BennyEast.Com/Blog The official blog of Kenny West

Tip Em With Kindness

I call this “Tip Em With Kindness”… it’s a play on the phrase “Kill Em With Kindness”…

If you are not familiar with the killing with kindness process and are in need of instructions on how this works see the following link:

http://www.ehow.com/how_4547473_kill-em-kindness.html

Since I’m not about serving prison time…  I’ll be avoiding any killing even with kindness… and even of the plant kind…  But… I’ll gladly talk about tipping.  Ok, that didn’t transition so well…

I feel like this blog post resembles a Simpson’s episode right now.  Completely unrelated topics leading one into another so that the beginning has nothing to do with the end, and yet it has EVERYTHING to do with it… its pure genius. The Simpsons are pure genius… I, however, am not.

Right, so… tipping.

I’m a big fan of tipping as much as you can, or I think I mean tipping as much as you can afford.  Even if the service is bad, I still like to tip lots or mostly the standard 20 percent.  I guess compared to how much a big movie star with a lot of money like, maybe, Vince Vaughn tips, perhaps 20 percent isn’t a lot?  But to me 20 percent is a big tip!  I picture Vince tipping like double the bill.  And doing it with class and style in one suave move without blinking.  Instead he’d be winking.  Doesn’t he seem to wink a lot, or is it just me?  I wish Vince taught classes on how to be classy… a “class” class… he’s a lady charmer that one!  If I were a lady I’d be charmed!  Heck I’m not a lady and I’m still charmed!  So there ya go.

Sorry, I’m Simpson-ing again, back to tipping.  Real quick: just to clarify we are talking about the kind of tipping you do in restaurants after you eat and not the kind involving cows.

So I guess I’ll tell another story, like yesterday.

I’m reminded of one winter when I was taking a road trip from here to upstate NY then to Vermont then to Maine and then back to Philadelphia.  Somewhere in NY State along highway 90 I stopped at an IHOP.  I wanted to write down some lyric ideas on my laptop that, while driving, burst into my mind.  So there I was in the IHOP and I wanted to order something stupid and small like a short stack of pancakes and sit there and write.  I mean I was just in the mood for some pancakes (and lyric writing)!  And you know when you gotta have your pancake fix… you gotta get it!  Know what I mean?  So ok, I sit down and wait for the waitress lady to come take my order, which eventually she did.  Well, my gosh, she was just downright mean; it was as if she was just angry that she had to serve me.  Or maybe she had a secret disliking of pancakes.  In which case I’m not sure why you’d get a job at IHOP.  That’d be like getting a job DJing at a rap station but you don’t enjoy rap.  I mean right?  Maybe you like pop music and you got waitlisted on the pop station so you’re DJ at the rap station while you wait?

Maybe she was waitlisted at Denny’s so she was just killing time at IHOP.  Again with the killing!  So much of this, makes me sad.  Especially time, or plants… or a clock with a plant design on it.  That would make me extra sad.  By the way, there was a clock on the wall with a plant on it.  It was super out of place.  I noticed it right as I was sitting down.

So, I’m like well who knows… I’m sure she’s not actually mad at me.  I know that probably something else is going on.  Maybe something else that day, or even something else in her life in general.  Really it could be anything.  Maybe she had some terrible pain in her foot and so all the walking around from table to table was just absolutely unbearable and was getting worse with every passing moment making her long for the end of her shift when she could clock out and just go home.  But, Every time she looked up at that clock with the pretty little plant on it she was reminded of her favorite little plant that she accidentally killed 2 weeks ago.  And this made her even more sad, or annoyed, or angry.

I’m just saying maybe…  I don’t know the whole backstory.

So there I sat, and she brought out the pancakes and kind of dropped them down on the table with a loud clang.  And then forgot the syrup so she swore under her breath and then turned around to retrieve the syrup canister.  Of course this made her hand all sticky and so she made it known to me that her hand was now all sticky and rushed off to, I presume the kitchen, to rinse away the syrup stickiness.

Though my short stack consumption experience was short lived she watched me with a disapproving look the whole time waiting for me to finish.  As soon as I ate the last bite she came over and quickly picked up the dishes.  Then she took the receipt out and smacked it down on the table and walked away without saying a word.

My meal of: 1 order of short stack pancakes… only added up to only a few bucks.

So, I thought maybe this lady could use some cheering up.  After all, her poor plant had just died!!!

That poor little plant.  Makes me sad.   I wonder what kind of plant it was?

Well I had an idea.  Maybe she was upset not only because of her foot hurting, and the plant and the clock on the wall that looked like a plant but also maybe she was upset because she couldn’t afford to buy a new plant!

Soooo…

I decided to leave her a super fantastically disproportionately large tip.  So I put a 20 dollar bill on the table.

Yep… 20 dollars.  She came back and picked up the check and the 20 and said in a disgruntled tone…

“I’ll be right back with your change.”

Then she immediately turned to walk off.

I asked after her and started to get out of my seat, “excuse me miss, hold on.”

She turned around and fuming and nearly yelled at me, “WHAT!”

Meekly I responded, “No change necessary.”  It took her a minute to process the thought.

The transition lasted a few seconds as the anger melted away to embarrassment.  Her entire demeanor changed.  Her eyes widened. And she stood there looking at me unable to come up with words.  Eventually we both noticed the onlookers peering around their booths.

“Oh”

Was all she said… and even that was more of a gasp …  then suddenly blushing, she turned and ran off into the back.  I felt kinda goofy, that was over the top and I had completely embarrassed her in front of all her coworkers and the other customers in the restaurant.  Ok no... I felt REALLY GOOFY.

Darnit… I’m such a fool, was all I could think.  I went back and packed up the laptop and got my coat and headed for the door.  Determined to get the heck out of there as fast as possible.

I got somewhere between half and 3 quarters of the way to the door when behind me I hear…

“Excuse me sir!”

I turn around and there was the lady…  she was glowing as if she’d been re-enacting that scene from Cinderella when she first wakes up and sings with the birds.  You ALL know the scene I’m talking about.  If you don’t then break out your copy of Cinderella, put it on the DVD player and grab a big old bucket of popcorn!

Well, there miss Cinderella stood with a little boxed up piece of chocolate cake (and a big smile on her face.)

”Thank you”

Was all she as she handed me the box.

“You’re welcome”

I said back as I received the gift.

Then she turned, almost appearing to be blushing and went off to help another customer.

I turned and headed off on my way.

I guess what I’m trying to say with that is well… anger, or sadness, or unhappiness can be just as contagious as kindness.  So instead of me getting mad back at her, and leaving a tiny or non-existent tip… and then leaving on my way to then anger someone else in some sort of whisper down the lane of angriness… I ended up changing her mood with my action… well who knows what happened after that.  But I think we both went on the rest of that day feeling pretty good.

If nothing else… I got some chocolate cake out of it. Mmmmmm chocolate cake

Randomly on an unrelated note… today is the only day that is a command… march 4^th… soooooo march forth with kindness on into the world.  No matter what is done to you… just pay and repay in kindness.