Separate transactions

This letter is in response to the recent spate of letters concerning the rudeness of some of the wait staff in restaurants in Maine, who ask, “Do you need change?” when the customer hands them what obviously is an amount greater than the cost of the meal.

Combining the payment of the meal with the receiving of the tip amounts to no more than a sly way of “guilting” the customer into paying a larger tip than they would have otherwise. I, for one, will continue to view these as two separate transactions – paying the bill will be taken care of first and only then will I leave the appropriate tip.

“Do you need change?” actually means, “Can I keep the change as my tip?” and amounts to begging.

Ross J. Mavor’s letter to the editor stated that he needed to “educate” we who do not understand the restaurant industry. I think we all understand that restaurants don’t want to pay their employees a fair wage. He states that he spends an hour with each customer and that amounts to $7.50 an hour. As everyone knows, a server always waits on more than one table at a time, so in reality Mavor is waiting on several tables simultaneously and presumably getting a tip from each table he waits on providing his service is up to speed.

I constantly hear waiters and waitresses bragging about how much money they make. Good thing customers are so generous. The bottom line is that, as Penelope Stevens stated in her letter of April 16, the practice of asking for tips is “avaricious” and “rude.” Whatever happened to “have it your way” and “the customer is always right”?

If the customer doesn’t like being asked if they need change then the wait staff should simply stop asking that. It’s not a difficult request. Either that or maybe they should ask the question as they really mean it and say, “Can I keep all your change as my tip?” I, for one, will do exactly as Stevens does and withhold the tip entirely if I get asked if I need change.

Richard Blake

Bangor