Go ahead and get 'tip-sy' !

Once upon a time... some school-days friends and yours truly went to this high-nosed, snob-end restaurant.

For starters, the first beer was served warm. I ignored it as it reluctantly sat on my table. It got annoyed & turned a bit cold on me... thankfully!

The waiter who took our order couldn’t recall who among us was vegetarian, non-vegetarian, or somewhere in-between - a gravy-tarian.

We inadvertently ordered more ‘uppams’ than we could ever eat-ems. He didn’t admonish us or tell us as he wasn’t trained to do so.

For the ender, the Bill finally arrived. It was actually a disguised Bush... and it made a huge deficit in our personal economy.

The “service charge” an euphemism for tips on it, is a trap. As the saying goes, “An innocent and his money are soon parted.”

Tips should be dispensed voluntarily by the king-ish customer, but it was extortion-ingly included in the invoice. That hurt my inner voice as much as it hurt my already diminishing regality :-(

Mustering courage, confidence, and conscience, I still proposed a 5% monetary tip... breaking away from my rather principled life stance of ‘better to reward the deserving, rather than help the needy.’ I would have actually liked to reward this guy with some advice on hospitality instead, which he so deserved. But I also know that waiters are paid less in lieu of the tips they receive.

That 5% was promptly deemed by my very own sons-of-a-batch school friends as either me being global-financial-crises stricken, or me having turned into a miser.

Did I say I know that waiters are paid less in lieu of tips?  

Yes.

The story behind the story:

I had discovered a university within a university.

The first paid job I ever did in my life was that of a part-time waiter.

I got an opportunity to work at a fine-dine restaurant called “Barons” at the University of Houston Hilton Hotel. It usually attracted high net-worth customers — corporate folks or parents of students visiting the university campus. That experience taught me more about business than perhaps any business school could have.

That exposure during my formative years helped me many years later in leading my company. There should be no growing-up without doing a job, no matter how menial or trivial. In strange ways, it unknowingly gives us an experience that benefits us many years later.

One of the key things I learned then was that I had to adjust and accommodate between the customer - the obvious target, the kitchen - the factory, and the bus boys - the support staff who clean and re-set the table once the customer leaves.

How different is it today for anyone at the helm?

At the time, the minimum wage in Houston, Texas was USD 4.35 per hour. But since it was assumed that customers would voluntarily tip servers, they could be paid less. The assumption was that gratuity would compensate for the shortfall.

So, for the job as a waiter, I earned USD 2.01/hr. Compressed between, or rather stretched apart by, the moods and tantrums of the chef (earning USD 9/hr), the bus boys (earning USD 4.35/hr), and the demanding customers - wealth usually brings its conjoined twin, arrogance. 

I used to feel my job wasn’t worth it. Well, it wasn’t, at least not in the beginning. But eventually it grew on me and became enriching.

As a server, I was actually just a messenger between what happens in front of the kitchen door and behind it. And yet I was expected to be the smiling face of the restaurant and maintain customer relationships so that they keep coming back. At first I thought it would be easy. Then I thought it was unfair. But much later, I realized how heavy that responsibility was, and that it was actually a fantastic opportunity.

I must explain that as a postman of sorts, a waiter often gets undeserved beatings from customers. The insipid cuisine created by the chef, or a missing fork by the careless bus boy, was not the waiter’s fault. But it was nevertheless always vented on him or her. A waiter has no authority, read luxury, to explain whose fault it is. He or she is simply expected to resolve the issue with a smile and a sorry to the customer.

‘Customer is the king’ was an axiom there. It was always perceived as the waiter’s fault. So as the visible face of the organization, I was expected to mollify the mood of His or Her Highness.

With the requirement to handle hard cash and credit card transactions, I was expected to be even more responsible than the chef or bus boy.

When the pressure was too much, I was expected to assist the chef by fetching condiments from the back-room shelf or even slicing lemons, etc.

Then, on selected days, I was to be a backup for usher-cum-cashier i.e., when the assigned person (earning USD 12.00/hr) had to suddenly rush to the restroom to fix his necktie, or take a small break to quickly comb his hair, just so that he or she looked impeccably presentable.

To add insult to injury, I even had to clean up if some kid knocked over daddy’s precious beer mug. I slowly learned to do that while smiling at the child’s mom, just to reassure the lady that the apple of her eye was still as adorable.

To add injury to insult, at times I was also expected to assist the bus boy, technically my junior in status and my assistant in clearing or joining tables if a huge party of unexpected guests showed up. Ouch!

And don’t forget, for all this I got paid a measly USD 2.01, i.e., below minimum wage, but still legal for waiters in the US, because waiters were expected, not guaranteed, to get tips. Frankly, that expectation may come from the government, but I knew that in the real world, I somehow had to ‘win’ the tips and earn my bread, even as I served it.

Not knowing the daily take-home, but keeping that challenge of somehow winning-the-tips in mind, I kept the job.

After about a year-plus of service, I slowly learned to move away from bearing the burden with a grin, to serving with a genuine smile. Some days I made just a little over USD 2.01/hr, and some days even USD 10/hr. But on most days, I called it a victory at USD 6.0.

Since the law of diminishing returns strikes fast with fast money, slowly even the tip factor began to diminish. I then ‘evolved’ to love my job, because it gave me an opportunity to be in my own element. Each new customer was a chance to meet a new person - be they good, bad, ugly, or mad. The everyday suspense and surprises in the earnings, and the learnings from ‘my’ customers, were a given.

I began to feel lucky. Each customer who came in meant more work for the chef and the bus boy. For me, it was a chance to serve, learn, and earn.

So I learned that good days and bad days are only in the mind, and shouldn’t be the only thing that determines the fate of my mood. Asserting mental stability in the face of various vagaries of life was important. It meant I had to engage with all three entities - the chef, the bus boy, and the customer. No matter which side of the kitchen door you’re on, status or hierarchy don’t count much. What counts is that they all should like you and smile back at you. Sure, any job can be tough or mundane, but why not make it challenging and interesting!

The tips eventually became a by-product, just one of the many reassuring indicators on my control panel.

The chef feeling ‘my’ pressure each time a customer was in a hurry, every bus boy wanting to be assigned to work ‘under’ me, and regular customers asking the usher to seat them in the section allocated to me; that was far more rewarding.

Some customers even shared an experience, a personal tragedy, an incident, or a joke with the ‘small’ person, a mere waiter. I was sometimes touched by what they shared, and sometimes I know I touched them. Dignity of labor does go a long way.

I realized through experience that people with high status are also emotional humans. And so am I. So we can connect, irrespective.

To rule the world, one must serve it!

Yes, go ahead and get ‘tip-sy’ i.e., don’t forget to tip those waiters, for they too give us tips, even as they serve!