I Need Your Help Making ‘Revenge Tipping’ a Thing Here in Maine

First things first... tipping is awesome.

Recently, I was tripping down Memory Lane with an old friend, and were laughing about a time my friend had a couple extra drinks and got a little demanding for the bartender's attention and was perhaps even irritating said bartender. At some point when the bartender was about to tell my friend where to go, my buddy started throwing $20 bills at the bartender while apologizing at a high rate of speed.

At the time, I jokingly referred to it as rage tipping. Then over time, it kind of morphed into revenge tipping. Basically, when presented with any kind of negative situation, throw money at it to diffuse the issue. But I've discovered an even better use of revenge tipping, based on an incident I witnessed out to breakfast recently.

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Restaurants are short staffed. This is not new information.

I went to a local breakfast joint recently, and right up front there was a sign that asked patrons to please be patient while they were drastically short staffed. Most folks were more than happy to offer up some extra patience with the one server trying to handle a whole dining room alone. Others were straight-up jerks.

When the woman came to our table to bring our check, she was visibly shaken by how badly she was being treated by some of the customers. I told her she was doing just fine and that we were in no hurry. She gave a look of sad thanks and kept moving. About the time I heard the same table giving her crap for the millionth time, something in me snapped a little.

I chose the high road...

Instead of getting up and causing a huge scene in defense of this woman like I wanted, I left her a 100% tip. My bill for my mom and me was around $30. So I went ahead and tipped this lady $30. Am I rich? No friggin' way. But I know what it's like to feel helpless and screwed at a job where people are being totally useless human beings.

I didn't say anything to the poor woman, I just quietly handed her the bill and smiled and told her that it would be over eventually. And for the price of $30, I got feel like a million bucks. It's not like it's necessary to tip like that all the time, but a few extra bucks I won't miss just might make someone feel like they were seen at a time when they were really struggling to hold it all together.

I will promise you one thing though, I've been doing this for a few years after seeing a similar story on the internet, you will never, ever regret throwing someone a couple extra dollars. In fact, you'll never feel richer.

For the record, I also tip people who work on my house, car, etc. It just feels like the right thing to do... How about you?