Basic Trope: Good people treat service personnel well, bad people treat them poorly.
- Straight: Alice goes to a speed dating event at Chez Snooty. While there, she notices that Bob speaks politely to the waiter, takes his suggestions, and tips well. Conversely, Dan berates the waiter for imagined slowness, questions the man's knowledge of French cuisine, and doesn't tip at all. When she dates the men separately later, Alice discovers that Bob is an overall decent person while Dan is an unrepentant jerk.
- Exaggerated: As above, but Bob is an All-Loving Hero, while Dan turns out to be a terrible villain.
- Downplayed: As above, but it turns out both are decent men. Dan, however, is much more easily stressed than Bob, which is why he was rude during the speed dating event.
- Justified:
- The sort of people who treat social inferiors poorly are usually the sort who would treat anyone poorly, could they get away with it.
- Bob was once in a service position himself, which allows him to empathize with the waiter. Meanwhile, Dan never had this background, and thus takes the waiter's service for granted.
- Bob was a Lonely Rich Kid who parents were hardly around, and his servants were more loving and attentive than they ever were. So he develops a deep respect for service people.
- Inverted:
- Bob the Good Is Not Nice hero stiffs the waiter "because they'll never learn unless you punish their mistakes", while Affably Evil criminal Dan tips generously because he feels the need to be loved, and this way he can buy admiration.
- "Nice to the Patron": In a didactic work aimed at the lower classes, Bob and Dan are waiters. Good Bob is properly servile and treats customers well; evil Dan is insolent and slow to come to the table.
- Subverted:
- Bob, normally a heroic fellow, deliberately trips a waiter and laughs at him.
- Alice and Bob are getting very poor service from their waiter. While Bob is quite willing to generously tip any server who actually works hard and earns it, he's also ready to berate anyone who deserves it.
- Bob tips the waiter and generally treats him well. He's an Affably Evil mobster who later coolly arranges the waiter's murder because he may have overheard a conservation he shouldn't have.
- Bob is rude and Dan is nice. We later learn that Bob was having a terrible day and was getting truly abhorrent service (unrelated to his attitude) whereas Dan’s service was flawless. When the two men just get moderately bad service, Bob brushes it off while Dan has a meltdown.
- Dan may be a Jerkass, but he treats service personnel with respect because he knows they have a tougher life than he does.
- Double Subverted:
- But only to protect the waiter from an assassin's attack while preventing the killer from realizing Bob was on to him.
- Bob changes his mind at the last minute, deciding that it's best to be nice to everyone whether they deserve it or not. As a result, he tips generously.
- It turns out the waiter was going to poison Bob and he was just trying to sabotage his plan.
- Bob tips the waiter and generally treats him well. He's an Affably Evil mobster... but his treatment of the waiter is there to foreshadow his Heel–Face Turn, or perhaps because he's been served well and he wasn't pissed off.
- Someone fucks Dan's order up AGAIN and Dan just gives up, going all out.
- Parodied:
- The establishment enforces a 50-dollar "asshole tariff". They get away with it (although this would be illegal in reality) because a) they're in a comedic story, and b) everyone would like to be a waiter at a restaurant where the jerks got Laser-Guided Karma.
- The waitstaff offer back rubs and/or free beer to the nice guys.
- Zig Zagged: Bob is usually nice to service personnel and his "social inferiors", but sometimes is horribly rude to them, seemingly without a pattern; in his main storyline, he's stuck in the Heel–Face Revolving Door.
- Averted: Everyone treats service personnel the same way, regardless of their moral or ethical standards — the story isn't about "the little people", after all.
- Enforced: The writers want to establish a new character's personality traits (especially if they're unpleasant) before they formally meet the main cast, so they're seen in a restaurant or other service situation.
- Lampshaded: "I knew Dan was going to be trouble when he corrected the waiter's pronunciation and called him a useless pig."
- Invoked: Whenever Alice is meeting someone she expects to have a long relationship with later (i.e. she's dating them, or is hiring them and will be their boss), she takes them out to a restaurant and watches how they treat the waitstaff. If they're nice, it's on, but if they're mean, then no deal.
- Exploited: Bob is extremely nice to the waiter; so nice, in fact, that the waiter looks the other way when Bob puts something in Alice's drink...
- Defied: Dan is nice to waiters, in the hope that he will fool Alice.
- Discussed:
- "Politeness to one's inferiors is a sign of weak-mindedness and moral turpitude! If they deserved better treatment, they would have been born into the upper classes!"
- "They're holding another big 'meet-up' event here at Chez Snooty, so we can expect most of the customers to be extra nice tonight to impress their dates."
- Conversed: "The heroes on this show are all really polite and well-mannered to the servers when they go to a restaurant. See, even when a fight breaks out, Bob makes sure the waiter doesn't get injured."
- Implied: Alice tells her friends about breaking up with Dan over their dinner date last night and leaving him for the much kinder Bob.
- Deconstructed:
- Since the concept of Nice to the Waiter is well-known, anyone who cares about their reputation can simulate it to create a favorable first impression. Thus it's not always as good a test of character as one would assume.
- Alternatively, it is unreliable because one is having the entirety of their character judged by one bad experience. Outside of the waiter incident, the person in question can be undoubtedly decent.
- Reconstructed:
- On the other hand, it's very difficult to keep up the pretense of being Nice to the Waiter if you aren't used to it — many phony "good guys" will revert to their normal Jerkass behavior quickly if something goes wrong with their order.
- Furthermore, it can quickly become apparent if someone is a genuinely decent and respectful person, or if they're just pretending to be.
- Played For Laughs: Charles misunderstands the concept and is only nice to waiters, no one else.
- Played For Drama: Dan slaps and insults (in the most dire language allowed by the censors) the waiter in retaliation for poor service.
- Played For Horror: Dan murders the waiter in retaliation for poor service.
Now that you've finished, I'll bring your check and you can go Back to Nice to the Waiter.
