Straw Hut Media.

Hey folks, I'm Jesse Wood and this is the podcast Stiff from straw Hut Media.

This is the podcast that asks the difficult questions about the service industry.

And what more difficult question is there than tips?

How do you tip?

Why do you tip?

How much do you tip?

What deserves it tip?

We're floating along, everything's going fine, and then all of a sudden, for some reason, the family all starts pulling out their wallets and their purses and everything, and they all start pulling out cash, like a lot of cash.

The twenties and one hundred dollars bills.

They're pulling out.

Yeah, And I'm like, I don't care why you're standing up.

Sit down now.

As we slowly float up to the little Japanese girls, they reach out with these.

Huge handfuls of cash and.

Drop them at the feet of the two little Japanese girls.

Down when you come up.

This week our theme is tipping protocoh Our.

First delving into this issue, we talked to Wes who was a personal tour guide for Disneyland.

So you're thinking, in a high classic clientele, pretty good tips for the paper hour they're putting out.

Yeah, sometimes.

Next, we sit down with Justin and Mallory.

How do you deal with somebody walking out on a tip?

All this and more rat for the break.

All right.

Here I sit down with Wesley Hide and we discuss what's like to give private tours more specifically private tours is a very very peculiar family.

Being a fan of mafia movies and anything from Scorsese, Goodfellas, etc.

I've never actually met anybody I felt was an organized crime, and neither has your daughter here?

No, no, she hasn't, not yet, not yet.

I mean the day is young.

We'll see what happens.

But since you worked in guest relations, mainly dealing with VIPs at Disneyland, meaning that these are people that pay hundreds of dollars to get cut to the front of the line and looked after and saw apparently ran into a family and.

I say that in quotations.

Oh no, definitely have a family familia.

So I meet these guests.

Let's let's start at the beginning.

Actually, he let's start at the beginning of the day, because this was Easter, and it was my daughter's first Easter and I was missing out on that.

So you know, how how excited already was to have to go to work on a VIP tour, but I get pulled to this tour last minute, and I'm told, all right, you're going out with these groups, this group of guests.

I'm like, okay, that's fantastic.

I go out and I meet them.

Let me do a quick rundown of what.

These guests look like.

First of all, there's the dad, the matrix, the patriarch of this family.

Don't come on, matriarch, he will not like that.

The dad seriously looks like a super Jersey Shore version of Better Call Saul.

It's a good look.

Yeah, but he's also wearing See here's the thing is the whole family is also I should mention this too.

The whole family's also wearing like their Sunday best because who knows.

Oh yeah, they're dressed.

They're dressed really.

Nicely, like we are going out to Disney.

But it's it's very clearly like gone to the church nicely, and we don't normally wear clothes like this nicely.

So the family, the family again, they're dressing.

Sure, sopranos dressed to the nine.

Dressed very clearly like they just came from church.

But obviously wearing clothing that they're not used to.

And I can tell this because Mom, the matriarch here, who I swear to God, looked exactly like the mom from Sopranos with the blonde hair and everything.

But she's wearing heels.

This mom is wearing heels and clearly does not know how to wear heels because she's having a time of it.

She's eating a woman.

And I don't want to make any bones about that, but at an amusement park, heels seem like a bad footwear selection.

And under normal circumstances it is a bad footwear selection.

All of them were wearing heels.

All the women were wearing heels.

That's sick.

But the rest of them had all been smart enough to bring a second pair of shoes flats to then switch into.

Mom had not thought of that, and.

So she's yeah, okay, yeah.

They had, like, you know, put the extra shoes, bags and purses and stuff and whatnot, so they had the extra space to carry.

Things at any rate.

That's Mom and Dad.

Now we've also got the girls, the three daughters of Mom and dad.

They're all adults.

Well, I think one of them was probably around like seventeen, maybe eighteen, And then I had like a twenty one year old and like a mid twenty year old.

And these girls are all look almost exact same as each other.

And again, I swear to God, look exactly like the daughter from Sopranos, swear to God.

So they're in no way acting like princesses.

Oh well, depends on how you use the word princess, I mean entitled.

Although they were super entitled.

Oh no, they they they wanted one hundred percent imagined themselves as being the most amazingly wonderful people in the world, and that they were the center of the universe.

Yeah, they walk around with the attitude of you're welcome.

Well, and here's the thing too.

The whole time, two of the two younger two, the like seventeen eighteen year old and the like twenty one year old work constantly on their phones, instagramming and snapchapping, snapchat shot and Facebook everything.

The whole time they're constantly doing this.

But here's the thing.

They ran through I don't know how many backup batteries for their phones.

