Dear Miss Manners: Why is it that whenever a large group of people eat out together, there are always problems coming up with enough money to cover the bill and enough to leave a decent tip?
Why does everyone, when adding up in their heads how much to throw in, always forget tax and tip (and sometimes the dessert and the few extra drinks they had) and base it only on the amount of their entree?As an ex-waitress, I experienced this from one side, and recently as a customer from the other side. Everyone throws money into the center of the table until one person takes charge of counting it. After they come up very short, there is another round of "pitching in a little extra" and the bill is just barely covered, with a few dollars left for an embarrassing tip.
My aunt, uncle and their grown children were in town, so my parents, my sister and I all went out to dinner with them - about 15 people, including grandchildren. We had wonderful service from a very polite lady, and our bill was over $103. When all was said and done, there was a $7 tip left - about 7 percent.
I made sure I was completely covered for my $13 part of the total bill by putting in $18 for my portion of tax and tip, and a little extra, just in case.
Is there a polite way to say, "Hey, guys, this lady gave us great service, and she deserves more than a 7 percent tip"? I was afraid of offending someone in my family.
Gentle Reader: Although personally aware of the problem you describe - to the extent of having learned how expensive it is to be the last person to leave a restaurant after a group meal - Miss Manners does not attribute it to stinginess or chicanery.
She blames the restaurant billing system. The systems of tipping and of separate bar bills encourage people to think of their expenses as being smaller than they actually are.
The long-term solution she keeps suggesting (to very little avail) is that restaurants, like other businesses, pay the total wages of their employees, rather than making them dependent on the whims of the clients. The prices listed on the menu would then correspond more closely to those undertaken.
But, oh dear, then there is also the tax. Anyway, it is wandering from your problem.
The solution to that is for someone - preferably someone in possession of a calculator - to take on the job of treasurer. This consists of more than just counting the money and reporting a shortfall, for which no one will feel responsible.
One must say to each: "You had the flounder - did you have drinks? Dessert? OK, let me see what that adds up to with the tip and tax." And one then assigns an amount.
This is perceived as a help, rather than an insult. No one will have been charged with deceit, only with an inability to do arithmetic. And for some reason, no one takes offense at that.
Dear Miss Manners: I would like to know who speaks first, a man or a woman. I have been taught it is always the man.
Gentle Reader: Miss Manners is curious to know who taught you, a man or a woman.
In any case, it wasn't someone in the etiquette business. Even under the most gender-conscious of old-fashioned rules, it was always the lady who spoke first, so that she, and not he, would have the option of conversing or not.
Dear Miss Manners: What should one do when a friend or acquaintance calls on the phone and then does not take responsibility for carrying the conversation?
Several times I have had someone call me and then stay on the line with nothing to say. Thus there is a silence, which makes me uncomfortable, but the person does not end the call.
I usually end up saying something like "Well, I'll be going now" or "I guess I'll talk to you later." I feel incorrect, though, because I wonder if it is my place to end the call, since I did not initiate it.
Gentle Reader: You are correct in believing that the person who made a telephone call should be the one to end it, just as a guest who shows up in person should be the one to end the visit.
But, as your experience attests, one could die waiting.
The polite solution is a skill known as Speeding the Parting Guest. Miss Manners is delighted to report that there is a popular new expression designed precisely for doing so on the telephone.
The phrase is "Well, I won't keep you." It has the polite advantage of seeming to worry about intruding, rather than being intruded on, and is thus an improvement on such previous expressions as you mention, or the various versions of "I think I hear my mother calling me."