Tuesday, May 2, 2017

What Happens When You Don't Tip In America

I took my mom to dim sum because she really wanted chicken feet, and it was not worth it because it wasn't even the type of chicken feet she wanted smh.

First off, the line for Sunday morning dim sum at this particular restaurant is hella long and the hostesses were kind of bitchy to anyone who was confused about their wait imo. Thankfully, we only had to wait 20 minutes, which gave me enough time to eat a banh mi in the car because if you know anything about dim sum, it's not really vegan friendly.

My mom hadn't eaten dim sum in a long time so she went a little overboard and mistook wide rice noodles for pig's ear, but our meal was actually pretty pleasant without much drama besides the one going inside my sister's stomach from all the oils. That all changed when the waiter didn't see the coins my mom included in the bill and didn't give her the correct change.

I also had a major brain fart and forgot whether you have to tip for dim sum or not (because you don't necessarily have one waiter) and because my mom paid with cash, there was no tip line on the bill, so I thought we didn't have to tip (I am so used to paying with card and adding tip that I forgot #typicalmillenial).

I also did a quick Google search with one result saying we didn't have to tip-wrong advice btw because after my mom cornered the staff for her correct change, the staff cornered us and scolded us in Vietnamese: "This table hasn't tipped yet." We were incredulous because who does that?! I know we messed up and didn't give tip, but tip is technically optional. You can't force us to tip like that. I mean I would have been more forgiving if the man had used a nicer tone or been more polite and asked if not tipping was a mistake, but he didn't let us leave without tipping!

We ended up giving less than 10% because that was all the change we had, and we just wanted to get the hell out of there, but this just goes to show how ridiculous the American tipping system is. It was also the cherry on top of the horrible customer service my mom received on her Easter weekend trip to NOVA (let's just say some cashiers at the mall aren't really adept either).