Ted Hallett is a very gifted actor, improviser, teacher, and all around terrific person. I credit his 101 class for reinvigorating my love of improv, and his emphatic teaching style for causing me to take it seriously. Here is his ITC bio: http://www.impatient.ca/people/ted-hallett/
For most actors, the restaurant industry is a common job to pay the rent and bills. From server to line cook, bartender to dishwasher, I’ve worked it all. Depending on what restaurant you work in, It’s a job where you can hustle your ass off for tax-free cash, then drop it at a moment’s notice for that Canadian Tire commercial you booked. The job has a very high employee turnover rate for a reason….it eats your soul.
- Name tags are not cool. As a server, you should have the choice to remain anonymous.
- Never. Never. Never. Have the soup.
- If a customer requests to pack up his left-over calamari, be fucking sure that the waiter has popped a few in his mouth.
- At some point, EVERYONE is an asshole.
- It’s true, black people LOVE chicken wings.
- Waiters have to tip out 4 to 5 percent of what they sell. If you stiff the guy at the end, you literally cost them money to serve you. If you can’t afford to tip, you have no business dining out in a restaurant. Stay the fuck home.
- Only douchebags smell the cork!
- If you’re mean to the waiter, they WILL fuck with your food.
- Smiles are NOT free.
- If you are relatively good-looking and a customer thinks they can have sex with you , you will make more money. If you’re ugly, you had better be funny and charming. Even with those qualities, ya got your work cut out for ya.
Love this!! Hilarious!
Can we all agree that servers deserve to be paid a fair wage? That’s reasonable…right?
That goes without saying. Something needs to be done about the service industry. It’s not the real world in comparison to the rest of Canada. It’s generally a place where staff are treated as chattel with high turnover, no one cares about your experience, skills or worth as an individual and where if one is in a bad mood due to something else in their life it’s accepted practice to take it out on someone who is not involved (this is true of customers and employees). In addition it is a place where women are not treated equal and have… Read more »
Agreed. I’m really glad I read this post and the comments, I feel like I have a much better understanding of the topics covered.
I’d actually never heard of “tipping out” until I read this post yesterday, and didn’t understand It until looking it up just now, so I finally get why this is such a hot-button topic (sorry, I shouldn’t talk unless I know what people are talking about). That’s really absurd. Minimum wage should be minimum wage, period. I always assumed the tip was just a thank-you gesture that always went directly to the server. Maybe there are others like me who just don’t understand how it works? I’m sure if more people knew, tips would be bigger.
P.s. “finding a job that will (pay your rent)” is made harder when other people in the workforce are willing to work for less than minimum wage. Jus’ sayin…
Re: Newman’s #6, You disagree with Ted’s assertion? Are you asserting that customers shouldnt’ have to pay full tip?You can’t just disagree because you had a serving job that happened to work out for you. Ted is speaking from his experience, which I have found to speak for the majority of servers I’ve met. By essentially saying “Oh I worked for only tip and could still pay my rent,” you are implying that the onus is on the server t0 grin and bear it and hope (just HOPE) that the customer is satisfied enough with the groveling and/or flirting to… Read more »
Yes, I totally disagree with the assertion that if someone can’t afford the tip they shouldn’t dine out. The onus shouldn’t be on the customer to determine the wage of service staff. Unfortunately, restaurant/bar/club owners have capitalized on the idea of outsourcing manpower costs to their customers in such a way that now every customer is also a manager who determines an employee’s wage. If there is a required tip-out of 4-5% of each individual bill by the employee, it’s not the customer’s fault, but the employer’s. It is absurd to blame the customer who is unlikely to know this.… Read more »
couldn’t agree more!
Oh, I know, and I didn’t mean what I wrote in an argumentative way, or to dismiss his experiences. I just thought it was an interesting list, figured I might as well chime in. I used to never go to restaurants, because I found the social interaction kind of terrifying; I couldn’t stop worrying that I was somehow being impolite to the server, or not observing proper restaurant etiquette. I only really started eating out a few years ago, and I still feel awkward ordering food. So, I find it an interesting subject.
5. Perhaps, but who doesn’t?
10. Maybe this is just me, but: I usually do my best to tip generously, unless the server has been actively offensive in some way. I promise you, I know I’m not having sex with anybody. (On the extreme end of the spectrum, I’ve had waiters who’ve actually tried to pull the really obvious phony-flirty act on me, which never works; it makes me feel pretty uncomfortable about tipping them more than the usual 15%.)
I also love chicken wings and try to tip generously. I think this post is more a statement of what Ted has learned in his experience, with a wide variety of customers…
5. I guess I’m black? Nope, black Irish. Nevertheless, I find the statement slightly offensive. 6. I’ve worked in many jobs where tips were part or all of my wage and I disagree with your assertion entirely: the amount to tip should be determined by what the customer thinks of their experience, if the tips don’t pay your rent then find a job that will. 8. Is only true of assholes, sadly too many people are assholes. No amount of rudeness would cause me (and probably others) to lower myself to such an action. 10. Is sadly, for the most… Read more »