Five Song Friday: Thank You For Your Service
This Week: Desperate Men, Puffy Leather and Generous Cowbell
Our national obsession with tipping is out of control.
I’m sick and tired of getting nickel-and-dimed at every sandwich place, coffee shop and burrito joint.
This madness needs to end.
I support the legitimate giving of a gratuity for good service rendered.
This isn’t about that.
I’m talking about the extra step that’s been added to every single transaction at a checkout machine these days.
The one that asks “Would you like to add a tip?”
The one that makes you feel like a heel for saying NOPE.
The one that suggests the person who hands you a cup of coffee — from the machine RIGHT BEHIND THEM — deserves a 15% pat on the back.
Am I paying you extra to swivel at the hips? What is even happening?
Look, I have ZERO issues tipping where tipping is due.
You wait on my table, handle my luggage, deliver my pizza or drive me to the airport?
I’ll tip you like I mean it.
But I firmly believe you need to EARN a gratuity. It’s not a thing which is OWED to you like an unalienable right or a participation trophy.
Cups and jars on the counter are cool. I get that it “doesn’t hurt to ask.”
But putting a digital gun to my head after I’ve swiped/tapped/inserted feels like extortion.
And it offends me as a Veteran.
To be clear, I’m not a veteran of the United States Armed Forces.
I never put on a uniform to defend our great nation.
I never saved a platoon of fellow soldiers by jumping onto a grenade.
I’m a Restaurant Veteran who worked for close to 20 years in the trenches and on the frontlines of food service.
I’ve seen some shit.
I started as a busboy at 14, clearing tables and making sure the fancy-pants salad bar stayed stocked at Tandom’s Pine Tree Inn.
(Human lives were not usually on the line, but if the oysters disappeared or the blue cheese dressing crock ran dry, all bets were off.)
In the years that followed, I worked as a waiter, bartender, deli manager, caterer and cook. I delivered pizza, scooped ice cream and steamed shrimp by the pound.
I flipped burgers on the beach, served senators and governors at galas and poured heavy drinks for people who probably didn’t need them.
And, not to brag, but back in the eighties, I sold “loaded” baked potatoes at the mall.
Most days were exhausting, demoralizing drudgery. The pay was lousy and I was forced to do things like slather hot, dirty bleach water on the floor and call it “mopping.”
I had to pretend that I didn’t hate everybody all the time.
Sometimes I had to wear a clip-on bowtie.
But I wouldn’t trade a minute of it.
Restaurant work made me a better person.
It showed me the value of tenacity and teamwork. It formed my work ethic and taught me how to talk to strangers.
I met people that changed my life.
I understand that tending bar or scrubbing pans isn’t the same as serving your country. But much the same way that teenage boys are forged into men during their time in the service, my cocky teenage nature was humbled and beaten into submission by less-than-glamorous manual labor.
I’m thinking specifically of the time I squatted to hoist a trashcan of hot seafood garbage and split the ass crack of my khakis.
Or the nights it was my turn to clean the rotisserie chicken machine.
You ever unclog a toilet during dinner rush at an all-you-can-eat seafood restaurant?
It’s not storming the beach at Normandy, but it’s certainly no picnic.
But this isn’t about my accomplishments.
This is about tipping.
Your fancy electronic machine asks me, “Would I like to tip?”
But when I look at your face, I don’t see the pain.
You look nice enough, but you don’t know the torture of working a slow lunch shift without a smartphone.
Have you ever had to read the same newspaper FOUR times waiting for people to walk through the door?
And when those people finally did appear, JUST before you were going to be sent home, did you ever look at them with the same contempt and disgust usually reserved for child murderers?
I didn’t think so.
You don’t have the dead-eyed stare of someone who struggles with PTSD (Post-Traumatic Server Disorder) and still has nightmares of “being in the weeds” even though they haven’t served food or drink since George W. Bush was President.
Working in a restaurant doesn’t make you a better person.
In fact, one of the first things you learn is that the magic behind the curtain is less Wizard of Oz and more HBO’s Oz.
Restaurant life can be brutal. I met plenty of not-so-good people in those kitchens, bars and dining rooms.
People with restaurant experience aren’t better… just different.
I was one of them.
And once you serve, you are always a server.
That’s why I reserve my gratuity-giving for people who go the extra mile and take actual steps to deliver great service.
I’ll pay extra for that all goddamn doo-dah day.
Sincerely,
DJ CrankyPete
Five Song Friday 080
“Talkin’ to Myself” - Sarah Shook & the Disarmers
When Sarah Shook sings “bad brain don’t ever turn off,” I feel her pain. My bad brain is always running in the background like a negative white noise machine. I wish that my “good brain” worked as hard. But I also wish that I had washboard abs and a magical ATM in my basement. Wishes are for losers.
“No Reason” - Sunny War
Speaking of bad brains, the Nashville singer-songwriter-guitarist known as Sunny War has said that she grew up obsessed with AC/DC and Bad Brains. But her style here is less head-banging and more toe-tapping and hand-clapping. Think Tracy Chapman with a little extra shredding.
“Sometimes I Rhyme Slow’” - Nice & Smooth
Speaking of Tracy Chapman… there’s nothing sweeter than a “Fast Car” sample underneath some old school rapping. Completely independent of this song I have become mildly obsessed with the coats on this album cover. They don’t look like something a costumer brought along on the day of the shoot. These look like coats that Nice & Smooth went on a mission to find. Mission accomplished!
“Don’t Ask” -John Craigie
Do yourself a favor and listen to the story that John Craigie lays out here. It’s the tale of a desperate man in search of a way to remedy his loneliness by rekindling an old flame. “Don’t ask me if I miss my bed / Why the hell would I miss my bed / This world has got a lot of beds / And I don’t mind trying them all.”
“Love Is Alive” - Gary Wright
RIP to the OG Dreamweaver. Nobody could pull off violet eyeshadow and an aviator scarf like my man Gary. And no doubt the funky-as-HAIL opening to this jam will get the guys at the Pearly Gates to be like, “Right this way, Mr. Wright.” In you doubt his musical prowess, please enjoy this clip, featuring more cowbell, keytars and backup karate babes than should be legally permitted.
“If your house is on fire, you don’t comfort yourself with the thought that houses have been catching fire for thousands of years. You don’t sit idly back and think, ‘Oh well, that is the way of nature.’ You get going, immediately. And you don’t spring into action because of an idealistic notion that houses deserve to be saved. You do it because if you don’t, you won’t have a place to live.” - Bill Nye
" I don’t see the pain" is my mantra now. Thank you.