“Nobody ever listens”

I went out to dinner last week with 3 colleagues – just a few drinks and something to eat whilst we chatted. The staff took good care of us and we had a thoroughly good evening. As we were presented with the bill, we asked if we could add ten percent, split it four ways and pay with cards, but we were met with an “oops – sorry, we can’t do that“. This was the first problem we had encountered all evening. The waitress explained that the tills weren’t able to take payment for anything different from what was on the bill. Any tips would have to be paid in cash. She said it was a common problem and that she had told her boss about it, but “nobody ever listens“. We tried every way of “tricking” the system into allowing us to overpay but we failed and as none of us had any cash with us, we left without tipping the staff.

What makes this story all the more worrying, is that I had visited the same place four years ago with the same friends, and had experienced the exact same scenario.