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Blame Britney Spears.
A student in Tennessee has revealed how restaurant servers trick customers into giving bigger tips.
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Bella Woodard, 21, who bears a striking resemblance to Kaley Cuoco, is a nursing student at East Tennessee State University with a part-time job at a local establishment.
She recalls how she saw a viral TikTok video in which a server described how she doubled her tips by wearing pigtails.
Woodard was skeptical but figured she would give it a try — and the results were beyond what she had hoped for.
She received a $135 tip from one (male) customer.
“It’s weird and gross, but I’m down for more tips, so it doesn’t matter,” Woodard said on her own TikTok page.
“Wear pigtails to work,” she recommended to all servers. “I’m bound to be doing this every day.”
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Pigtails aren’t the only way to get customers to open their wallets even wider.
Wearing your hair down also works, as does speaking with a Southern accent, having blonde hair (dye it if you’re not born with light locks), applying shiny gloss to your lips, having manicured nails and, of course, wearing a short skirt or booty shorts, the New York Post reported.
Professor William Michael Lynn from Cornell’s School of Hotel Administration has researched tipping for years and discovered 20 ways servers can bring in more dough.
They include wearing something unusual, complimenting a customer’s food choices, writing “thank you” or drawing a picture on the bill, squatting next to the table or standing close to a customer, and smiling, naturally.
Woodard’s pigtails ruse didn’t surprise the professor.
“I believe that if it makes the waitress look younger; it increases her sexual appeal,” Lynn told the Post. “That’s probably why it increases tips.”
Along with women who wear makeup, he said, “a number of studies find that attractive women get better tips than less attractive women.”
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