Stiffed on $200

I got stiffed on a $197 check today.  What makes it worse is the man who stiffed me was an arrogant, womanizing prick who was in my station for about 3 and a half hours.  Every time I went to the table to get another drink order he was so rude that most of the people sitting with him were obviously embarrassed. One time, after it took me ten minutes or so to bring them their third or fourth round of beers, he asked me all smug, "We're you brewing those back there?"  I politely replied, "Sir, I am the only server down here right now.  As you can see I'm pretty busy."  A man at his table replied, "It's ok, we're fine.  Thanks."  Sadly, the nice one wasn't the one who was picking up the check. I was working a ten table station at that moment, in the second half of my six hour shift.  Dealing with someone like that is never fun, but dealing with him on a day like today makes it even worse.

Anyway, that jerk is not worth any more of my words, thoughts or energy.

Tomorrow is a new day. 

***Quick note on the subject of getting stiffed and why it's immensely frustrating.
As I let this post sink into my head for a bit, I thought deeper about why stiffing is so offensive.  Let me make a quick note on why we, as servers, get so upset when we get stiffed, especially on a large check.  For starters, we make minimum wage.  After taxes on our wages and tips, health insurance premiums,  etc... we hardly make a paycheck.  There are times within a paycheck period when we occur a negative balance in which we actually owe money for our health insurance, etc... (this happens when we make more tips than usual).  Mentally that's tough.  Aside from all of that, at a restaurant of this caliber, the servers never keep 100% of the tips.  We are obligated to tip out at least three different people each shift:  the server assistant (busser), the bartender and the food runner (and on busier/longer days, we potentially tip out two server assistants, two bartenders and two food runners).  Usually this accounts for about 30% of our total tips (on those busier days, closer to 40%).  So, if I have a table that drinks a lot of alcohol and orders a lot of food and doesn't leave a tip, I still have to tip out the bartender and the food runner, even though I didn't get tipped from the customer.  Does that put it in perspective?  I'm practically paying to wait on that jerk's table.