And I was with them for six hours, six hours, and they somehow managed to run down their phone recharge their phones, run down, recharge, recharge it again.

At one point we had to stop and look for because we had these little kiosks that sold rechargeable batteries fuel rods, and so we go up to one of them and they had to get a little They had to get extra batteries because they had run out of the extra power on their own extra batteries already.

The whole family was like that in that they were completely self absorbed.

They didn't care about each other, They didn't care about the other people in the park.

They were all in their own little world.

No, no, you're just living in it, and you're welcome that I'm here.

They didn't talk to each other.

They'd interact with each other except at moments where interaction was necessary, like deciding who all was going on such and such ride or who wanted such and such snack.

That was the only time conversations would occur.

And even when those conversations occurred, it wasn't a lot of paying attention.

It came down to me to make sure everything was coordinated, get it really quick and done.

How many people total was this?

Let me see, Okay, we had mom, dad, We had three daughters, we had the one daughter's super white, trashy husband.

We had cousin Nicky and cousin Nicky's mickey son Vinnie.

So I think we had we had.

It's two on the nose for like a cousin Nicky and a Vinnie.

Well, I think that's eight.

Yeah, I think we had eight.

There was actually three others who were part of the group at the very beginning, a grandma, grandpa, and somebody else I don't remember, but they left because we couldn't have more than ten.

And that was a conversation that we had at the very beginning.

They were very upset about that.

We'll come back to that in a second, because I'm still.

Had how much.

I know that it's a pretty costly thing to sign up for this VIP exclusivity.

How much are they paying per head?

So here's the thing, it's not based on per person.

Per person is only tickets.

In this instance, when you buy v AP tour, it's for a group of up to ten people.

In this instance, they had eleven people.

And so I had to kind of knock him down and be like, at least one person needs to go away or came to the tour, and they were all upset about that, but they ended up sending three of them away, so I was down to eight people, I think, oh, plus a baby.

Almost forgot the baby.

Baby.

That's that's a good life rule to remember.

Never forget the bit.

You're a father.

You got a baby here, don't forget her, Do not forget her.

Don't leave her at the studio.

Ryan can't take care.

She'll destroy everything in here in like twenty minutes.

What are you doing?

Oh excuse just climbing around?

Uh so where was I?

Okay, So the daughters, So the third daughter, the eldest daughter, has a husband and a baby.

The husband.

Has a melanin count of zero.

Okay, he has.

He is the widest person I imagine.

He is also like just the white, trashiest person I can imagine, just in the things he says and the way he walks and the way that he acts.

At least he's like really sticking to the white theme.

Oh yeah, no, like and here's the here's the thing.

He is the one exception to this Italian mobster family.

Like he got plucked out of a trailer park and just got dropped into the middle of them.

It makes no sense how he ended up in this family.

Wildly confusing, very weird.

I'd just be staring at the whole shoor, just like, how did this happen?

If you want to imagine how this guy was and how he acted as well, imagine if you will, just like the most white trashiest you know, like truck driver hat wearing, like yeah, but you're not Yeah, but you're not being white trashy about it.

You know, you're just wearing it.

I left my skull like part of your It's not part of who you are.

No, it's just that guy.

Like like, imagine that.

Imagine that guy pretending to be part of an Italian mob family.

Imagine that person I said.

I would just be staring at him constantly, just being like.

How oh no, no, I was tossing side like this is crazy.

This does not calculate, makes no sense.

So this so that guy, the two of them, they have a little baby who I think was like four months old, so only a little bit older than my daughter at the time, because my daughter was a little over a month old at the time, and so that little baby was probably the fattest baby I'd ever seen.

Oh so fat four.

Month old baby, and he was so fat, so fat, like his little arms were just stuck out to his side, but he obviously couldn't move them because there was just so much fat that there was just no mobility.

He was in danger on like his eighth month, yea, the birthday of losing his left foot.

Like I don't know, it was just insane.

And I eventually found out how he got that fat.

We'll come back to that, okay again, Like this is a long story.

So these uh, this family.

So then we've got, you know, the cousin, Nikki, who's there.

He's he's uh, he's he's like the probably the more reasonable person in the group.

He's trust me when I say he's yes, But he was still a huge jackass because we will get to a part where he just flips out on a cast member.

But he was still the voice of reason in this group.

And then you know the little kid, this little kid, little little little Vinny.

This kid was like just it was almost like he didn't exist, Like he was there, but he didn't say anything, he didn interact with anybody.

He just ghost quiet.

He just ghosted along the whole time.

It's entirely possible that this kid wasn't even part of the family that he may have just wandered along and joined them, and they were all so self absorbed with themselves that they didn't even notice he was there.

