Surprisingly, unlike the clip above I am FOR tipping. My problem with tipping however is that there is no way to accurately judge a waitress/waiters performance other than the tip itself. Certainly if someone does a horrible job you can refuse to tip them but that just makes you/I look like a cheap insensitive clod. In addition, the sensitive souls among us will harbor guilt for having to withhold money that someone else may rely on. If the waitress messes up and you/I remove a dollar from the tip, they again will just think us cheap. Should we give an extra dollar for great service they might deduce that our math skills are poor or decide that we just didn't want to lug 93 cents in change home with us.
More importantly though tipping (In North American culture) is essentially built into the dining out experience. The fatal flaw with the entire tipping construct is that there is no clear way to communicate good/bad service so that a server knows when he or she is being rewarded/punished accordingly. Certainly one could write on the bill: "terrible service, I hope you choke on a bread stick and die." But you'd probably just get categorized as a "Drunk unruly customer who is no longer allowed at any Olive Garden in the state of California." This in my mind defeats the entire purpose of gratuity because there is no way to decipher gratitude (or the lack of it) through any concrete means.
So I thought on this problem (as all geniuses do) and I came up with a solution...The server scorecard. The principle of the server scorecard is simple. Calculate what the average tip is in your area. In the state of California it is about 17%. Next compose a list of 17 things that you expect from a server at a restaurant. For each task that your server does not perform or performs poorly deduct one point (or 1%) from their tip. In addition, you can also add a bonus section for those servers that go above and beyond the call of duty to earn additional gratuity. If you are too lazy or lack creativity like me then simply round up to 18% and make up 9 things worth 2 points each.
In the interest of science I went out to dinner and took some notes to get a better idea of what the public at large might expect from a server. Below I will present some talking points that you might want to include in your own list.
1)Attitude
A server should proceed on the assumption that you/I have come to their establishment to celebrate a special occasion. I don't require an entire brass section of trumpeters to announce my arrival or an overly exuberant waitress gleaming at me with her jackal-like fangs. A modest recognition of my presence without a long exhausted sigh or a drag ass walk to my table will suit me just fine.
2)Order Taking
Arriving within the first five minutes of me being seated to take a drink order is not a sin. Secondly, we are not BFF's so please reserve your jocular tone for a little later in our dining experience. Also, please stand to take my order. I'm not a child, you don't have to squat down to my level and help me to point to the picture of the food that I am ordering. In addition, No sitters. Unless you are picking up part of the tab or buying us a round of adult beverages the empty seat at our table is not reserved for you. Please write down my order. The memorization magic trick impressions no one. If a trick has a 100% who gives a s*%t response when it works and a 100% complaint response when it fails why bother?
3)Serving Food
Remember, serving me food/drink is your number one job. Because of this please take special care not to serve me someone else's food from another table and likewise please do not serve my food to someone else. However, mistakes do occur and I won't judge you harshly if you correct the mistake and/or are apologetic about it.
4)Attentiveness/Pestering
Every once in a while when I am gobbling down a juice splatterin' bacon burger I might need a napkin or two to sop up my zombie like meat crazed face. Also, why bother asking me if I want a refill if I'm drinking soda? Fill the glass. Worst case scenario you have to dump 6 cents worth of coke zero down the drain. Also, I'm aware that I just ate a gigantic meal fit for two people but perhaps I'd also like to cram four pounds of molten lava cake down my gullet as well. It doesn't hurt to ask if I'd like dessert considering that a portion of every dollar I spend goes to you.
On the flip side dining out with friends or family often serves to motivate important conversations. Should you (the server) witness that someone at the table is visibly upset an/or in the midst of a misogynistic tirade perhaps you could do another lap around the restaurant before inquiring about about the jalapeno poppers.
