A server at a restaurant shared how her manager reacted when she received a low tip on a $250 bill. She says his response made her want to return to work the next day and remain a productive employee.
TikToker Katie Biggar (@katiebiggar0), who has over 180,000 followers, says in a video the customer who gave her a $10 tip on a $250 check was Italian and likely didn’t understand U.S. tipping conventions. Overseas, it’s reportedly common to tip 10% as a courtesy.
“I have a new serving job, and I don’t think I can leave it because I’ve never worked with a company like this,” she says in the video. “The other day this table of nine racked up a bill of $250. The guy who wanted to pay was Italian, all his friends were American, and it was his last week here. So, Italians don’t know how to tip, and that’s OK; I got $10 on like a $250.”
“I was pissed. But I didn’t say anything. It was fine,” she adds.
@katiebiggar0 THIS IS HOW YOU KEEP EMPLOYEES #fyp #serving #serviceindustry #bartending #9to5 #money #server ♬ original sound – Katie Biggar
Biggar says that after showing her manager the tip she received, he gave her more money to bring the tip closer to 20%.
“I’m like, ‘Look at my $10.’ And he’s like, ‘Oh, they only left you $10?’ I was like, ‘Uh-huh,’” she recalls. “At the end of the night he’s like, ‘I’ll take care of it,’ and he hands me $30 in cash and is like, ‘That should equal 20% now.’ I was like, ‘What?’ He was like, ‘I don’t want you to waste your time.’”
Biggar says the way her manager treated her made her want to return to work.
“I don’t want to waste my time either mama,” she says, ending her video. “Thank you, I’ll be back tomorrow bright and early.”
The video was viewed over 340,000 times, and viewers shared their own experiences with how their own managers reacted when they received a low tip. Some shared their managers had their backs; others weren’t as lucky as Biggar.
“Once a table didn’t tip and the owner chased the table out telling them to never come back,” one wrote. “The owner then handed all the servers $100 each.”
“My manager gave me $50 because I had to get my entire section shut down for an hour so a reserved party could sit there,” another shared.
“Girl that’s so sweet I just left my serving job cause the company kept stealing money from me,” a third alleged.
Others claimed that managers treating employees with “care” is beneficial overall, and Biggar validated this in a comment, saying, “LIKE I CARE GOING THERE AND I WANT TO BE THERE.”
A Gallup report backs this up, too. According to Gallup, bad managers lead to low employee engagement.
The Daily Dot reached out to Biggar via Instagram direct message.