The mystery, so they don't even know.

Who knows who knows at any rate, So I meet them.

The very first thing out of their words out of the dad's mouth, very first words out of the dad's mouth, and before he even says hello, the very first thing he says is, Hey, we just rented this stroller, but we know that you can get a stroller for free with the tour.

Can I get my refund?

He's all about the bottom line.

Apparently the stroller is fifteen dollars for the day.

So already at this point, I'm like, well, I can tell I'm going to get a great tip at the end of the day if you're penny pinching over a stroller.

Okay, yes, you're reading your book, little girl.

We know.

So the stroller refund did that go through for.

So I couldn't do it physically at that moment.

I had to have it processed and have somebody to bring out the fifteen dollars.

I'm explained to him that it's going to take a few minutes.

If you're okay with it had taken a little while, we can just keep going on the tour and I'll have somebody run the fifteen dollars out and.

He's like, yea, yeah, I want to do I want to do that.

Do that?

Like okay, okay, so let's head out of the park.

What do you guys want to do?

Where do you guys want to go?

Like, oh, well, we.

Want to meet Mickey, we want to go to a small World.

We want to do this, we want to do that.

Got a few different things.

Okay, took like a little Marlon Brando right there.

Yeah, So we we head out and we're going to head towards It's a Small World first, and then you know, right, there's two times.

I still can't believe that was the right of choice.

I don't find that right appealing at all.

Well it's I don't know if it necessarily was appealing, but they had a tradition that they wanted to follow through, which I didn't know about until halfway through the ride.

So we get to It's.

A Small World, and as we are arriving at It's a Small World, that's when I find out that Mom who's been wearing heels this whole time and struggling with basic walking.

Uh, you can't do the work.

I can't do it.

Just can't do it.

Okay, well, well you know, we go buy the should shoes a few different stories.

Can we get a wheelchair?

Was making it.

She wanted a wheelchair.

She wanted a wheelchair because she was and she could have worn other shoes.

And we even found I even found out later that one of the girls even had a spare pair of flats, but that was not a consideration at that point because no, no, because they weren't paying attention to each other.

There was no communication.

I didn't find out about the flats a week.

Nobody found out about the flats until the wheelchair arrived.

So we go in.

It's a small world.

We all get into one boat, and it's a small world.

We're floating along.

Everything's going fine, and then all of a sudden, for some reason, the family all starts pulling out their wallets and their purses and everything, and they all start pulling out cash, like a lot of cash, like twenties and one hundred dollars bills they're pulling out, yeah, wadding it up in their hands getting ready for something.

I don't know, but I'm like, okay, So we'll get into the section the all the Asian countries and you know, get China and Thailand and YadA, YadA, YadA, and we get to the last one before you leave that area.

It's Japan and there's these two little girls wearing kimonos kind of like bowing on these little platforms to either side of the boat.

It's you know, a few feet up off the ground.

I'm sorry that ride has always seemed mildly racist to me.

Well, I mean it's not.

I mean the Japanese bowing is a standard part of Jian Japanese culture, so it was the kimono.

Just I have like the white guilt, So I just feel uncomfortable sometimes and I see things I'm like, ah, yeah.

Well, I mean the Africa sections a little most the Asian sections actually have been all the sections.

That's one of the least least terrible sections.

Call the sections too strange, Well.

It's because it's a continent.

You know, there's the Asia section just before it's the European section.

I get.

It just feels weird.

So they were coming up on the two little Japanese girls bowing, and suddenly they all stand up in the boat.

Not advice normally, no you don't stand up in the boat in the little small world, but you don't do that.

But they all decide to suddenly stand up.

And I'm sitting at the back of the boat and I'm like, shit.

Don't no.

I'm trying to yell at them to get them to sit down.

They're ignoring me and waving at me and like, no, no, we're fine, We're fine, it's okay, it's okay.

We're just doing a thing.

It's a tradition, it's a thing.

We're doing a thing.

And I'm like, I don't care why you're standing up, sit down now.

As we slowly float up to the little Japanese girls, they reach out with these huge handfuls of cash and drop them at the feet of the two little Japanese girls bowing in their kimonos.

Hundreds of dollars they just.

Throw away right at the feet of the little audio animatronic Japanese children.

Apparently that is some sort of weird, stupid lucky tradition for them.

I don't know.

I will say this though, Apparently they had a little bit of money left over.

They hadn't men to only throw that amount of money, They had few more bundles of twenties and hundreds, and so for the rest of the attraction they spent the time chucking the balled up bills at whatever random auto animatronic child they want.