5)The Check
Don't bring it too soon (like when I'm halfway through eating). I know you'll say "Don't feel rushed" but that's like saying "Don't notice the polar bear behind you that's about to tear into your trachea." Once the image (or fear) has been implanted I feel rushed. More importantly once you do drop off the check don't disappear for an hour. Further, please don't take my money/card and keep it for so long that I think you are across the street filling up your gas tank with it. Our final exchange is the most important one because the last thing that you do is the last (and sometimes only) thing that I remember. Poor change service could sully an otherwise great waiting performance. I know I don't speak for the rest of the world but once I'm done eating I'm ready to leave and the quicker that someone can facilitate my leaving the greater the gratuity.
But enough of my belly aching. Please take the template which I will provide below (pending the link works) and go out into the world and rate some waitresses and waiters.
I'm tired of living in a world where I have to pretend that everyone is an exception to the rule. Governments have developed algorithms in order to extract the greatest number of tax dollars from their citizens and insurance companies have devised ways to pay out the lowest amount of money to their policy holders. The reason they have been able to do this is because people as a whole are predictably similar. If every individual was a random, chaotic snowflake things like laws, money and civilization could not exist. There is a reason that there is an Applebee's and Walmart in every town in North America.
As our population nears 7 billion the human desire to be seen as an individual continues to permeate our collective being in spite of living our lives in the exact same way that millions of other people do on a daily basis. The conflict with our inflated sense of self worth is that we all think that we have a unique and correct perspective on every situation that we encounter. Reality check! even if this blog is 1 in a million that still means that there are potentially 7000 blogs just like mine at this exact moment (if my math is correct). Perhaps a few of us embody a rare variation on a common theme but even those people are few and far between. In every generation there may exist a handful of exceptional people but the rest of us are just a continuous line of asses with the sole purpose of keeping the seats of public toilets warm.
Another truth I need you accept is that most of us are idiots. Recognizing this fact does not exclude me from the group. Along with our obscured sense of specialness we also possess an inaccurate idea of our own intelligence. The tragic joke is that our brains are limited to only what they know, and you can't ever know what you don't know until you know you didn't know it. Should we on the rare occasion ever concede that someone has greater ability in one area of expertise we will go out of our way to create a new (fake) area of expertise and elevate ourselves to the height of genius in that (fake) field.
Intelligence it would seem is comparable to vanity. Not every individual is born with the genetics, discipline or money to have a fit body but no one wants to admit that they are less attractive than the rest of the species. In the same way some people are simply not born with a capacity for understanding anything in depth but they/you/me refuse to admit to their mental inferiority. Yet, we will all watch Micheal Jordan slam dunk a basketball and marvel at his brilliance. We are quick to admit to deficiencies where athletics are concerned because our lack of ability is clearly evident. 99% of five foot 2 white guys can't dunk a basketball and because of this undeniable truth they must concede that they are inferior ballers.
TO THE POINT ALREADY!!!
Art is subjective...not really. I get it, art isn't science and therefore cannot be accurately defined to a tenth of a tenth of a decimal place. I am aware that one person cannot predict how another person is going to receive and interpret a piece of art. It is within this little pocket of ambiguity that the vapid morons, rhythmically challenged foot tappers and childish scribblers reside. The argument is that as long as I like it then it is art but that is not necessarily true. If you/me/they like it then it can be considered entertainment. To be considered art, the work needs to be something much greater.
Art is comprised of two sections: 1) form and 2) content. Form covers the materials and skills used to create the art and the content is the portrayed/inferred meaning of the art. Work that is created without advanced skill is going to be flawed in design thus the form will be bad. Bad form can be compensated for and overcome by those of us who have intense drive and perspective. But, these few are the exception to the rule. As I referenced earlier we tend to grasp tightly to these exceptions to the rule in an attempt to elevate the crap that we listen to and look at to an undeserved level of greatness.
