Gratuity

I worked a double today, and I actually did NOT want to shoot myself after the day. I worked with a lot of my favorite people, which is always fun. My section was poop, and lunch was pretty beat (but I kinda cheated at lunch and gave myself an extra table--I got caught, but it was fun while it lasted!) And then came dinner! Woo Hoo! Still in the same poop section, and it wasn't even THAT busy, but I made out because of that whole illiteracy problem I ranted about in an earlier post.
Right before cuts went up, I was sat with a large party of teens/early twenty-year-olds. I was not really excited about this table, but I figured it was big enough to put gratuity on, so whatever. They were nice enough...some were pretty hard-headed when it came to ordering, but what do you expect, they're kids (and, at first glance, I thought they probably never worked in a restaurant before). After singing "Happy Birthday" and taking a few pictures of the group, I dropped the check with an 18% gratuity of roughly $32--I was happy with that. They paid mostly in cash, and told me to keep the change--obviously they did not see the gratuity because they left me an extra $40 (see, people, there are always exceptions...they didn't seem like the type to over-tip or tip 20%...you never can tell).

Now, I have been working in the restaurant business for ten years (on and off), and I came to this conclusion early on:
If you cannot READ YOUR CHECK, your stupidity will NOT be corrected if it is in my favor. If you unintentionally double-tip me , that's your loss, folks, not mine. Oh, hey guys, you left me WAAAAYYY too much money! --Yeah, I can totally hear myself saying that. Uhh, did you realize that the gratuity was ONLY $32?? No way.

It'll come back to me somehow (unless this is payback for the couple days...hmmm...) Restaurant karma does exist. But for now, I made a killing on the day!

Today's tip: Don't burn the day away.

Close dinner tomorrow...