Being from a place that believes that time is everything and you must not waste a minute on anything, Firenze can be a horrible place to live. Just when you think you will lose your mind at how slow the service can be one day you open your eyes and realize that maybe this is the right way to do things. From the restaurants, to the supermarkets you can bet you will be waiting at least 30 minutes when you ask for the check or a drink or your food. The Italian culture is very laid back. They believe that they should work to pay their bills and necessities and have enough for a small vacation. Many businesses do not put business hours on the door because they open and close whenever they feel like it which can make things difficult when you are looking for something.
The restaurants hire servers and pay them minimum wage, sometimes even more. The result of this means that the Italians do not tip when they go to a restaurant but instead pay a service charge which is around 1 euro per person at the table. This is completely opposite from how we do it in the states because as a server you rely on your tips. The better service you give to a customer the better the tip is. In Italy this means that since the server is not getting tipped they only have to do the minimum to get by because they are getting paid regardless. The average American sees this as being a terrible business model but after living here for over a month we see that the average business owner and it's employees are perfectly content. I noticed that all of the servers help each other out because you do not have 1 server but numerous ones who take your order and bring out the drinks and food.
So when you are out and about at your local restaurant remember, if your server takes a few minutes to bring your drink it could be worse so just deal with it. Oh and if you ain't tipping you ain't sipping as we say in the bar industry.
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