Bad waitress tricks

We went out to dinner tonight to a local place. When it came time to pay, I needed the waitress to make change so I could tip her. She came back with a five and a ten, and muttered something about "sorry, no change." Grrr. Five bucks was less than 15 percent, but even though she wasn't a spectacular waitress, I didn't want to leave that little. We go to this place often, and we've had this waitress before. But the full $10 was more than 20 percent and that bugged me. Half of me was thinking she was just a little too dumb to understand that I needed the singles for the tip, but the other half of me was thinking that she was pushing me to make the choice between the $5 and the $10 and figuring she'd get the better tip.

Considering I specifically asked her to make change, I was more annoyed than when a server has come back with just big bills. The smart ones will usually break at least one of the bills down so you've got a ten, a five, and singles instead of a twenty, but sometimes they just come back with the change in whatever form is easiest. But I don't think I've ever asked someone to make change and had them say there was none.

I did some waitressing when I was a teenager, and one of the things I learned early was that you made sure the customer had good change to leave a tip.

In this case, DH went to the cash register and got change. Didn't seem to be a shortage there. Next time we go there, I'll make sure I've got the right change for tipping.

-- Donna