November 13, 2004

• No. I'm a cheap college student.
• I'm not, but growing up eeeeeveryone around me was. I'd get dragged to church chicken (aka Swiss Chalet) every Sunday after the service, and sure enough out of the table of like 20 people there would be 15 separate bills, and tiny tips from each. I have no idea why the demographics skew against Christians tipping well, but it's the friggin' truth. Worst, though, was the time someone left a tract. Y'know, "Do You Know the Lord?" pamphlet kinda deal? I can just some waitress reading it and falling to her knees in rapturous joy at having received that. Ugh.
• Fake dollar bill tracts. Bible verse instead of tip. "Go to their church and when they pass around the tray for donations, put a menu in."
• Melinika, that second site of yours is a pearl. There we see a real troll—yea, verily, a master of the craft—in action. I worship.
• Even better, Jesus Hates Smut on gay marriage. /easily-amused derail
• When I waited tables years ago, I found that the "fundie" christians did, indeed, tip far less than "regular" customers. Worse: on three occasions, I received bible tracts instead of cash.
• As a Christian and a fan of the movie "My Blue Heaven", I regularly overtip. It's my philosophy.
• If you want to be a better server because I'm gay, go for it. I'll probably overtip anyway. After washing dishes and waiting tables for shit wages I know a little about how the food service industry works. Frankly, I'm not surprised Christians ignored doing their homework on how the government taxes waitstaff; they need time to focus on legislating who I sleep with and to save my soul from eternal hellfire. Not to mention the asshole who works at the church across the street with the Jesus license plate, who one day decided to take a chunk out of the fender of my car while I was standing next to it, and threatened to beat me up and destroy more of my car if I called the cops, when I asked him why he did it. I won't go far as to say all Christians are assholes but so far their representatives have certainly gone out of their way to bat 1.000.
• Thank you SO much Melinika for the Jesus hates Smut site! I would like to stand up and be counted as a public teat feeding advocate, and find out where I can get some homosexual beef.
• Yes, thanks Melinika. The comments on JHS are fantastic - I love reading the vehement arguments from non-xtians who don't read carefully enough to get the joke.
• For the life of me, I have trouble finding cheap Christians. Raising lions is hard enough as it is...
• Go to their church and when they pass around the tray for donations, put a menu in. Problem solved!
• This was quite common in Central Texas where I waited tables and tended bar a few years back. There's nothing like getting a pamphlet on Jesus from someone who drank too much. There was one waiter at this one restaurant who would consistently barter tables in order to get large parties of church groups on Sunday. We all thought he was insane until we learned after he had left that he had been rigging the tickets with inflated charges or just entering his tip anyway on the charge cards.
• Catachresis: )
• I really need to re-calibrate my irony meter, because after looking through most of Jesus Hates Smut for ten minutes, I still can't figure out if it's supposed to be a joke or not. It's funny either way.
• f8x - me too (well, not the My Blue Heaven part. I'm not familiar with that one). I've had too many friends wait tables, so I know what waitstaff goes through. I tip the crap out of a good waiter, and 15% even to the really crappy ones.
• A good friend of mine who has been a waiter more often than he cares to admit advocates that people should be required to get a license to dine in a restaurant - which would include a three month stint waiting tables yourself. Having waitressed for 6 months of my life I am in whole hearted agreement
• If you've ever busted your ass waiting tables, or had a friend that has, you should realize that the amount you get paid bears no reflection on how hard the job is. Also, if you can't afford the tip, then you can't afford to go out to eat.
• The reason a lot of Christians under tip is that waitresses don't preach at them for 45 minutes on the principles of sowing and reaping and tithing. Seriously, giving money to their churches can give Christians bad personal economies. They're victims, too. They deserve our pity.
• What per cent do people usually tip these days? I usually give between 15 to 25 per cent, depending on quality of service.
• I don't tip at all. Here in Oz, wait-people are paid a sensible wage which is covered by the price of the food. Tipping isn't expected, although of course you can if you wish to.
• I'm down with 15-25%, except when it's a small bill or at a place where I'm a regular, then I tip more. But then, I'm more into Stacks than French Laundry, so 30% tip is often 3$. I think at an expensive place, I'd be more stingy.
• Ditto for New Zealand. I just plunked some extra money down at my favourite cafe, but that's because they know me by name and treat me real good. Which is what tips are for...

  you should realize that the amount you get paid bears no reflection on how hard the job is.

  Diddums. Tell it to the coal miners, as I remind myself any time I think I'm working hard.
• I tip the cafe I take my son to every Monday - there's a group of us, all with toddlers, and they make a heck of a mess. The manager bought extra high chairs specially for us, and never complain about our mess, so every few weeks I throw $10 on the table for going above and beyond.
• Never really tipped, but at my regular haunts in Singapore, I'd sometimes buy dessert and little sweets for the staff. That expanded to full-blown suppers for the staff after work at the teahouse, but that's a whole different relationship I guess. Tipping is not done in Singapore, usually. In fact, in the 80s, some restaurants put up signs explicitly stating "No Tipping Allowed".
• It seems a little ridiculous to talk about how "Christians" tip. 70-80 percent of Americans (for instance) self-identify as Christians (yes, I'm one of them, or rather I accept the social label of Christian as a convenient shorthand for y'all), so generalizations are pretty suspect. Given Christ's biblical injunctions against self-display in religious matters, is it so surprising that a particular subset who are so readily identifiable as "Christians" and so prone to displays of "loud" religiosity (i.e. giving tracts to strangers) also appear to fall short of Christian ideals in being, for lack of a better term, cheap bastards? I don't need anyone's approval, permission, or justification, my feelings aren't easily hurt, and I understand that there are subsets of Christianity (as is the case with every ideology, religion, political affiliation, whatever) who are extremely difficult to tolerate. But I continue to find it worthwhile to point out that when people start talking smack about "Christians" they are tarring with a brush that covers 7-8 out of ten individuals they might happen to meet of a given day.
• About the only time Christians are obviously Christian is right after church on Sunday - nice dress, carrying bibles, discussing the sermon, etc. These are the people who are seen, rightly or wrongly, as being bad tippers. On Monday, they blend in with everybody else. So, the reputation doesn't come from, or apply to, all Christians all the time. Just some Christians, and just on Sunday. It's not fair, but what stereotype is? That's why I try to look as disheveled as possible on Sunday when I go to the diner. That and I want people to think I got some.