DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

This is the man responsible for the smiley face on your dinner check.

William Michael Lynn is an authority on tipping behavior. He has published a free PDF pamphlet describing 15 ways servers can manipulate a restaurant diner’s generousity (Scientifically Tested Techniques to Increase Your Tips, 588K PDF) — everything from addressing the diner by name to providing candy with the bill.

He advocates touching customers. The next time a waiter or waitress touches you, enjoy the warm and fuzzy feeling, because it will cost you between 22% and 42% more than whatever you’d have tipped otherwise.

Lynn advocates squatting: by increasing “postural congruence” and eye contact between server and diner, servers achieve greater rapport and likeability, and therefore maximize the tip amount. In one study, “the servers received approximately $1.00 more from each table that they squatted next to.” In another study, servers who put their heads all the way under the table received $500 more from some diners.

Drawing happy icons on the check brought big rewards too.

Drawing a “smiley face” increased the waitress’ tips by 5% of the pre-tax bill size! However, no comparable effect was observed for the waiter. He recieved [sic] an average tip of 21% when nothing was drawn on the check and received an average tip of only 18% when he drew a smiley face on the back of the check.

Peering deeply into the human psyche, Lynn speculates that “seeing smiley faces drawn on checks may simply make customers smile themselves and, thereby, improve their moods.”

Lynn has not yet published pending research on the effect of dotting lowercase i’s with tiny hearts.

Applying all 15 of the tricks in this Mega Tips guide should yield a massive 520% increase in tips. So, for example, on a dinner bill of $100, a typical tip would come to $15. After applying Lynn’s methodology for maximizing tipping behavior, the server could instead expect $93. Now that’s good money!