Janet, a 22-year-old server at a chain restaurant in the southern Midwest, just had her first scary one. Never did she think that a gaggle of rowdy teenage patrons would throw her for a loop! So instead of tipping her, their group of a dozen 18- or 19-year-olds wrote a letter addressed to…her. It said “Chances are you’re going to drown. Wear a life jacket.” The incident has reignited debates on tipping culture and expectations of customer service in the restaurant industry.
After taxes, Janet’s weekly take-home pay is a measly $100, which requires her to rely on tips to survive. As part of her job, she is required to tip out a percentage of her credit sales to support staff—2.5% on weekdays and up to 5% on weekends. On average, Janet usually averages tips that come out to the value of one table’s worth per night. While she’s used to some degree of customer rudeness, never in all her years did this note leave her more confused.
In a recent interview, the teens stood by their decision to screw Janet over. They made the recommendation to tip the manager instead, claiming that this lady was “drowning in work.” Janet initially interpreted the note as a cheeky reference to recent historic flooding in the area, stating, “I thought it was a funny joke at first because we had gotten historic flooding in our area recently.”
When she explained the case to her manager and other staff, they were just as confused. Janet noted, “The manager thought so, too. They were bewildered for me, and so was all the other staff.”
Janet hoped to make others aware of what she experienced and inform other diners in the future. Therefore, she shared a picture of the receipt on Reddit under the username u/Wrong_Confection331. She reflected on her performance during that shift, saying, “I thought I was doing well keeping up with everything.” She told me she used to have tables like this that tipped well and told the story of one group tipping $50 on a $170 tab. “Like, one table tipped $50 on $170. So I was running my butt off trying to compartmentalize and stack as many tasks as I could,” she explained.
Janet said she was disheartened when the teens decided against tipping. Yet she was very aware that patrons sometimes have good cause to withhold their tips. “They may feel that service wasn’t good or if they just have a moral or ethical stance against it,” she stated. Janet made it very clear that she was there to offer the best service possible, saying, “I approach every table with an open mind. It is impossible to tell what someone has experienced just before walking in.
Janet was discouraged by her experience with the teens. She hopes that this viral moment will be a teachable moment — not just for the restaurant industry, but for diners. She remarked, “If all my other tables were upset with me, or if management sided with them, I could totally look at myself and say, ‘Yeah, I deserved no tip or a bad tip.’ But if everyone else thought I was doing great, so I don’t know what they were thinking.”
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