Tip-Out Rundown

Lunch shift today. It’s a 30 minute drive to the restaurant. I usually down a cup of coffee, read the news on the net (or the paper if it’s Thurs or Fri), and head off. I don’t mind the drive time. Traffic has been excellent the last couple years – 80 mph the whole way. I spend the time thinking about the day to come, somewhat meditating, listening to the iPod. It’s actually relaxing.

Slow day. Just two tables for me. Walked with $42.

“Walk with” is the operable phrase for servers. It indicates what you had in your pocket in tips at the end of the day, after tipping out. Tip-outs vary everywhere. I’ve worked places where you tipped five (!) people (busser, bartender, cooks, hostess, pantry/salad guy). Additionally, some places you tip a wine captain, maitre’d, manager (illegal but that doesn’t stop them), banquet coordinator, even the corporation (I’ll tell you about that another time).

Michael’s, my lunch job, has a small tip out for lunch, large for dinner. At lunch we only tip 10% to the busser, 5% to the bar.

One irritation more serious servers have is the neophyte (or maybe he’s just an idiot) who, when you ask how much he made, tells you, “Two hundred twenty dollars.”

“Wow! After tipping out?”

“Oh. No. After tip-out I made $170.”

Who cares how much you made before tipping out? All that matters is how much you have at the end. If you’re going to look at it that way, you might as well include all the cash checks you banked. Then you could say, “I had $750 bucks in my pocket tonight before I cashed out.”

Big deal.

Got a bad tip on one table. Four people, they ordered pretty solid and the check was $236. The guy tipped $34.

It depends on the restaurant, and perhaps the part of the country, but around here, in fine dining, we expect 20% when things go well. And we’re thrilled to get it. I’d say I get 20% on about half my tables, 15% is about one in seven, with the rest falling at 17-18%. Yes, you do get 10%’ed or worse, but that probably only happens about once a week or less.

The other table was pleasant and uneventful. Though it was a little interesting to hear the guy say he didn’t want to have more than one glass of wine because he had to go back and teach. I assume he taught college, as prep school hours would be over by the time he got out of there and back to the school. Nevertheless, after his glass of Zinfandel, he finished off the meal with a cognac. He’s probably a fun professor.

The drive home takes 10-15 minutes longer. And, still, I mostly enjoy it, despite the heavier traffic. After working five or so hours, it’s nice to decompress and let your mind and body relax.

Did some shopping on the way home. Bought a micro-fiber miracle cloth for polishing the fancy red wine glasses at both jobs. You should get some for yourself if you have decent glasses. They just wipe out spots without no effort at all, leaving zero lint. I also bought a pedometer. I’ve been wondering my whole career how many miles I log walking at my job. Now I’ll know.

The Waiter’s Weekend

Everybody’s heard the phrase, “This is my Friday.” A waiter’s Friday is usually Saturday or Sunday. The quintessential waiter weekend day is Monday. That’s why enterprising restaurants have “Industry Night” on Mondays, sometimes Tuesdays. Industry nights typically (around here at least) 50% off for employees of any restaurant – just bring your pay stub. Sometimes the deals involve drinks and a late-night happy hour.

In a lot of respects, Mondays are a pretty crappy day to have a weekend. For the rest of the world, Monday is viewed as a great opportunity to close up shop on the slowest day of the week. It’s a little like roaming a ghost town when you’re out and about on a Monday, expecting to get stuff done, or simply have fun. If places aren’t closed entirely, hours are often shortened. It’s a regular occurrence to be stymied in an errand or two and dinner plans when I’m trying to do stuff on Monday.

Also, your ‘regular job’ friends are out of your loop and you’re out of theirs. Whenever I want to do something, I plan it for Monday-Tuesday – they’re working and have to get up early. When they plan something, it’s Friday-Sunday – I’m working.

On the other hand, never being available weekend nights is an incredible money-saver. When I was younger, especially, my friends used to do a lot of partying, going to clubs in L.A. and such. They’d spend a couple hundred a night just drinking and eating Taco Bell when they struck out. I’ve probably saved $50,000 by not going out on weekends.

And that ghost town vibe can also be pretty cool. Traffic is light. If you do find an open restaurant, there’s plenty of free tables; you get great service (usually) because it’s not too busy. If a regular weekend day is mellow, it’s waaay more mellow to have it on Monday.

So today I slept in till noon (I was up till about 3:30 last night fussing on the computer and playing guitar). I paid a bill at the bank, went to Starbuck’s and read the paper while listening to John Prine and Jeff Beck, respectively, on the iPod.

Home again, more aimless fiddling on the computer with email and fave blogs to read. Checking my Fantasy Basketball teams to make sure the lineups are straight before tomorrow’s season openers. Changed strings (finally!) on acoustic guitar, sang a Bob Dylan song to the now shimmering sound. Finally settled down and wrote more outline revisions on the script for over an hour. And now here we are.

Later I’ll probably shake up a martini and dick around more on the computer. I have Forgetting Sarah Marshall on DVD, so I might watch that. Last potential activity: using some ‘trade-out’ gift certificates I have for a local restaurant. (Trade-outs are when one restaurant owner/manager trades certificates with another, typically to give away to employees as ‘thank you’s’ or as sales contest prizes.)

Don’t worry. This will get entertaining soon. What do you expect, anyway? It was a day off. How am I supposed to get new stories away from the restaurant?