Let us examine the works of Taylor Swift to make a point. While Miss Swift might be a great "entertainer" she is a terrible artist. Her form: guitar playing is basic and often out of rhythm. Her singing voice is weak and often flat or off key. Her lyrical content is neither groundbreaking nor is it well crafted (from a creative writing perspective). What remains then is uninspired drivel that has no artistic significance. I don't care if Koko the signing gorilla took up finger painting and sold a few prints at Sotheby's. 99.9% of ape artwork is crap simply because apes can rarely tell the difference between smearing their shit on a wall or painting on canvas. We might be able to infer some unintended meaning from Koko's painting or glean an ironic message from a taylor swift lyric but generally speaking what they churn out is predominantly disposable.
In all other areas of life we make judgments based upon information. We don't elect to get surgery from a doctor who looks hot in their lab coat and custom Converse shoes. Conversely, we don't rustle up a local crack head and ask him for advice on what stocks to buy. We don't do this because we want a qualified specialist tinkering with our organs and we want a qualified specialist with a history of financial success tinkering with our money. Following this example do we have to regard every 17 year old kid from the suburbs with generic life experiences and a guitar an artist?
Why then would people be so cavalier with their choice of art? Because, most people don't really care about the art that goes into their bodies. We as a species spend hours picking out the food we eat and the cars and clothes we buy. Yet, we expect art to impress upon our eyes and ears as we casually float through the world and should it move us is the particular way that we like to be moved then we will call it art. The odd thing about our "art" is even though many of us are casual with our selection process we become fiercely defensive should someone call our taste of art into question. Why are many of us afraid to admit that we have little to no interest in artistic expression? Why is it so difficult for people to say that they simply like to party and because of this fact Radiohead rarely gets shuffled onto their Ipod? Why are we so resistant to admitting that in whole or in part our taste in art is poor? Because one time someone said that art is subjective and every no talent ass clown in the world got behind the excuse to veil their inability to discern what is meaningful and valid.
I fear setting standards. The problem with standards is that people expect you to be consistent. Even if you don't plan it, if you do something long enough eventually a theme begins to develop. After awhile you become that guy who does that thing. Or, if you are horribly untalented then you become that guy who does that thing terribly on a regular basis.
If there is one thing I am not in life, it is consistent. Scholastically I have either done really well at the beginning of a semester and then abysmally by the end or I start off poorly and I am barely able to eek it out. As far as work or labor is concerned I have always done best when I have had an assigned task that I can complete and once the task is over, I take a break. An egotistical person would spit shine that admission and say that they have an all or nothing personality but a realistic person would say that they find it excruciatingly difficult to maintain an average.
So I've got a couple months blogging under my belt and I've already started falling into a niche. Originally I planned on writing a blog with an even mixture of "intelligent" ideas combined with semi humorous musings. I aspired to be some kind of textual George Carlin making you smile while I drove home some important uncovered truth about humanity. Now I find myself writing a lot of "this sucks and here's why" articles because I think that it is what people want to read. Don't get me wrong I don't feel as if I am manufacturing a product in order to win fans. I do think however that my initial flow has been stunted or altered by a perceived desire to entertain others better. As it turns out, I am a whore for attention and recognition first and a person of morals and integrity second.
This may not be a bad thing. If I was at home cooking for myself chances are that I'd just slather about 6 slices of bread with peanut butter and scarf them down. However, if I was cooking for someone else I'd go to greater lengths to make something that is tasty that required effort. Superimposing that example onto my blog, the nagging voice in the back of my head that says "people are watching" probably does make me pay more attention and try to make what I say more fluid and easier to relate to.
The only foreseeable problem that I alluded to earlier is that I self edit and shy away from topics that I may otherwise have written about freely. How can I be sure that the great majority of people are in on the joke? How do I still be edgy without being offensive? Ultimately we all believe that we should write for ourselves first and our audience second but I wonder about that. It seems to me that every band that makes it big doesn't do so until they write the one album that sounds conventional or mainstream. Or if the band starts out mainstream and then grow experimental then they lose most of their fan base. As much as I like to think I am typing out most of this crap because it is therapeutic, in reality I do want to be recognized and showered with praise and large sums of cash.
