Tip culture has gotten weird. Companies underpay employees, customers pick up the slack, and tips have morphed from a nice bonus for a job well done to a full-blown salary, but optional.

So what do you do when the job ISN’T well done, like the meal this guy had?

AITAH for tipping 83¢?

I went out to dinner with my wife last night.

When the bill came I gave the waitress my card.

She came back shortly after looking upset.

She slapped the card down on the table and said “declined.”

I thought her tone and brevity was rude.

I took out a different card from my wallet and handed it to her.

A card getting declined isn’t that rare.

Maybe it’s out of funds, or maybe it’s frozen for any number of reasons, or maybe some server failure just didn’t confirm the transaction.

But her assumption was…

While I was putting the first card in my wallet she didn’t move.

I looked at her and said “You okay?”

She said “If I go back and try to run this are you still going to be sitting here when I get back?”

I asked her if she thought her tone was appropriate for speaking to customers.

She said “you’re only a customer if you pay.”

I asked to speak to her manager.

I’m already confused, because if their plan was to dine-and-dash, wouldn’t they have done that with the first non-working card?

She left with the card.

My wife said maybe the waitress had encountered scammers before and was anxious about it.

I said being rude and being cautious are two different things.

The waitress returned with my card and the slip to fill out.

She said “This one worked. I’m sorry.”

Then came the tip:

I thanked her and took the booklet.

Our bill was $91.17.

I wrote in 83¢ as the tip and $92 as the total.

I handed it back to her and started to get up to leave.

She said “you’re really not going to tip me?”

I said “no, you were rude to me.”

She said “I have to tip out the bartender and the busboy. I just paid money to serve you.”

I said “Well, in the future you shouldn’t be so rude.”

So now, he’s wondering aloud if he was in the right:

My wife thinks I was an AH to the waitress and should have given her ten bucks at least, because it was an honest misunderstanding.

I would have given her $28.83 if she wasn’t rude to me, but I don’t want to pay to be insulted.

Was I the [jerk]?

For the record I called my bank and the card was flagged for fraud because of a pending $1 change that is often associated with fraud attempts.

I resolved it.

People responded in the comments:

We kinda skipped over the manager part, didn’t we?

Outta control.

Nobody felt much sympathy.

Look, there’s two possibilities.

Either they ARE going to dine-and-dash, which means you’re not getting a tip, or they AREN’T, which means you’re accusing them of something they’re not doing, which is very rude, and you’re not getting a tip.

There is not even a theoretical advantage to taking this approach.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check this one out about a man who created a points system for his inheritance, and a family friend ends up getting almost all of it.