A generous tip

At a restaurant, the simple act of tipping the server for his or her work, always involves some basic arithmetic and this always is a welcome exercise, as it reconciles us with percentages and their magic.

That time, we just had some scrumptious tapas and when came time for the check, I looked at the bottom lines and quickly figured a twenty-percent tip. I kept it in my mind as I inserted my credit card into the holder, and when the printed forms returned I wrote that number down and added the two lines up.

That’s when the lines below, designed for those of us who have forgotten the rules of percentages, caught my attention.

There, a various sampling of tips - starting at 20 percent and going all the way up to skyrocketing tips - showed equivalent dollar amounts of which percentage translated to, and to my surprise, my 20 percent was dwarfed by the restaurant’s conception of that same percentage, as it suggested almost twice as much in actual dollar amount!

I crossed the cheat-sheet and wrote a loud “WRONG!” all over it. Hopefully the eatery’s I.T. person will catch it and review the place algorithms.