I do not understand it at all.

Bear in mind again that when I met these people fifteen minutes ago, they wanted their fifteen dollars back for their stroller, and now they have just spent their entire time on It's a Small World throwing away hundreds of dollars.

So I can't figure out, like, am I going to be tipped at all at the end of this day?

What the hell is going on?

That's the question popped into my mind very early and often too like like which is it the stellar stroller?

One hundred dollars?

A small world?

Time confused.

So we finally get to the end of attraction, we get off.

Cast member has shown up with the fifteen dollars refund for the stroller, of which the father is rather happy that he finally has that now, Oh no, he missed out, and getting to throw some cash at one of the little Indian children.

I guess, but whatever.

Anyway, so we started heading up to Tunetown.

We're gonna go and do some of the stuff in Tuonetown.

I'm gonna do some of those attractions.

Did they throw money at Roger Rabbit?

No, no, they did not know.

They did not met some opportunity.

We did make our way did make our way over to Mickey's house.

Now at this point, like these people have just been loud and irritating and just awful in general, and apparently it's time we need to feed the baby.

So a couple, the eldest daughter and her white trash husband, peel off to go try to find a spot to feed the baby, but she's not happy with anywhere.

So she comes back and we end up going in to go meet Mickey.

And so the way that we do this to go in to meet Mickey's we kind of going through the exit and.

Then there's like a waiting big point for them.

They really wanted to meet Mickey.

Oh yeah, it's very important.

So we're going through the exit to meet Mickey, and I walk into this is like a little hidden room that we go into that then leads us into the rooms where Mickey is and so I have them wait wait here, and then I go into a little hit.

You know that Mickey is really just some like eighteen year old kid in a costume.

Right, they don't care.

Oh no, they couldn't possibly have cared even the tiniest bit.

Because here's the thing.

So I'm expecting this to be just.

A real clutterbuck when we get in there.

Yeah.

So I go in and I so I'm like, you guys, wait out here.

I go into the room and fortunately my friend is working, and I'm like, so, I have some terrible news.

I have some of the most loud mouth irritating people you could possibly imagine that I need to bring in to meet one of your Mickey's, whatever is the strongest Mickey at the moment, because there's multiple Mickey's inside the house.

Don't tell anybody.

I said that to you get that's the top secrets thing, is that there's multiple Mickey's inside Mickey's house.

Don't don't tell anyone.

So they're like, well, we've got we've got this room open.

We put them in the silly Symphony concert room.

Okay, fantastic, And I'm like, I need to talk to them for so I need to warn them, and she's like, oh okay.

So we open up the door and you know, Mickey comes over, and the photographer comes over, and then the handler there's always a cast member there who handles the guests, comes over and I'm explaining to them, listening to you guys, like I'm warning you now, this is gonna be fun.

Brace for impact.

So they're like, all right, we're ready, We're ready.

So they turn and they go back.

They go back and they get ready, and we go and we get the guests.

We bring him into the little room and then we bring him into where Mickey is.

Immediately they scatter to all the different and they're constantly just all fully focused on themselves taking snapchats of themselves video And here's the best part.

Mickey is being constantly peppered by each one for pictures and stuff, and Nicky is constantly turning back and forth, not knowing who to look at which camera because they've all got their own cameras.

They're all leaning in to do pictures.

Micky doesn't know what's going on.

The little kid is confused.

Mickey, don't do that.

The little kids like running around over in the corner.

He doesn't know what the hell he's doing the whole family's dinner.

The dad's get mad at the whole family and at Mickey because he wants to get a picture of everybody together, and nobody's working together.

Everybody's just being loud and irritating.

And are a couple of kim I've now turned off and they're arguing with each other because they were in the middle taking their picture when you came up and took my picture and I was trying to do make picture.

It's like an ironic too, because like a from the vibe you got from the family, you were thinking, like, you know, maybe mafia so and they come from an organized crime background.

So here's and they're not organized at all.

So here's the thing is this family was from Aspen, which was one hundred percent.

Not where they were.

The beer flows like wine.

I'm one hundred percent certain because I've had some assmen families and they're all like, can we have like a gluten free menu?

Yeah?

And so so I meet this family and the what I can only imagine is either he got out of the family somehow, like you know, just because they needed somebody on the West coast or somewhere in Colorado to kind of you know, they expand the operations you got out of Jersey because these are the Jerseys, to the heavy Jersey accents and everything.

These are the Jerseys Jersey.

People, I can imagine.

There's also the fact that the rest of the family doesn't really seem to know where the money comes from.

The daughter, the daughters and the mom are all just completely off in their own little worlds and everything about that just like reeks of like this guy has a job that they don't know anything about and are perfectly happy not knowing anything.

