Anyone who works a job that involves tips will tell you it can be tricky. You can give the best service of your life and still wind up with a below-average tip. While a lot of people see tipping as a bonus, or something that's optional, not leaving a tip can actually screw over your server.
Most wait-staff and general service industry workers rely on tips to supplement their income, since they make below minimum wage.
For Danijela Memetag, she relies on tips to help pay her way through university. Memetag, a waitress at East Side Mario's in Ottawa, Canada, was going about her day as usual when a customer left an extraordinary tip.
"He ordered an omelette with sweet onions and cheese, and double toast...and coffee," Memetag recalled.
The bill came to $12, which if you're going by standard 20% tipping, should have totaled $14.40. Instead, he left $1,012.42. This is a tip of 8300%.
Memetag didn't notice the tip until the man was leaving the restaurant.
"I was like, "˜Is this serious? Is this actual?'" she told CTV Ottawa. "He was like "˜Yup, have a good day,' and left."
"The biggest tip I've ever gotten here is $50, and that's insane already," Memetag said. "It's crazy."
The man hadn't been to the restaurant before, at least not according to the people that work there. The only information on him is that he sometimes stays at a hotel nearby. Despite his anonymity, this stranger changed lives.
Memetag said that he told her to use some of the tip to pay the bill of a nearby table and give some to the bartender. She also chose to give some of the money to the cook. The bartender and cook each received $100.
"These girls work hard. They do their best every day and to have something like that happen in this small town, it was pretty exceptional," said manager Janet Forsyth.
Before he left the tip, the stranger had given the staff some advice. Oddly enough, he told them that money isn't everything. It seems like a weird thing to say before giving someone $1,000, but I'm sure it's easier to say that money isn't everything when you actually have it!
In the end, Memetag will be using the money to pay for her textbooks, which cost a ton of money in her law program.
[H/T: CTV News]
