Show her the money!
Aislin Parker, a waitress in San Diego, recently revealed the hack that helps her rake in some extra cash during her shifts.
She posted a video to her TikTok, @aislinmarie, where she told viewers that she added a baby photo to her server book in the hopes that restaurant patrons would assume the child is her daughter — boasting that they repeatedly fall for the ruse, hook, line and sinker.
“She’s six, I had her when I was 19,” she tells her clientele, inventing a full narrative, “and her dad didn’t want to stay.”
According to Parker, her hack is working. Naturally, her guests assume that she’s working hard for the child in the picture — technically, she is, seeing as it’s her as a child — and offer up extra cash.
Parker feels no reservations about her “server hack.” In a follow-up video, she said: “Yeah, I’m totally lying, but you gotta do what you gotta do.”
“I love to go into work and be a different person, and make something up,” she added. “Sometimes I’ll go in and have a southern drawl, like ‘Hey y’all…’ that’s what makes work go by fast and makes it enjoyable.”
Parker’s whole routine may come as a shock to diners, but the biggest surprise comes in the comments.
She’s far from the only waitress who relies on white lies to pay her bills, especially as America seems to be growing weary of the whole concept of tipping culture, with the average gratuity left at restaurants across the country in 2024 coming in at 18.8%, per Toast data.
“I lied to a table the other day that I had to pick my kid up from school so they would leave (I don’t have a kid),” revealed one like-minded server.
“Did I draw myself a “best mom ever” card on Mother’s Day with a crayon in my left hand and a backwards R and tape it to the outside of my server book so it was visible while taking orders? I can neither confirm nor deny…” a particularly crafty confessor said.
Kids aren’t the only thing servers lie about for pity pennies, though.
“I had earrings of Robert Patterson, and I would tell old ladies he was my husband off at war,” read one bizarre submission.
Some said they reverted to classic, tried-and-true tales to swindle their tables.
“When I would mess up, I used to always say I was new there.. I was ‘new’ for like 6 months straight,” admitted another.
“As a high school senior waiting tables, I’d drop the check with a college-branded pen so they’d ask if I was going there, and give them a sob story about student loans, LOL worked every time,” a bright young mind shared.
Others in the comments wondered whether or not customers realized their servers were lying, while some simply didn’t care.
“There’s a thing called free will and a thing called a choice, and they don’t have to tip if they don’t want to,” one supporter wrote, clapping back at haters.
Tipping has always been a hot-button issue for Americans, especially as new rules and regulations surrounding the topic, like mandatory gratuity and ‘living wage fees,‘ have been unveiled, but as it stands right now, servers maintain that “they gotta do what they gotta do,” as Parker said.
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