Yes, tipping is customary in the U.S.

But what’s a person supposed to do if they get exceptionally bad service from a server?

The person who wrote this story on Reddit explained why they decided not to tip their waiter, and now they want to know if they acted like a jerk.

Let’s see what they had to say!

AITA for not tipping?

“A group of 8 friends and I (37M) went out to dinner at a new restaurant. We sat in one of those C/U shaped booths. I was sitting on the left side of the booth, I was the third person in with 2 friends to my left and the rest of my friends wrapped around the rest of the booth.

That’s odd…

When the waiter came to take our drink order, he took the order of my 2 friends on my left, skipped over me, took all of my other friend’s orders, then took mine last. I thought maybe it was just some sort of humor so I didn’t care too much, just thought it was weird humor.

Then the drinks come out. He gave all of my friends their drinks then gave me mine last. Again, I brush it off. He takes our food order and once again, he takes my 2 friends orders to my left, skips me and saves me for last. That’s when I start to feel like he’s doing this to me intentionally.

What the hell…?

So the food comes out and all my friends get their food but mine doesn’t come. After about 5 minutes, still nothing. Another few minutes pass before another waiter passes by. We flag him down to let him know my food hasn’t come. He goes and grabs our waiter who then takes about another 5 minutes to show up.

When we tell him my food hasn’t come out he says, “Oh. I completely forgot to put your order in. I’ll go put it in now.” My friends had been waiting for me to get my food so we could all start eating at the same time, but I told them to just eat.

My food didn’t come until after they had all finished theirs and he had come to collect their plates. I finish my food and my friends decide they want dessert. So we order dessert and the waiter once again skips me and takes my order last.

I’m extremely upset at this point but I don’t say anything, I just accept it. And once again, my friends all get their dessert but I don’t get mine. About 10 minutes after they all got theirs, he comes back and says, “Oh yeah, they were all out of what you wanted, do you want something else?” I just say no and leave it alone.

He wasn’t having it…

When the bill comes he starts trying to be all chummy with everyone, including me. I just glare at him. He leaves. My friends start discussing how much to tip and say we should all split it.

I outright told them I’m not tipping at all because of how he treated me specifically. One of my friends used to work as a waitress and told me she understood why I wasn’t gonna tip but decided she would just tip on my behalf, which also upset me but I let it go.

A few of my friends told me I’m being an ******* for deciding not to tip because, “maybe he’s having a bad day.” I could accept that he was having a bad day if he was doing that to everyone, but it was like he singled me out.

I know American tip culture makes a lot of people think that you should tip no matter what, but for something that felt so deliberate, I personally think its ok not to tip

To answer a few questions ahead of time:

Never met the guy before. I’ve never even seen this dude before coming to this restaurant

It’s a brand new restaurant so I’ve never been there before so no history at this place

I’m generally very nice to customer service workers as I’ve spent years working in customer service myself and I typically will tip even with “bad” service. But this felt deliberate.

AITA for deciding not to tip after this experience?”

Here’s what folks had to say on Reddit.

This person said he’s NTA.

Another individual weighed in.

This person shared their thoughts.

Another individual weighed in.

And this person said he’s NTA.

There was no way he was gonna tip this guy!

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.