My sister was a server for over 20 years, and Sundays are consistently the worst day of the week to work. Yes the crowds are greater, but this does not automatically mean poor services. This is when she had the most men, in the presence of wives and children, flirt and make lude comments or even get touchy feely, this is when customers left without paying, this is when the most road rage occurs in the parking lot, this is when servers get yelled at the most, and they witness more mistreatment of children and spouses than they can count.
Based on my sister’s experience, and her open nature to all people, I would say there is little bias going on. Based on my own experience working in Fast Food, I can attest that Sundays were just awful in general. And sadly it was the day that one could be assured of some pretty nasty behavior from those obviously dressed for Church.I guess I can see both sides here. I’ve never worked in the hospitality industry, but a couple of my kids and a dozen of my grandkids have done so through college, and they all seem to harbor the same opinions about Sundays. I don’t think one can so quickly dismiss this as a decrease in service quality due to increased volume since Sundays were never any of their busiest shifts (Friday evenings and Saturdays at any time were consistently more busy and they’d usually pull in a higher tip percentage at the end of their shift). I’ve also been told horror stories similar to these, where a prayer card or Bible tract is given in lieu of a tip! That’s just unacceptable! Then again, my kids and grandkids would hardly ever work Sundays since our religion frowns on it so their experiences might be too few to draw a generalized conclusion from.
Part of me wonders how much of this is selection bias too. You’re more likely to remember the crabby, rude, insulting, poor tippers than you are to remember the kind, sensitive, grateful ones. I bet there have been many “Church Folk” who eat at restaurants on Sundays but because they are quite gracious aren’t the types to wear their religion on their sleeves. If such people are kind and tip 20%+ but never once mention their religion, don’t leave religious tracts as a gratuity, or say anything else indicating that they just left church wouldn’t the waiter more than likely just assume those customers were not “Church Folk”?
My youngest grandson is in college right now and works as a host/server part time in a part of town with a relatively high population of gays. He constantly complains about having to serve gay men as (according to him) they always try to flirt, get too touchy, have ridiculously complicated and picky orders, are loud and campy, bother other patrons, etc. This is of course a stereotype of gay men which I’m sure isn’t characteristic of all gay men. I’ve asked him the same thing: “Except for wearing a name tag that said ‘I’m a gay man’, and assuming a male patron of yours did not do any of those things, how would you even know he’s a gay patron?”
It’s also human nature to stereotype people and subconsciously alter our behavior towards them based on these stereotypes, which I’m sure also plays a role in all of this. How many “good” patrons who just so happened to get out of church are treated poorly by servers from the get go because the server already expected them to be no different than the “other Church Folk”? We already know this happens with restaurant patrons of particular ethnicities and races. I’ve observed first hand how some of my Black colleagues are treated in restaurants compared to how I am as a White man. I’ve actually overheard a waiter once after being stiffed by Black patrons mention to his coworker “yeah, well I wasn’t expecting much from those people anyway. That’s why I didn’t pay much attention to them.”
The moral of this story is very important for all Christians though: you should always be on your best behavior as you’re representing Christ himself.
I can only speak of my sister, but when she was able to work she was known as one of the best waitresses out there, and in every state of city she lived in. Regardless of were she worked or lived Sunday’s always turned out to be horrible.
Obviously you’ve never found a chick tract left as a tip on the table, or been told when delivering pizza to a mega Evangelical church “here’s a tip, lose the beads” referring to the rosary on the rear view mirror of the restaurants delivery truck. I have to say though in my experience the absolute worst tippers ever were car salesmen. I waited tables on them and delivered pizza to them and they always under tipped if they tipped at all.
Sundays are filled with gracious people, those who tip 20%, those who smile and treat you respectfully and personally, and those who see you being run ragged by the other kind and offer you words of sympathy . Sometimes the gracious one even “pity tip” you to give a lift after a particularly nasty bunch, this can happen on any day of the week but Sunday morning if the “pity tippers” are dressed up I’ve always assumed they are church folk. None of the people on the linked site are saying all Christians are like this and there is no reason to assume that the accounts of specific customers and incidents are fanciful tales or experiences they brought upon themselves.
And if you don’t feel like being considerate (I’ll forgive you and yours if you’re not on your best behavior), don’t advertise your Christian affiliation.
Why shouldn’t they post comments about bad customers on line, it’s not like they are giving any personal information. Where is the "Mr. Sfacab did this to me at the Eper in Bumbledier IA? What to the owners of restaurants have to say that out weighs the experience of the employees, why should the owners opinion of the waitstaff’s experience carry any weight?
The owner’s opinion is important because it is his business, his investment. In my experience ( admittedly in other industrues) people are usually not the problem, but process usually is. As you pointed out yourself above, a bad cook can make the waiter look bad. When businesses want to limit themselves to the “right kind” of customer it usually means they are not flexible enough to deal with the customers they have. Note the number if posters who mention children - who are never as easy as adults. The question waiters and restaurant owners should be asking is what steps can they take to mitigate what they perceive as a difficult time by making it better for the customer. Telling the customer to " be patient" is profoundly foolish. Posting conplaintts on a web site may make you feel better but doesn’t fix anything.
I never understood the American focus on tipping until I discovered that most (all?) waiters/waitresses are exempt from minimum wage legislation, and that it’s assumed that they’ll make a certain amount of money from tips. Is this really the case?
Every restaurant owner I’ve ever worked for was well aware of the type of customer described by many of the people on the site, they were also empathetic to the staff having had their own experiences with the public. Just as every employee was aware that the customer was going to be placated and to all appearances the employee would be thrown under the bus so the customer could feel they came out on top.
Partially, they are not exempt from minimum wage requirements, they just have a different minimum wage structure and part of that structure is tips so yes tips are assumed to cover the minimum wage.
I always thought that was bizarre myself.When I was a fundy years ago I found it quite amusing that the same preachers who would rail against “working on the Lord’s day” were the first ones in line at the local Chinese buffet when the service was over. Being served by people who were…working on Sunday.
To your question about industries in which I have customer service experience: residential home building, real estate, and automotive dealerships – just to name a few. The first has a good deal more service involved than people might realize at first glance. I admit, I never worked in a customer-facing capacity in a restaurant (I did dish wash occasionally in high school); and like everyone else I eat in restaurants from time to time. I guess that puts me in the minority, judging from all the ex-waiter posters.
It is quite obvious from your ugly assumptions about the employees in the service sector that you haven’t spent any time working in restaurants or retail sales. Why do you assume that these people don’t want to and actually do solve the problem. Why do you assume that they don’t work to create happy customers? Frankly I never worked with people who came in moaning in anticipation of jerky customers, moaning about work in general sure. But they hated their job everyday all the time, I’ve seen the same attitude from warehouse and office workers and customers who told me their own tales of woe from work.