Service!

March 10, 2015 by Ray Morgan

Service!

I went for lunch today in a cafe that I frequent with a friend of mine. She has an 18 month old baby, whom the waitresses coo over regularly, and today when she told them she was pregnant again our waitress was delighted, and started eagerly chatting about the pregnancy. This was right in the middle of a busy lunch hour, with every table full, but she took the time to have a lovely chat. Things like that make you feel incredibly valued as a customer, so when I left I was sure to leave a generous tip in the little jar on the counter.

I recently read Amy Poehler's autobiography Yes Please (buy it!) and I loved that she said the way somebody tips is representative of what they are like as a person in general. I have always been a generous tipper because I always think how flippin' hard people work in jobs such as waitressing. It is hard, physical work, you have to remember loads of stuff off the top of your head, and fairly often, people are douchebags to you.

There must be nothing more depressing than finishing a seemingly endless waitressing or bar shift, with aching legs and swollen ankles, burns from the kitchen, you've sweated off all your make up and - oh look! - there's about 17p tinkling around in the tips jar. I've worked in my partner's cafe during some evenings and weekends and it is HARD.

I can say this because I have an office job, where the biggest physical exertion of my day is walking to make a cup of coffee. I sit down a LOT, I mean seriously: sometimes I have to make myself walk around outside at lunchtime just to stretch out my body like a concertina from sitting to standing. So when I've mucked in for the occasional cafe shift during, say, a vintage fair or music event, it is epically tiring. For someone to put an extra pound from their purse in the little sugar pot is cheering: it means they think you're doing a good job. You wouldn't think twice about tipping after an evening meal so why not when you go for coffee too?

I got a cab other night. I'd had a charming evening out for dinner and the taxi driver had a clean car, didn't play his music too loud and let me and my partner gab away in the back without interrupting us to tell his 'jokes'. So I tipped him and he was incredibly grateful (as though it didn't happen very often). It wasn't a lot - I'm really not very well off (hey maybe this is why) - but it was enough for him to wave us off with a smile on his face and wish us a good night.

Anyway what I'm trying to say is...when you're settling up after a lunch with your pals in a busy cafe, or any similar situation, spare a thought for the lovely people who made it possible. If they're really good, you won't have noticed that they carefully planned for you to all get your drinks at the same time, or remembered your excruciatingly specific Sally Allbright order, or that they put an extra spoon on the side of your saucer for eating up the cream on top of your hot chocolate (or something).

I have no tipping top 5s, amazingly, so here's my top 5 fav things at the moment:

1. Millicano instant coffee at my desk, all day, all day

2. Malteser bunnies. They are like crack to me.

3. Blossom appearing on trees!

4. The promise of bank holidays coming up, finally some time off.

5. House of Cards - but no spoilers please, I'm only on episode five...