Jeff Burkhart: Be nice just to be nice

“That will be $18.57,” I said, setting down the glass of white wine, noting inwardly that ridiculous price — not so much because of the cost, but rather the extension.

In days gone by, it would have been rounded up or down to the nearest quarter. Down to the penny just seems ridiculous.

“It should be free,” the man said.

He was the last person in the restaurant and had technically already left — only to re-enter after his ride share had canceled on him.

“Why is that?” I asked.

“Because I spent a lot of money here and now my ride is late,” he replied.

I didn’t get how any of that entitled him to anything from us. Lots of people spend a lot of money in a business. That is exactly why it is called a business. Buying something doesn’t entitle you to anything more than what you bought. It’s the very definition of a transactional relationship. And we have been hearing “transactional relationship” a lot these days. Generally, it means doing something for someone else only with the intention of getting something in return. But now it seems to imply getting something additional to that original arrangement.

Maybe you’ve heard of the acronym TIPS broken down as “to insure proper service.” And as a service professional, I find that acronym offensive. I take pride in what I do. I like what I do. And I enjoy people. And yes, the bulk of my pay comes from tips. But I don’t obsess about them; often I don’t even look at them until later. It’s not that I don’t work for tips, but I am not working for them every second of my job. I want you to enjoy your experience with me because I just want you to. I have always figured the money will come from that. And 35 years later, it has and still does.

But I know not everybody does that. I have certainly worked with people who only want to wait on so-called “big tippers.” They feel that the only people who truly deserve their time are the people who pay excessively for it. And that becomes a problem. Because the scale keeps sliding up, until it is unsustainable. I have seen the difference between 15% and 20% ruin someone’s night. A few lousy dollars should not define you. But sometimes it does — if you let it.

“I am a good customer here,” someone you don’t know and have never seen before will say.

So what? So is that guy over there, and that woman over there, and that couple, and that family. Just because you use a service provided and pay for that service, doesn’t mean that you are entitled to anything above and beyond that service. But just try telling some people that.

“I am a big tipper,” someone will say unbidden. And you can take my word for it, they won’t be. Because they never are. The real big tippers won’t say anything, except often “thank you.” Ironically, the people who think they are the big spenders usually aren’t.

“We’ll have five Manhattans,” says the woman standing two rows back, right over the two people sharing a glass of white wine. She is spending more money in three minutes than that other group will spend in the entire night. But guess who thinks they are more important?

There is a quote often attributed to Gandhi that goes, “Be the change that you want to see in the world.” For many people, that means I will be nice to people in the hopes that they will be nice to me. But ironically, that is not what Gandhi meant, or even said. What he actually said was: “We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change.” But it’s not a quid pro quo. The reason to do good in this world is not to reap some reward, but rather just to do good. That is its own reward.

That last guy in the restaurant with the white wine just glared at me as I put the credit card receipt down for him to sign. I didn’t have to look at it to know there wasn’t going to be a tip.

Later on, when I passed him in the parking lot, he asked to use my phone because his was dead, and his ride share had still not arrived.

I told him I didn’t have a phone.

Leaving me with these thoughts:

• I am a bartender, not Gandhi.

• Sometimes you do catch more bees with honey. You certainly don’t catch fewer.

• If you can be bought, you can be bought. The amount itself is irrelevant.

• I have a feeling that ride-share company keeps track of payment history. Call it a hunch.

Jeff Burkhart is the author of “Twenty Years Behind Bars: The Spirited Adventures of a Real Bartender, Vol. I and II,” the host of the Barfly Podcast on iTunes (as seen in the NY Times) and an award-winning bartender at a local restaurant. Follow him at jeffburkhart.net and contact him at jeffbarflyIJ@outlook.com