After sharing my tips with hosts, bussers, and bartenders, I make less than $9 an hour on average, before taxes. I am expected to skip bathroom breaks if we are busy. I go hungry all day if I have several busy tables to work. I am expected to work until 1:30am and then come in again at 10:30am to open the restaurant.
I have worked 12-hour double shifts without a chance to even sit down. I am expected to portray a canned personality that has been found to be least offensive to the greatest amount of people. And I am expected to do all of this, every day, and receive change, or even nothing, in return. After all that, I can be fired for “embarrassing” someone, who directly insults his or her server on religious grounds.
I posted a picture to make people laugh, but now I want to make a serious point: Things like this happen to servers all the time. People seem to think that the easiest way to save money on a night out is to skip the tip.
I return to this subject from time to time, perhaps because I can relate and I admire those who subject themselves to what it takes to be a server. I put myself through my last year of college by waiting on tables at a restaurant in downtown St. Paul, MN. Most of the time, it was a good experience; I didn’t get rich, but I wasn’t expecting to. I was happy to buy food, pay the rent and tuition, and go out once in a while.
When it was bad, it really sucked. I was mistreated by both customers and management, I was hit on by male customers and a male manager (this was in the days before sexual harassment was part of the lexicon, and I experienced everything listed in the manifesto above, which was written by Chelsea Welch of St. Louis. Ms. Welch was fired after posting a photo of a meal receipt online. She did nothing wrong- unless exposing a fool is an offense worthy of termination- and yet she lost her job. What befell Ms. Welch is not altogether different from what servers deal with every day. It’s a crappy job, but as the saying goes, someone’s gotta do it.
Tip your server, don’t be a jackass about it, and worry about the rest of the world after you do what is right within reach of your arm. Maybe, if you’re really interested in helping your community, work towards establishing higher wages for the people who bring you food when you go out to eat; there are thousands of them right where you live. First things first; if you shaft the person making slave wages who feeds you and then go home to whine on Facebook about the poor, poor people from somewhere else, you’re as much a part of the problem as the people in Washington dropping bombs and deploying drones.
Most people don’t really consider their server when they’re at a restaurant, and that’s a good thing; it means they’re doing they’re job well. Not thinking about your server doesn’t mean you don’t owe them some consideration when your meal’s done and it’s time to leave. You may not know anything about them, and there’s no reason you should. That said, there is something you should keep in mind: your server is dependent upon your largess for their income.
How do you think you’d feel if your income on what your boss thinks of your performance? That’s what servers deal with every day. It can be a crappy way to make a living, but they do it, and you should be grateful to them. They’re the reason you can stare into your Significant Other’s eyes at dinner without having to think about where the food and drinks are coming from. They’re the reason you get to pretend, at least for a little while, that you’re worthy of being treated as if you’re something special
Tip your server. You’ll be helping them pay the rent or buy food for their kids. If you have the money to spend on dinner at a restaurant, you have the money to leave a decent tip. Remember, you really can tell a lot about a person by how they treat and tip their server. You don’t want to be a dick…do you>
