Two Damn Dollars
This weekend I was in Washington DC for a franchising convention (thinking that franchising is going to my way to financial independence) with a friend from College. for those that don't know, the DC convention center is just a few blocks from "Chinatown" (I use quotes because the DC chinatown is pitiful compared to other cites).
My friend and I were craving Dim Sum which is where customers order from ladies that push around various a la carte food items like shrimp dumplings and crab balls. My friend and I check out the area an only see two places that are serving Dim Sum. We go into the one which has a "20% Off Dim Sum" sign outside and start ordering. As soon as we sit down we order water and some Shumai and Shrimp Dumplings. I must note at this point that the service was terrible in that we had to work to flag down the waitress to order food seperately since the only cart pusher had disappeared (didn't want to be late to the next seminar). I ordered three dishes off the Dim Sum menu and we started talking about the possibilities of franchising. The food took over 30 minutes to come out (how long does it take to make 4 dumplings) and we only got two of the three dishes we had ordered. By the Way we still had not got any water and we had asked 3 times at this point!
We finally have enough and get the check. I pick up the tab and note that the 20% was not taken off for the Dim Sum purchase. The waitress tells me that it is for cash only purchases. Well this is the first I am hearing of this! My fiend and I begin arguing with this waitress protesting that the sign doesn't say anything about payment type! Finally we get 10% off since it wasn't worth protesting any more since it only would have amounted to a dollar or so. she runs my debit card and I leave her a tip of $2 on a $25 bill. I was going to leave her nothing but my friend talked me out of it. As I put the pen down the waitress rushes over, reaches across me as I talk to my friend, and takes the merchant copy off the table. She then begins to point at the tip amount and says "Only two dollars! You need to make it more." At this point I am so dumbfounded that I am just sitting there in amazement as to what is happening. My friend and I go off and begin to enumerate the reasons while she should have not recieved any TIP at all!
I just can't believe that someone would do something like that and still insist that we raise the tip after telling her all the reasons that we were not going to do so. So strange.
By the way, if you want really good Dim Sum in the DC Metro go here.