Yeah, no, that that strikes sing as completely mafia so or just like yeah, no ask questions, just just just roll with it.

This family was as sopranos as you could possibly get, and it was almost at first I thought maybe it was like a parody kind of thing, like they were just joking with me and just messing around with me.

But no, these were seriously one percent.

There's a way these guys are these good of actors.

No, there's no no way.

No, absolutely not.

Mickey's constantly spinning around trying to interact with all these people simultaneously and getting starting to get a little pushed and shoved because they're trying to get Mickey's attention and being you know, we see Mickey's attentions being split, you know, eight different directions.

The first time I've ever felt sorry for Mickey Mouse.

Honestly, it's just spent a good ten minutes in there.

Oh boy.

Yeah, And normally the interaction with Mickey is less than a minute.

You say hi, you take the picture, you say thank you, and then you leave ten minutes of Mickey just constantly being spun around in a circle.

Finally we get the last of the pictures we want.

We all start filing out.

Everybody leaves the room, and as the last of the we leave the room, I kind of slowly close the door behind them and look back at the three people working in there.

They all rush over to me and demand to see my name tag so that they can send a commendation in for me having.

To deal with them and their patients.

And they're all like, dear god man, good luck, godspeed.

So we head back out.

We get out into Tunetown, we decide we want to stop for a snack.

We get some ice cream bars.

You know, the little Mickey ice cream bars is vanilla and.

The chocolate.

This is where I learn why it is that the baby so fat.

It's a four month old baby.

Yeah, baby, four.

Month old baby.

And they start feeding ice cream to the baby.

Really, yes, straight up, just giving the baby ice cream.

I didn't know babies could eat ice cream at four months.

Well, I mean, so here's the thing.

It is possible because babies are able to process lactose.

They can, they can.

Yeah, I mean it's it's their primary food intake.

Yeah.

But generally you do.

Not feed babies before six months anything except milk or formula.

And this baby is getting chocolate vanilla ice cream.

That would make a fat baby.

Yes.

And I'm sitting there and I'm just like, oh my god, no, no no, no, no, no, no, no, no no, please don't please don't do that.

Please don't give that to the baby.

Don't let the baby have that that that's terrible.

Exactly right.

Yes, Tessela knows what I'm talking.

My little girl, she knows because she didn't have any of that stuff.

No, that is incredible.

We finally started leaving Tunetown and boom, that's when our wheelchair arrives for mom.

Wheelchair arrives for mom, and all of a sudden that's when one of the girls looks over and goes, why are you in a wheelchair?

And he's like, well, I've got I'm wearing these shoes.

I can't these these heels are terrible.

And the girl goes, oh, I've got a second pair of flats if you want to wear those.

Communication Mom's like okay, So she takes the flats, she puts them on, and continues to ride in the wheelchair.

Still okay, Well, I mean when you're in.

The lap of luxury.

Now here's the best part.

Once she was in the wheelchair, there was this momentary expectant look at me from her and dad, as though you're gonna push wheelchair out right suddenly you're made and immediately.

Might like I just looked at them and I was.

Like, all right, so are we ready to go?

And turned and walked away.

Oh no, there's no, no, no, no, I'm not not happening.

And if you would have given into that, who knows what else would have come down the road.

So how did this all wrap up?

I mean, so eventually we wrapped up at Club thirty three.

We went to Club thirty three because they had reservation there.

They had some friends that were going to meet them there and take them up to go eat at Club thirty three.

Club thirty three.

Is it like that kind of secret exclusive club.

Yes, it's the secrets Exclusive Club.

Is an entrance into it over in New Orleans Square.

It's actually above New Orleans Square all the stores and restaurants and everything in there.

That's the first level.

The second level is Club thirty three, okay.

And you can see it from the outside.

You can see like the windows, you can see the people up there.

But unless you know to look for it, nobody ever looks for it, So nobody knows that it's there.

So it's it's secret in that it's not an unknown thing, but it's not weren't aware of it.

It's not as Yeah, the little sign for it is like this little thirty three.

That's it.

Yeah, okay.

So I put the guests onto Pirates of the Caribbean and said, I'm gonna go check you guys in Club three three, you know, enjoy the ride.

So I put them on Pirates of the Caribbean and then I run over to inside the Club thirty three and I go inside and I go to the cast promos, and I'm like, okay, so these are the worst people in the world.

Let me give you a run down of everyone that's happened to me today.

So I give them a rundown of everything that's happened, and they're like, that didn't happen, none of that.

That's not real.

You're totally exaggerating these people.

