Tipping servers with kindness

  I believe we should start this off with a lesson on kindness. The most cliche topic, which is to treat others how you want to be treated.

     This goes for service workers too, and in extension, food servers. Before starting my first job as a waitress at Waffle House, I had no idea of the impact tipping and just overall being nice to your server has.

     I would go out to a Red Robin with my friends and leave $2 on the table, after all, I didn’t have much money and servers already got an hourly pay, right?

     $3.63 how much servers make in Maryland. 

     Say you stay at a restaurant for two hours. In that time, the server will have brought you menus, gotten your drinks, taken your order, delivered food when it’s cooked, and then taken your plates and cleaned them, when you were done. That’s not including refilling any drinks or bringing you sauces if needed. Seems like no big deal, right? 

     $7.26 is the amount they’ve made during that time.

     That’s not even enough to buy a chicken sandwich at McDonalds, let alone pay a phone bill or car insurance. Even if it was a ten-hour shift, that’s only $36.30. That’s why tipping is so important. 

     That’s only part of it though, if a table of mine was nice and treated me like a human being (which I’m now realizing is the bare minimum), I wouldn’t really mind if they only left two-dollar bills under the napkin holder, or even didn’t tip at all.

     You never know what someone has in their bank account, and who am I to complain when not every table tips me 20 percent?

     What really irks me though is when a table is entitled or disrespectful. You are their servant, not a human being, and are here on Earth for the sole purpose of attending to their every need at every second, while not being too attentive and risking the possibility of annoying them.

     What. A. Joke.

     I didn’t get this too much at Waffle House, except for the occasional teenage boy who would come in asking for a free waffle or climbing on the counter before being kicked out.

     But now being a server at a country club, it happens a lot more. More than half the time, members at the club are totally disgusted any time you cannot read their mind and automatically know they wanted ketchup with their French fries. 

     Now it may sound like I’m exaggerating but working in an upper-class place such as a country club, people act entitled because of the seven-digit number they have in their bank account.

     I don’t believe in treating people any less just because of their money, race, or anything they cannot control or change within five minutes. 

     However, you can control the words that come out of your mouth so use kind ones while talking to servers, despite the name of the occupation, we are not actual servants.