May 26, 2010 01:49 AM UTC

Tipping -- Best (or worst!) word of mouth per $ spent!

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• by: NeonNurse

(Having grown up in my grandma’s bar and working every job in the B/R business, front and back of the house, I absolutely believe in judging people by their tipping habits.  Shout out to my brothers and sisters clocking the sub minimum wage. – promoted by Danny the Red (hair))

One of my adult offspring is a server at a high-end fun food establishment in the Denver area. (Details withheld to increase paranoia for those I WILL name!)

Seems my offspring has had the opportunity to wait on GOP candidates Ken Buck and Cory Gardner (at different times). This has led my darling to the conclusion that Republicans are lousy tippers.

Maybe it’s the whole nostalgia for the past thing. Or in Cory’s case, maybe in small towns 15% still makes you come across like a big spender. It’s okay for a minimum in some generic big town places, I guess.

But if you spend the meal making a pitch for your server’s vote, you might want to tip like you MEAN it when you say you care about the regular working Joes and Jos.

This doesn’t just go for candidates. If you are wearing buttons, t-shirts, or even just talking up your party where the server can overhear, tip big! You are representing your whole slate, and you don’t want to make them look bad!

Let’s make the math easy and say your bill comes out to $100.  So your minimum for decent service is $15, right?

Add on $5, and when your name comes up in general conversation, your server is likely to say, “Oh yeah, that guy. He’s okay, a decent tipper.”

Add on $10 (25%), and your server will be bragging on you to all the other staff, plus their friends and family — not just that night, but multiple times before the election. It’s a positive word of mouth bonanza for a relative pittance.

If you don’t make tip threshold, or you have clearly figured out your tip to the minimum penny instead of averaging up, well, you still might get your campaign brochure posted on the bulletin board in the break room.

But it might look like the one at my kid’s place of employment, where there’s a balloon coming out of Ken Buck’s mouth saying, “I don’t know how to tip!”