Why you should tip your budtender…
By Chris Fisher
I do not want to get off on a rant here but why would you not tip someone who just helped you out, especially if you are someone who knows nothing about cannabis? There may be some confusion on the issue of tipping your budtender so I am going to clear things up. I understand that most folks who come into a weed shop are spending a good deal of money and I am not asking you to drop twenty percent of your bill, it is not like we are your bartender or anything. When someone is spending a good deal of money already it is hard to want to throw down a little extra for the person who just helped you. The thing is, we get paid very minimally because tips are expected in this industry. While tipping is not mandatory, it is prevailing practice to leave a tip after someone in the customer service industry helps you out. For the vast majority of us, tips make up a substantial part of our income.
This issue has been aggravating for me lately because it is making me jaded towards the people I help. I want to give the best service I possibly can, I want to inform the customers who know absolutely nothing, I want to make you feel comfortable in a place you have never been but when customers cannot even drop a dollar or two as thanks for me where does my incentive go? What is to stop me from offering negative advice, or no advice at all? It does not seem to matter if I even say anything sometimes. Maybe from now on, I will start telling customers that indicas are sativa and vice versa! Maybe when someone tells me how they are anxious and need something to calm down I will fix them up with some Chem Dawg, some Tangerine Haze, or some Durban Poison. Maybe when someone tells me they need some good “work weed” I will offer them some Granddaddy Purps or Grape God. Maybe I will use my knowledge to jack up your anxiety or make you groggy at work? I am usually a very polite person and I do not wish to misinform anyone, but I have a mortgage to pay.
We live in a society that tips, that is plain and simple. People earn less for a living in some jobs because tips are part of that industry. Drivers, servers, and bartenders all get tipped because they are paid a lower wage by the establishment. That is just the way it is, you not dropping a tip for your budtender is not about you fighting the system and your dollar that I give you back does not mean near as much to you as it would to me.
It does not matter if you work in an industry that does not tip, if you are using a credit card, or if you are using your parent’s money and have no concept of what it is like to pay someone for their help, you should leave a damn tip! If I hear someone say, “I’ll get you on the next one” one more time I am going to reach across the counter and take your products back from you. Most of you folks are taking this out of state and that is illegal. I am fully within my right to cancel your transaction and kick you out of my shop.