No, no, these are hewerful people.

Oh and by the way, it's one of the rules club thirty three, no video inside the club.

You can take.

Pictures, but no video.

Video is absolutely one forbidden.

So I warn them they are going to try to take video.

They're trying to try to Facebook live, They're going to try to snapchat whatever it is.

Be on your toes.

Yeah okay, yeah, right, came an eye on for it.

So I go back out.

You get the fenders, yes, so I get them.

They're coming off Pirates of the Caribbean.

So I'm walking them over to Club thirty three.

The dad kind of like sidles up alongside me, so go, oh, hey, yeah, a little bit of good twoty for you, and he hands it to me, you know, bundled up a pair of twenties and a ten.

So, yeah, fifty dollars for dealing with you.

People all day.

Meanwhile Small world's getting.

Yeah, like small Japanese girl in the Small World saw you for all fifteen seconds.

And they they've got they've been paid more than I will have been paid this week.

And I don't know if he knows, but those animatronic characters can't spend the money.

Well, you don't know what goes on backstade, You don't know what we've come to lick rooms.

I can't Actually, that's something right, I did have to sign an NBA for so I can't.

Speak to that.

But so you got fifty bucks or fifty bucks?

How long was this in total that you had to deal with them?

Like how many hours?

I spent six hours with these people, which thank god ours is.

It is a very short amount of time compared to how long some tour like long stories I've ever.

Done with seventeen hours.

Yeah, anyway, so the last part I get them over to the club.

We open up the door, and immediately, of course, they've all got their phones out and they've all got it ready to record.

The cast member.

As she opens up the door, she sees them with their phones out.

She stops and pulls the door back closed, and she's just kind of peeking out.

She goes, I'm just to let you guys know that there's no video recording inside the club thirty three, so make sure that your phones are only taking photos, thank you very much.

And they're like, oh, okayh yeah.

But they're all winking and naughty at each other super obviously.

So they open up the door and they come in and they go out into the little open foyer kind of like interior court area.

And they go out there and they're immediately pulling out their phones and trying to video each other into video themselves and stuff and whatnot.

And one of the cast members she just descends upon them.

She's like, you need to put that away, and you need to stop recording, okay.

And he's like, oh, I wasn't recording.

I'm talking about the white trash guy.

By the way, this is the best part, is he he this was his shining moment.

He's like, ime, no, know what you're talking about.

He turns his phone to the other people first and says, see it's not recording, is it?

And obviously he's pressing the button to close out of it.

And then he shows it back to her see nothing, and she goes.

I know what I saw, and I know that you were Facebook living.

Don't do that or we'll throw you out of the cloud.

Thank you very much.

The polite scolding.

You gotta love the polite scold.

I'm sorry you had to deal with that.

Yeah, well it was made compounded worst of the fact that I didn't get to spend the time.

With my daughter.

Yeah, that's that's not fun.

Thanks family, Thank you all for people.

All right.

Next in the studio we got Justin Kaminski and Malory Farrow, and we debate the ins and outs of the philosophy of tipping.

How much is too much?

A little too little?

Walkouts not cool?

How to deal with them?

A walkout?

As always decided to speak about a walkout.

Brilliant story.

So again, my name is Mallory and I've been serving for a very long time.

It's kind of like post trauma.

You gotta talk about it to get through it.

You get it, identify it.

Yeah, it was a walkout.

I was dealing with a I was working at a sports bar.

I was that a sports bar.

It was football football Sunday.

So I was there at seven am getting everything ready and these this one specific table was there throughout my whole shift.

And so my shift was like at seven am to four pm, and they were there the whole.

Time on the West coast.

Yeah, seven am.

Well there's like, yeah, it was game.

Yeah, that's so I was like kickoffs normally like like ten.

Oh no, but like getting a table, getting a reserve, getting like the Buffalo Wings all over, getting the drink specials.

Everything was like very chaotic.

So were there getting prepared for it.

And then these guys there was a group of Hispanic guys.

They were there throughout my whole ship.

So they were like and I say Hispanic because they were like they were guys, like they were mancho.

These were huge guys.

And I'm like this little, you know, white person that looks like I'll throw a muffein at you, Like I don't look I don't look like I'm going to do any damage, Like look out, I'm gonna hurt you.

I don't have any street cred unfortunately, So these guys definitely were intimidating.

Well not now, I mean not then now with me, Yeah, I get it.

So these guys were there throughout the whole ship.

So that's me serving on these this table for literally hours of refilling drinks, and they're just getting more and more intoxicated.

So they're getting louder and more aggressive and everything that you don't want that I have to be around because of my job.

