eyes well up with tears and I want to tell him Thank You for giving me these words on a day when I’m doubting myself. I want to tell him to slow down so I can remember what he’s saying forever. But he continues: “I can tell that these four years we have together are going to change me. I can tell this year is going to be a pretty good year, Ms. Coggio.”