900: Lez Be Friends

[Grapist]

Every year there is a "Spam fest" that goes on here where people come up with different recipes for spam. I can't stand spam, it is disgusting and barely qualifies as food.


*blech*

[BrownEyedBtch]

Originally Posted by Grapist

Every year there is a "Spam fest" that goes on here where people come up with different recipes for spam. I can't stand spam, it is disgusting and barely qualifies as food.


*blech*

As a Hawaiian who got very homesick listening to Lauren talk with her local girl accent, I can only go home and enjoy the delicious Spam sitting in my cupboards now. Only in Hawaii can you order Spam at the drive-thrus of Burger King and McDonalds. They have Spam, eggs, and rice or Portugese Sausage, eggs, and rice on the breakfast menus. Hawaii no ka oi!!!!!

[stylizethis]

Originally Posted by BrownEyedBtch

Only in Hawaii can you order Spam at the drive-thrus of Burger King and McDonalds. They have Spam, eggs, and rice or Portugese Sausage, eggs, and rice on the breakfast menus. Hawaii no ka oi!!!!!

Portugese Sausage, eggs, and rice at Mc D's! But alas, living in Los Angeles I can't enjoy the pleasures of such sodium packed, simple-carb delights.

[sully_04]

Originally Posted by Keith

"You know you're gonna get a lot of shit for this, right?"


Lauren Hennessy on MySpace Music - Free Streaming MP3s, Pictures & Music Downloads

so you are giving up on this loosing weight/not being fat competition?

im disappointed and it ruins my motivation. I always felt I was competing against the both of you, I will still continue to do this, but will call you out.

Im going to destroy you fat fuck.

[rdowavz]

Is it just me or does this Lauren chick sound like Dawn?

[BrownEyedBtch]

Originally Posted by Forbin

Absolutely, nobody has the kind of fucked up tipping culture that the US has. That's why waiters hate foreigners for not tipping, they don't know that the restaurant business works on a third world economic model in the US, they expect that people get paid.

I think it might be a vicious cycle, people tip because they feel bad for waiters, that means that restauraunts can successfully lobby to let them pay waiters less, so customers feel bad for wiaters and tip more, etc. I'm sure it wasn't always the case that waiters in New York weren't paid at all.

Keith says that waiters don't respect themselves, i'm not surprised, how could you if you have to rely on the charity of randomn douchebags just to buy groceries. It's confusing for foreigners, embaressing for customer and humiliating for waiters, no wonder waiters talk about customers with so much contempt, it's a defence mechanism.

I worked at a 5-diamond hotel when I lived on Maui last year, and without sounding like an asshole, all I can say is tipping is relative to where you work, as is your hourly rate. I worked at the pool, and the pool was huge - 30,000 sq ft sun deck with cabanas ranging in rental costs from $75-$250 per day. It's common for people to come on vacation and be at the pool every single day, even some who rent the cabanas every single day. We have the opportunity to build relationships with our guests - we get to know their names, where they're from, what they like. By doing this, we can ensure that they sit with us the next day (we rotated sections around the pool), and that when we saw them, we'd greet them by name and have their drink ready for them when we first saw them that day. In most situations, that is above and beyond service, and you can't get service like that everywhere, unless it's your local bar. And we were handsomely rewarded for it. Our tips at the end of the day were split between our paychecks and our cash. We servers only made $7 per hour. If I made $500 a day in tips (which is not unusual, especially in the summer), I would get $250 cash and the other $250 on my check. Also, if a guest had been with me throughout their stay and had tipped well on the bill, they'd commonly leave me one last tip as a thank you for their stay. I've received $1,000 that way before.

I know that's the extreme up, but also in the extreme down, if it were raining all day, we'd still have to stay open in case it stopped raining or someone wanted to have lunch at the bar. Those days, it wasn't unusual for me to go home with nothing at all except my $7 hourly.

The service team also included food runners and bartenders, both of whom we would tip out at the end of the day, on top of whatever hourly and tips they recieved. The bartenders made $20 per hour, plus their own checks for people sitting at the bar. Then we'd tip them 3% of our alcohol and smoothie sales, which could be another $50 to them, depending on what we sold that day. The food runners earned $15 per hour and usually didn't get their own tips because they were only taking out the lunches. We'd tip them 3% of our food sales. So the $250 cash gets reduced right away. On the rainy days when we earned nothing, they still had their hourly rates to keep them afloat, while I stayed around and did nothing for $7 per hour.

It wasn't always roses. Foreign guests don't typically tip, so we had a card in the check presenters that explained the American tipping customs in about 10 different languages. Most of the time the Japanese travelers understood, but rather than leaving an actual tip, they'd just round their tabs up to the nearest whole number, leaving us less than $5 on a $100 tab. Other travelers who didn't tip, we'd just have to suck it up. Because we were a luxury hotel and committed to high service, we couldn't ask them why they didn't leave us a tip. People also walked out on checks a lot. They probably figured it would be charged to their rooms anyway (we always got names and room numbers) and therefore they didn't bother to sign. When that happened, I would call their room, inform them we didn't get their signature, and ask them at that time if they wanted to add a gratuity. Sometimes they did, but not always. A few years ago, servers were auto-gratting 15% to walk-out checks, but when it happened to a very high-end guest, he complained to the general manager, and the practice was stopped. If we don't get tips, we don't get tips.

We also were aware of who wasn't tipping and who was, and we would consciously choose to give the better tippers the better service. If you signed your check and gave me $5 off of $75, I took my time in getting back to you the next day. If you gave me $17 off of $75, I'd make you my priority. That's hard to do when I have 500 covers a day. But tips talk, and we listen.

I wish people understood tips. TIPS is an acronym, meaning To Insure Proper Service. It traditionally came at the beginning of the meal, like palming a $20 to the maitre'd. Now, it's considered a standard for thank you at the end of the meal. Even if you get the world's worst service, you as the customer are the asshole if you don't tip. It wouldn't be that way if companies paid servers better tips. But if they did, servers would have to turn in tips at the end of their shifts, and maybe the managers woud re-distribute them among the staff, if he felt like it. It's weird how tipping can work for servers. In fine dining, like at my hotel, those guys can make six figures based just on tips. In cocktail service, you can still comfortably make $35K per year. In other places, you'd qualify for low-income assistance. I think that's why some countries blanket service wages and include tips. Then again, in some countries, like France, you can have the worst service in the world because the server knows his tip is guaranteed. As long as tips aren't guaranteed, the server has to work that much harder to earn it. That's why service is thankless and servers don't respect themselves. It is shit if the money isn't worth the balance.

[BrownEyedBtch]

Originally Posted by stylizethis

Portugese Sausage, eggs, and rice at Mc D's! But alas, living in Los Angeles I can't enjoy the pleasures of such sodium packed, simple-carb delights.

FUUUUUUUUCK You! Welcome to the forums bradah!

[alke]

(add slurps as needed)

The median is not the average of the highest and lowest number, it is the middle number. Given 1,1,8,9,10, the avarage is 5,8, the median is 8 (Chemda median would be 5,5).

Per capita means per citizen.

And having babies to sell them would be cruel considering how many children there are in this overpopulated world that is either in an orphanage or living on their own.

Slurpy

[Grapist]

Originally Posted by alke

(add slurps as needed)

The median is not the average of the highest and lowest number, it is the middle number. Given 1,1,8,9,10, the avarage is 5,8, the median is 8 (Chemda median would be 5,5).

She explained that.

[gumby013]

Originally Posted by Grapist

She explained that.

She didn't explain it correctly.