Going to say more awesome, No more aggressive.

And at the very end of it, the only moment that I really wanted to get paid, that one little moment that I really really wanted that I was holding out for, they they all left.

They left me.

They just like booked outside and I ran after them.

Did they wait for you to like walk away?

Well, I mean I wasn't there.

They just all like, you know, you have multiple things to do.

I dropped up the check.

I was going, yeah, you're right, that's exactly what happened.

To end the story.

Ninjas.

You can't serve ninjas.

I've been saying this for years and no one listens.

You can't serve the ninja folk.

These guys they were not big enough to be ninjas, I mean enough small enough to be ninjas.

So yeah, they they left, and so I followed them, and I was like, hey, excuse me, Hi, pardon me, Hi, you didn't pay it was over three hundred Hey, yeah, you didn't pay please, And these guys were like, I paid read paid paid, I don't know what you're talking about.

I paid red and I was like, I have red hair.

So for those two get their.

Their bill up to three hundred dollars, Like what what were the items were they ordering?

Like lobster beer, food?

This is the alcohol?

Do you know the alcohol gets that tab high?

No?

It can yeah, from seven from what eight am to four?

No, it's football Sunday in a sports bar.

These people are doing top shelf anything, that's true.

Yeah, it's a lot about light course.

How many of them were they.

Like eight or nine?

Nine, But it was kind of like in and out.

Guys would show up and then you know, so yeah.

Which makes you worry in the restaurant industry when you see people coming and going like that, for.

Sure, especially when it's like there was eight or nine and they kept coming in and leaving in like the group changes constantly.

That's always a source.

Of like uh oh, yeah, who's paying this bill?

Yeah?

Are you aware?

This is not going to go well?

And you try to keep all of that up to date throughout the whole experience, but you just can't.

This is not my only table.

I'm truly operating with and the restaurant I was at, I had a big section, so I'm operating off of like even in five other tables, which just as many people and a hectic going throughout a day, running getting food, dropping off drinks.

Everything.

It's just a chaos, and you just hope that you're dealing with people that are respectable enough to be like, okay, I'm gonna.

Pay thing the coming in coming out.

Kind of like the way that that's going too, is that when the final bill comes, there's a lot of inner argument of like well I got this, well I got.

That, and they're all trying to do math and you're.

Just like, nobody wants to pull out a calculator.

They want you to do it all and you're like, okay, just pull out your phone.

Yeah no.

It comes down to what I call the jay Z rule though too for us on this side, is a fuck you pay me, like figure it out, dumb dumbs, like you're the ones that came in and ordered the stuff, like yeah, but you just watch them try and do math, and it's so oh so fucking frustrating.

It's very like or in this case, I just watched them leave and not even worry about doing the math part, which was also very frustrating.

I paid read I paid like I had nightmares about this guy telling me I paid right.

I paid, don't worry about me.

You can check out.

I'm like, listen, I'm sorry you didn't pay.

Here's the here's the check.

Well that was somebody else.

I think you were here the whole time.

Can you just do me a favor.

The security guard.

The security guard came out with me.

And this is an establishment that I needed security guards at who actually did have things on them, because this was a place that was known for people getting ran out of, which is sad said that I even took that job.

I'm like, I don't like that they were calling you red.

Yeah, but it does.

I don't know.

It's smacks of like slave paid red racism.

I paid right.

Red like.

Maybe of white and Irish descent.

You can't call me red.

I can't really.

You just feel like you just feel so incapable.

I feel like I can't.

You're not going to help me right now, You're not going to pay me.

This is my job.

I literally worked for you for hours and now you're not going to pay me.

So did they pay.

No, no, no, they got away.

With it because they they just kept with that I paid, and then what they were outside, He literally just walks to his car and then drives away.

So I can go to Applebee's order a bunch of stuff that's not where I worked at and then walk in, I know, and then why sitting.

On apple Bee's.

I don't know anything about Applebee's.

I unfortunately do.

But so I can go to say I just pulled that up out of nowhere.

But I can walk out and just keep saying.

I paid, Yeah, salvage.

Can I paid and keep on strolling down the street.

You might have problems going back there again.

But I don't want to go back to Applebee's.

Like I said, they were really great, but I don't want to go by it.

No, it's not worth it.

It's not worth it.

So it was definitely a hurting experience for me.

That's a punch in the gut.

Yes, you just feel, Yeah, you just feel you feel helpless because you truly are, and you feel like your work was for nothing and you feel taken advantage of it a certain way.

Definitely, what was the restaurant's side on it?

Restaurants do make you.

Sometimes restaurants make you pay, but in this case, no, because they knew the aggressive nature of the people that were there all day, they were able to put the circumstances in my favor.

