Having lunch with coworkers can be a worthwhile use of your time, depending on the circumstances. It’s often fun to get to know people just for the sake of meeting new people, and sometimes friendships can be forged over time spent having lunch together. Other times, you might choose to have lunch for networking purposes. Yet other times, you might go because you simply have to and have no real choice in the matter.

The latter was a situation I faced when I was just starting out working after college. Now, I did make some friends there that I’m still in touch with many years later. We had lots of laughs through our times as new, entry level people.  Of course, that was balanced by dealing with a higher than average number of interesting characters as well, who we just had to deal with. This type of person played a role in what I’ll share as another Squirreling Gone Wild story.

The Lunch

This was back in the late 1990s, which seems like it might as well be the stone ages. I say that because when a group of people was going to lunch, there wasn’t an email sent to the group. Rather, people walked from one cube/office to another to spread the word about a Friday departmental lunch. Well, since it was Friday already, that meant that you pretty much had to drop whatever lunch plans you had (including a lunch you may have brought) because there were some senior people going. You just had to show up – at least that was the strong feeling that many of us seemed to have.

So, I went with the group. We went to some local restaurant, probably a chain restaurant, and had a long lunch together as a group. There must have been at least 12 to 15 people, possibly more. It’s been a while so I don’t recall exact numbers, but suffice to say the group was large.

The group was a mix of people at different levels of responsibility, as I alluded to earlier. This meant entry level people, some experienced people, as well as some more senior people.

How Everyone Usually Paid

Usually, there were not individual bills for each person. Restaurants didn’t seem to like to do that, which makes sense as it makes it time consuming and a hassle for them (and other customers too). So typically, one bill would come to the group, and the most senior person would manage the process. This might mean that she (or he) would either:

1. Go through and tell each person what they owed; or
2. Just take the bill and divide it by the number of people there.

Either way, as I said, one senior management member handled it. Everything was done via cash.

How Everyone Paid This Time

This particular time, there was one senior person there who had a negative reputation. I never worked for her, but had been told that she was not a particularly nice individual. People spoke about her being selfish, taking credit for others’ work, ill tempered, and things of the like. Like I said, I never worked with her or interacted with her much at all, but saw her walking the hallways with a sneer permanently affixed to her face.

Anyway, at this particular lunch, she told everyone to give her the cash for their share, and then she would take care of it. Okay, nothing unusual there. However, she said she would just take the cash and pay by credit card. She never really asked if anyone cared.

And frankly, it shouldn’t be a big deal to do it that way. I’ve done that with a group that before, where I handled the bill, so I certainly didn’t have an issue with it. However, I do have an issue with what she actually did.

She had told everyone to add extra for the tip – but asked for only about 10%. It’s been a number of years, but I recall her then saying that the waitress was making enough as it is with a big group, so why pay a high percentage when we didn’t have to. I thought that was weird and unfair, and assumed that a tip would be the same. In some places, in fact, a mandatory percentage is applied to large groups.

Anyway, once she actually collected everyone’s share – including tip – she paid by credit card.

Here’s the problem: she never paid a tip.

That’s right – she collected everyone’s money, asked for enough to cover a tip, and then charged the amount on the bill while neglecting to add a tip.

The way I see it, that’s simply ice cold.

Now, I didn’t actually see her sign the bill and put zero or a dash on the tip line. Rather, I was told this by someone who sat next to her and was a reliable person who also didn’t work with that lady. In other words, she was credible with axe to grind with that lady.

Can you imagine? With a lunch group that size, she pocketed enough to get a free meal of her own. As I think of it, her behavior totally reminds of me of these infamous people I ran into years later, and ceased to dine with again. Yuck!

I have to say, it made me believe all the negatives that were said about her!

My Questions for You:

How do you handle paying the bill when having lunch with coworkers?

Have you ever seen anyone play any games when it comes to tipping at restaurants?

What’s the shadiest thing you’ve seen or heard of someone doing when it comes to paying a restaurant bill or leaving a tip?

 

When someone comes over to your home for dinner, don’t you want to treat them with hospitality? Conversely, when you visit someone else’s home – don’t you want to treat them with generosity by bringing something along with you?

For most of us, I’m guessing the answer is yes on both counts.

For some, the idea of social graces is simply a foreign concept. Perhaps we can write such people off as not having life experiences that provided them with good examples. Personally, I know very few people close to me that fit this description, which is fine by me. Maybe I’m fortunate that way.

For a select, small group of others, graciousness is not a foreign concept – yet they deliberately try to take the cheap, sneaky approach in pretending to be gracious. This 24th edition of Squirreling Gone Wild dives further into the depths of The Extractor and her family, who were introduced in the Squirreling Gone Wild #18 story.

