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Sunday, June 28, 2009

Many of us have been there: the guest of someone who leaves an inadequate gratuity in a restaurant. In the case of a member of one of my recent online chats, a self-described former waitress noticed that her family undertipped, and she was unsure how to rectify the situation.

Post-discussion, I got a great solution from Ted Ying. "If I had been the young lady," the Laurel reader wrote me, "I would have excused myself to go to the rest-room," where Ying says he would have figured out the proper tip and attempted to deliver it to the right person. "If any of my party asked where I was, I would say that I wanted to stop and find our waiter (or our manager) to let them know how much I enjoyed my special treat there."

Crisis averted: The waiter gets his due, the guest sheds her angst -- and the host unwittingly saves face.

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