Thener that they've been drinking for a long time, so it worked out where I didn't have to pay.

But still, you know, you, we serve not for hourly, We serve for the tips.

This is why we have this job.

Otherwise we wouldn't be doing it.

Yeah, it's all we all we work for.

People don't realize that.

They're like, they think the tip is just something that's added on as like a bonus.

It's like, no, the paycheck is a bonus exactly.

The tips are what we're working for.

Thank you.

Yeah.

No, And people do not understand that.

And I've had to explain that to a lot of folks, and just.

Like, really, who would you guys work in the service industry if you were getting hourly?

No hands on, I wouldn't.

No, there's no point.

It's the job is too difficult.

You're dealing with too many irrational personalities.

It's too hectic, too chaotic, it hurts your body after years.

I mean, it's too exhausting.

I'm not going to do that if I'm not getting tipped.

That drove me nuts too, Like, so I'm like, you know, like late thirties now, and people used to complain.

I remember old people complained about like they're back hurting.

I'm a lower back.

My back hurts, and at the time, you know, I'm in my twenties ages and I'm a skateboard kid.

I'm thrusting myself down like twelve steps of stairs just for fun.

And I'm like, I don't know, but this back problem thing, oh no, it's real.

Like I hit the point where I'm like, oh, the back thing.

Is for real.

Yeah, it's brutal after an eight hour shift now, I mean, and I just can't, like my back seriously hurts.

I'm like, I need a glass of wine or five.

Day.

So how much long did you stay there before you quit?

I stayed there was a breaking point, like why down I.

Kept that serving job because I was hostessing somewhere else.

So I was working too, and I was going to school at the time too, but I wanted to I wasn't gonna quit until I became a server at the job that I that I worked at.

So once I became a server at the job I was hosting for that money, and that environment was just so much healthier, less to toxic.

Then I quit that job.

It was just kind of a It was just I need to work and it was money.

And by the way, I want to give some love to the hostess as out there, the hosts and hostesses.

It's such a.

Ship upon job, like it's just looked down upon and it's not given the credits due.

But in any restaurant that I've ever worked, a solid host or hostess really makes their breaks everything, Like surely that it's that you know, the restaurant is an animal and there's all these organs in.

Each person is a part of that organism.

Man, when you have a good host or hostess, it really sets you up.

For everything you need it.

And I don't think they get the love they need.

This is the difference between a good hostess and a bad one.

A good hostess will see you three times, but then go up to you and say what do you Versus a bad one that's gonna sit you three times and walk the fuck away, and you're just like.

Hello with an attitude and make it.

Your Yeah, but you can't handle it you can handle it.

Too much for you, my bad.

He's like, yeah, yeah, no, there's a weight, that one that's gonna one that's gonna fuck you over, but nicely and lubed, like there's there's a lubrication then animal to it and.

Bringing that sweet server cky.

It's like then I can look at those tables and feel a little less stressed.

But it's so necessary, and I feel bad about that.

I don't think they get No, they do, and they make you know.

It's very systematic and if they're not on point that really.

I feel like hostess is I've been a hostess.

I know that job.

I know that so when I I know that gig, so when I talk to hostesses, I feel as if I'm not It's like when I'm frustrated with you, it's like because I know that you could do it better, because I've done it and I know you can do it better.

No, definitely, and a lot of people, just I think, just in general life like they since they've done something, they figure that they're the best at it and they're not willing to like learn, And I don't know.

For me, I've always been like maybe because I have very low self esteem.

I'm like, sure, teach me, Oh, you have a better way.

Let's do this.

Let's get to the bottom of it.

And that's what we're trying to do.

All right.

Thanks guys, thank you.

I think it was a good chat.

Thank you for hearing our server moments.

Here we go, traumatic day.

I'm gonna have to go drink and maybe if I'm on myself.

It's a tough gig.

I feel like if we can talk about it, then I feel we can heal.

Just remember, it's zucchini.

I didn't throw up.

Zucchini is the It's zucchini.

All day long and all day night.

Zucchini for me.

All right, I pokes bydie.

Thank you so much to all of you, Justin Kaminski, Malory Farrow, Wesley Hyde, see el Sin.

But before we go, do you have any horror stories from the service industry, Write me at Jesse at stiffpod dot com or call us and leave a boy smell at eight three three four one one four shm so, which of course is short for straw Hut Media.

I have been your host, Jesse Wood, and this has been stiffed.

Even though some of us are big softies.

Be sure to follow the show on social media at stiff pod.

Please listen, rate, and review.

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Thanks, see you next week.