I always tip more when I go out for breakfast.  The reason is simple.  Usually, breakfast items cost less than lunch or dinner items, meaning your total bill will be lower in the mornings than it would be during the day or evening.  This, in turn, means the tip that you calculate off of the bill total will probably be less as well.  But why should it?  The waiter or waitress works just as hard.

I learned this valuable lesson when I was a waiter at Allegheny Café during my college days (all 2920 of them).  It didn’t take long to realize that if you were working the breakfast shift, you had drawn the proverbial short straw.  The workload stayed the same, but the pay dramatically decreased.

I remember complaining to my manager one morning when I had taken care of a packed house and earned a whopping $23.00 in tips.  “It’s not fair,” I whined.  “It doesn’t matter what kind of service I provide.  People are just programmed to tip 15% – 20% of their bill.  Plain and simple!”

The response that my manager gave me has stuck with me ever since.  “Then reprogram them,” he said, matter-of-factly.  “Reprogram them?” I asked.  “What does that even mean?  They’re not robots.”  “No,” he continued.  “But you’ve accepted the fact that customers are going to tip you around 15% no matter what you do.  You’re acting like a victim, but the difference is that you have the power to change all this.  Customers have come to expect a certain level of service and they’ve come to expect to tip a certain percentage.  Don’t expect that percentage to change if you’re not prepared to change your service.”

His comments reminded me of the definition of insanity.  You know…”Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results?”  So I decided to put this philosophy into action.  Instead of just introducing myself to my customers, I asked them their names as well and acknowledged them that way whenever I visited the table.  It gave a more personal feel to our relationship.  I also learned to never use a notepad.  I would memorize the entire order and then relay it to the kitchen.  Customers loved this.  If there was a mistake with another order in the kitchen, I would take the food (ie. an extra order of bacon) and give it to my table as “my gift to them.” I learned to make origami animals out of the napkins for kids at the table (OK…a napkin rolled up like a snake was as far as I got) and mastered the art of complimenting the women at the table without angering the men.  I immediately saw an increase in my tips.

All it took to change the outcome I was looking for was to change the way I was approaching it.  If there is a goal in your life that you’re having trouble attaining, don’t give up.  Don’t play the victim card like I did.  Just re-evaluate where you are and what you’re doing.  If your current game plan isn’t working, it may be time to adjust your techniques.  It may be time to roll up your sleeves and work just a little harder.  But most importantly, it will be time to remember that you are not stuck where you are.  You have all the power it takes to reprogram and change your circumstances.