As a brief review, recall that The Extractor was good at trying to get free stuff from companies, and her husband was skilled at avoiding sharing the bill at restaurants. I eventually concluded that crafting these tactics was practically like a form of art to them.  They are true outliers, unlike anyone else I have known when it comes to squeezing free stuff out of people. On the one hand it’s comical, yet ultimately it’s distasteful when they pull stunts on you!

Now, there are some times in life when you have to offer up some food or gifts to people, and that’s where the cheapness came out in a different way for them. Despite the otherwise innocuous behaviors they had, their cheapness would shine through in situations where people visited their home, or when they visited yours.

Cheap Hosts

One example of their cheapness was when we visited their house once. After sitting down, they politely asked if we wanted anything to drink. In this regard, they followed norms of behavior. It’s when food was involved, they apparently get freaky.  This visit was the classic case, as after getting my drink (I just asked for water), The Extractor asked me if I wanted something to eat. I politely refused (I was hungry though), at which point she played the game by responding with an offer of a snack.

Now, the snack you might expect at someone’s house might be mixed nuts, chips, pretzels, or something of the like. You get the idea. Instead, she offered me an ice cream cone.  Wow, I thought, that sounds pretty good!

Excited like a kid, I responded: “Sure, whatever flavor you have sounds great!”

She paused and said, “Oh, I don’t have ice cream – I have cones”

“You mean actual cones without the ice cream?” I said.

“Yes” she responded.

Now, these people weren’t hurting for money. Not wealthy, but middle class. I try not to be overly picky, but this seemed odd. I was beginning to question why I interacted with them in the first place. In statistical terms, they would be several standard deviations from the norm.

It was made clear soon after, by her husband, why they offered plain ice cream cones. The guy told me that they got the cones from a friend of theirs who owned an ice cream shop, and was getting rid of excess cones.  I took that as meaning old, stale cones, but it doesn’t really matter. They were hoping to serve me, a guest, sugar cones without the ice cream – because they got them free. They were basically trash to the original business owner.

I guess the mixed nuts or chips were too highbrow for me in their eyes 🙂

What was interesting was the way The Extractor’s face froze a bit, as she briefly shut her eyes, when her husband freely shared the source of the cones. It was one of those looks that screamed “I can’t believe he said that!” This, of course, confirmed to me that she knew she was super cheap.

You know, I do try to be thankful for whatever food I have. Many parts of the world would love to have any food that provides sustenance.  Additionally, part of being a polite guest is not being a burden on the host. I don’t want people to do anything special for me, there’s no need to at all. I’m just plain ole me. But in the context of the abundance these people (and many others) have, this was an uber-cheapo maneuver.

Cheap Guests

These people also proved to be cheap guests when the opportunity presented itself. The one example I have here is when they and their youngest daughter visited our place. The daughter is an adult, so I view her as an independent person, but she’s still in the same family. Thus, she’s influenced by Mr. and Mrs. Extractor, and has probably received graduate-level instruction in extracting pennies.

So, there was a gathering at my home, and was asked if the daughter could come over too. Keep in mind, this was before I figured out what these characters were like. Naturally, not thinking anything unusual about it, I said sure she’s welcome. Why not, right?

Anyway, the cheapskates didn’t bring anything with them, which I noticed but didn’t really care about. The daughter arrived late, and brought a bottle of wine in a wine gift bag. The thing is, the bag looked like it had been used before. No big deal, right? I wouldn’t give a shoddy looking bag, but as you probably know, I can appreciate some frugal choices so that was no big deal to me.

Ultimately, after the gathering was over, the daughter took a very large amount of food home with her.  She really cleaned up. Later, when they were all gone, I took a look at the bottle she brought:  it was a Charles Shaw varietal, of Trader Joe’s fame. “Three Buck Chuck”.  

Then, it occurred to me that she came over, pigged out, AND took home a staggering amount of leftover food – all the while bringing a very cheap bottle of wine.

The best part was what I noticed upon an even closer look:

1. The bottle had a short personal note on it addressed to her. Apparently, she had been given this ‘exquisite’ bottle as a gift by someone else. She didn’t bother to care that the bottle she gave us had that note still on it. It was a blatantly regifted bottle of cheap wine.
2. The used wine bottle bag I mentioned earlier had a gift tag hanging from it, where she (Extractor’s daughter) had written on it words to the effect of:  “Uncle XYZ, Congratulations on…..”  Thus, from what I can tell, she gave some wine to an “Uncle”, and then got the bag back from him – only to reuse it in a ‘gift’ to me.

Maybe I’m a little off base on my interpretation of these two situations. I’m open to that concept. However, it was all very odd. I chuckled about it, not quite knowing who I was dealing with just yet. I found out later, as detailed in SGW#18, with the tricks they later revealed. This was just a precursor 🙂

My Question for You:

Have you ever dealt with anybody that has been a super cheap host, or ultra penny pinching guest?