A perfectly mediorce meal was topped with a perfectly strange check ceremony. When I paid in cash, the waiter quickly returned with my change. When I started counting bills, he asked, "Oh, did you want the 50 cents?"

Taken aback, I said no and added the spare change to the tip. But in retrospect, I should have been more forceful about this bald assumption about my coinage. I'm sorry, 50 cents is not chump change. It is not automatically yours without my permission.

I asked the Twitterverse if this practice was cool and got a few responses:

• @scottreitz: I don't think it's even cool if they ask if I want change. Don't make me say yes. Just bring me my money. I'll leave a tip.
• @bonappetitfoodie: Decidedly uncool. Even if it's 50 cents, rather presumptuous & kinda rude to assume it's tip & you don't want your change back.
• @msfmary: Either the waiter should ask if you want change when you give them the check or, preferably, just assume you do and bring it ALL
• @xcanuck: My response: "Sir, it's ALL yours." and then I'd walk away with the bills. But I'm a bit of a jerk. :=)

Your thoughts?

Our topic for discussion is a good one. We'll be discussing wait staff and the labor issues they face as they cater to every one of our fussy whims in D.C.'s dining rooms.

Y&H is no labor expert, of course. But I've dabbled in doing the dining room two-step for ungrateful customers. I've also received more than an earful from diners who think it's their God-given right to stiff a server if, for instance, the waiter gets too busy to refill those precious water glasses in a timely fashion. I also know there are few official courses to train people to become good, knowledgable servers, which is, in part, why Americans have so little respect for the job.

We'll be discussing all of this, and more, at noon today on The Kojo Nnamdi Show on WAMU, 88.5 FM. Be sure to call with your questions: 1-800-433-8850.

Photo courtesy of the Seattle Municipal Archives

Not officially, of course.  But servers at restaurants often labor under more rules than a slaughterhouse worker. Well, definitely more than a slaughterhouse worker actually follows.

I mention this because of Bruce Buschel's latest post on his delightful Start-Up Chronicle blog for The New York Times. (If you haven't read his posts yet on starting up a seafood restaurant, do yourself the favor, particularly this self-deprecating masterstroke.) In his latest post, Buschel lists 50 of the 100 things that restaurant staffers should never do. It's a tough list, and I'm not offended by it for one simple reason: He's the boss. He can make his employees do whatever he wants.

Some of the don'ts on Buschel's list:

7. Do not announce your name. No jokes, no flirting, no cuteness.

36. Never reek from perfume or cigarettes. People want to smell the food and beverage.

45. Do not curse, no matter how young or hip the guests.

I hope diners don't assume that this list fits all restaurants for all occasions. Because it doesn't. Personally, if the waitress at my local diner doesn't reek of last night's bender, call me "honey," tell me her boss is a cocksucker, act like I'm her BFF, and then ignore me for the next 30 minutes, I'll feel like I haven't visited a real diner.

Photo courtesy of the Seattle Municipal Archives, via Flickr Creative Commons, Attribution License

Reporter Janet Adamy writes:

"The busser is a luxury that, in this environment, is very difficult to justify," says Mark Godward, president and founder of SRE, a Miami consulting firm that has advised several restaurants to cut busboys.

In many states, it's cheaper to keep servers on the clock than bussers because of a loophole that allows restaurants to pay servers who earn tips less than the minimum wage — as little as $2.13 an hour. Bussers must be paid at least $6.55 an hour.

Waiters and waitresses at most full-service restaurants always have shared some responsibility for clearing their tables, and plenty of sit-down eateries historically have gotten by without busboys. But at restaurants that have long employed them, their departure is making the already demanding job of waiting tables more hectic. Servers depend on bussers to stock ice bins, roll silverware into napkins, refill water glasses and deliver bread to tables.

Some restaurant executives see this as a worrisome trend. To ensure good service, "it would absolutely be the last place I'd cut," says Nelson Marchioli, chief executive of breakfast chain Denny's Corp.

How much longer do you give it before mid-level restaurants start asking patrons to bus their own tables, like at a cafeteria?

Not anymore.

Today's Wall Street Journal (I swear to god, I read other papers too!) reports that the "restaurant industry, one of the largest U.S. employers, is experiencing its longest period of job losses on record."

How bad is it for the restaurant industry?

The latest data showed that restaurants shed even more jobs this fall than preliminary figures had suggested. Since their employment peak in June, food-service and drinking establishments have lost 66,500 jobs, leaving the group with 9.76 million jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. After years of growth interrupted by only short downturns, the extended decline is "definitely something different than what the food-service industry's used to," said George Prassas, a leisure and hospitality economist with the Labor Department.

The Journal also reports, kind of, sort of, that tips seem to be down: "Restaurant trade groups and consultants say there is no current data available to measure whether customers are leaving smaller tips, but they have heard many anecdotal reports."

So, all you waiters and waitresses out there, is the tipping trend true? Are you getting lower tips now?