There is only one time that I've ever left without dropping a tip. Many times I wanted to, but this is the only time I actually did it because we felt the service was so bad that it was deserved.
We were at LAX airport waiting for a flight out to come back home and decided to stop at a restaurant for a bite to eat before getting on the plane. It seemed a little upscale, but not "suit and tie" upscale. More like a privately owned chain style place like Olive Garden or Outback. There were people much better dressed than we were, as we were in comfortable flying clothing rather than suits since it was a 12 hour flight, and hell, if a Best Buy exec isn't too good to fly in comfortable clothing (See: Man Denied First Class Seat on United on news sites Nov 09), neither am I.
Anyway, we were seated and ordered our drinks, which took forever to arrive, and then took our order, which also took forever. We're talking about 40 minutes total of wait time just to get food and drink. Meanwhile, did the waiter, who was very snooty to begin with, come to see about refills? Nope. Did he come to see how our food was? Nope. He wouldn't even look at us when he passed us several times as we tried to wave him down.
When he brought us the bill, we gladly paid and left no tip, and left.
Here is where things get out of hand. You'd think it would be over and that was that, but as this is CS.com, you know that's not the case. We went to the bathrooms down the hallway and who other than our lowly waiter comes looking for us screaming "YOU! YOU! WHERE MY TIP?! YOU LEFT NO TIP!!!" while clutching on to our receipt. I explained to him that his service was not deserving of a tip, that he never came to see how we were doing, didn't ask to refill our drinks, pretty much ignored us every time he would pass us, and that a tip is not MANDATORY, it's something that is earned for your service of doing a good job. He then went off on how we're stupid Americans and that he came to this country to provide his family with a better life and how we're bad people... the normal "I'm stuck in a situation where I'm wrong so I will play the race card". Oh, he was of middle eastern descent. A fact of which wouldn't even be an issue had he not tried to play said race card with us as a persons race is of no issue to me. We all bleed red.
I had enough at this point and was pissed that someone had the nerve to come after us for a tip after such shoddy service. I marched myself back up to the restaurant and demanded the manager. After explaining the situation to him, he said he would deal with him and that was that. At that point, I didn't care, but I felt insulted and the need to inform the manager of his workers less than kosher attitude and actions. Had this person been working for me, I'd have fired his ass publicly for such a performance as insulting a customer in front of everyone.
Needless to say, we've not been back to that restaurant since.
We were at LAX airport waiting for a flight out to come back home and decided to stop at a restaurant for a bite to eat before getting on the plane. It seemed a little upscale, but not "suit and tie" upscale. More like a privately owned chain style place like Olive Garden or Outback. There were people much better dressed than we were, as we were in comfortable flying clothing rather than suits since it was a 12 hour flight, and hell, if a Best Buy exec isn't too good to fly in comfortable clothing (See: Man Denied First Class Seat on United on news sites Nov 09), neither am I.
Anyway, we were seated and ordered our drinks, which took forever to arrive, and then took our order, which also took forever. We're talking about 40 minutes total of wait time just to get food and drink. Meanwhile, did the waiter, who was very snooty to begin with, come to see about refills? Nope. Did he come to see how our food was? Nope. He wouldn't even look at us when he passed us several times as we tried to wave him down.
When he brought us the bill, we gladly paid and left no tip, and left.
Here is where things get out of hand. You'd think it would be over and that was that, but as this is CS.com, you know that's not the case. We went to the bathrooms down the hallway and who other than our lowly waiter comes looking for us screaming "YOU! YOU! WHERE MY TIP?! YOU LEFT NO TIP!!!" while clutching on to our receipt. I explained to him that his service was not deserving of a tip, that he never came to see how we were doing, didn't ask to refill our drinks, pretty much ignored us every time he would pass us, and that a tip is not MANDATORY, it's something that is earned for your service of doing a good job. He then went off on how we're stupid Americans and that he came to this country to provide his family with a better life and how we're bad people... the normal "I'm stuck in a situation where I'm wrong so I will play the race card". Oh, he was of middle eastern descent. A fact of which wouldn't even be an issue had he not tried to play said race card with us as a persons race is of no issue to me. We all bleed red.
I had enough at this point and was pissed that someone had the nerve to come after us for a tip after such shoddy service. I marched myself back up to the restaurant and demanded the manager. After explaining the situation to him, he said he would deal with him and that was that. At that point, I didn't care, but I felt insulted and the need to inform the manager of his workers less than kosher attitude and actions. Had this person been working for me, I'd have fired his ass publicly for such a performance as insulting a customer in front of everyone.
Needless to say, we've not been back to that restaurant since.
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