Tip Your Server: One Day Soon She'll be Administering Your Surgery

I was insulted to the point of rage because in mid-conversation with three customers were telling me how great of a waitress I was these two classy women at another table yelled, “Helooooooo, waiiitress?!”

This insulted me on a number of levels. Level one, yelling of any kind in a restaurant is not cool. Unless it’s Super Bowl Sunday or some equally loud holiday, a general respect for your fellow man is expected. Level two, to yell at a waitress is insulting. Waitresses are not robots, not slaves, not objects for to do your bidding. Is it our job to bring you food and drink and napkins and be generally hospitable? Yes, absolutely. Did you ever hear of the saying, you get more flies with honey than vinegar? Ask for what you need, by all means, but I guarantee that if you preface your request for half-sweet-half-unsweet-tea-without-ice with an, excuse me, miss…? Your tea will not only come without foreign objects in it, but it will come with a smile.

Waitstaff are people too.

Above all, be the change you wish to see; which is good advice for life as a whole. If you want good service at a restaurant, be a good customer. Servers make $2.13/hr. We rely on your generosity for to pay the rent. And by the way, before you suggest that we go out and get an education and get real jobs, you should also know that with the recent economic changes, waitresses are working now side by side with lawyers, med students, accountants, teachers, and people from every walk of life who have recently been laid off and need to buy diapers and pay tuition.

Many people also may not know some intricacies of restaurant work. I won’t go into them now, but trust me, waitressing is like flying a plane: if you haven’t done it before, you have no idea how hard it can be.

Tip your server, and it will come back to you tenfold.