They stiffed her — and then rubbed salt in the wound.
A group of smug teens has gone viral after leaving a struggling waitress zero tip and a snarky four-word message on the receipt instead: “Wear a life jacket.”
The 22-year-old server, who goes by Janet and works at a chain restaurant “in the southern Midwestern area,” says she’s sadly used to getting stiffed.
But this time, it wasn’t just a lack of cash — it was a punchline at her expense.
“It comes with the territory of being a server,” Janet told Newsweek after sharing a photo of the receipt on Reddit earlier this month under the handle u/Wrong_Confection331.
When Janet saw the note instead of a tip, she initially thought it was a cheeky nod to recent historic flooding in the area.
“I thought it was a funny joke at first because we had gotten historic flooding in our area recently,” she said. “The manager thought so, too. They were bewildered for me, and so was all the other staff.”
But the bartender later dropped the truth bomb: the teens — whom Janet described as a group of about a dozen 18- or 19-year-olds — had asked if they could tip the manager instead — and said they left the note because Janet was “drowning in work.”
The jab hit like a cannonball.
“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,’” Janet said.
“But if everyone else thought I was doing great, so I don’t know what they were thinking,” while noting that some patrons “have their reasons for not tipping, if they felt service wasn’t good or if they just have a moral or ethical stance against it.”
The teens came in on a Tuesday night and seemed pleasant enough — at first.
“I thought I was doing well keeping up with everything,” Janet told Newsweek. “The only time management stepped in was to run drinks because I asked them to.”
And it wasn’t like she was phoning it in — quite the opposite. “All of my other tables tipped at or over 20%,” she said.
“Like, one table tipped $50 on $170. I was running my butt off trying to stack as many tasks as possible,” she continued.
For Janet — and most service workers — tips aren’t a bonus, they’re a lifeline.
“Tips are how I make almost all of my income,” she explained. “My weekly paycheck is only $100 after taxes.”
And when a customer stiffs you, you still end up footing part of the bill.
“Something that a lot of people don’t realize is that a lot of restaurants in the U.S. share tips,” she divulged.
“For me, I have to tip out 2.5% (weekdays) to 5% (weekends) of my credit sales to support staff. That’s regardless of if a table tips or not. It normally averages out to about a table’s worth of tips that I have to pay out each night.”
Still, she’s trying to rise above it — and maybe educate the next batch of diners.
“I try to keep an open mind with every table. I never know what someone is going through before they come in,” she said.
“I just wish they would have been more understanding of what was going on.”
One commenter beneath the Reddit post wrote that it “sounds like they’re looking for an excuse to be rude jerks.”
Another user slammed the teens, writing, “If I were them, I still would’ve tipped you well BECAUSE you were drowning, and the support and understanding [are] needed. They’re cornballs, sorry this happened.”
Still, the incident comes in the wake of a February 2024 survey, which found that 76.1% of Americans think tipping has “gone too far” as rising costs have fueled “tipflation.”
Over half (51%) of service workers agree, saying they’d rather get a living wage and skip tips altogether.
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