Picture this. You’re me, a 16-year-old boy working his first job at a local Italian restaurant. It’s one of the busy nights, a Saturday at 8 p.m., and I’m working at the hostess desk. 

After working things like normal for some time, six older men came in asking for a table. At the time, there was about a 30 minute wait and there was no available seating left. I politely told the men this information and they kindly agreed, and asked to wait at the bar until their table was ready. After about 25 minutes, I told them their table was ready and sat them down. After about 10 more minutes, they swiftly filed out and glared at me as one of them said, “Apparently nobody gives a s*** about us, so we’re leaving. Thanks for nothing.”

It’s no surprise that people are rude, but all for the wrong reasons. Restaurant workers aren’t there to be your maids. They’re serving you because they need a job. They’re people too. They’re working, living beings. You can wait an extra 15 minutes on the busiest night of the week, especially if the restaurant you’re at is severely understaffed. 

I remember working another shift at the same job where I was bussing tables. There were three young girls working at the hostess desk. One was 16 and the other two were 17, as they were training the 16-year-old, who we’ll call Leyla for the sake of this story. We’ll call the older two Mary and Sarah. 

I was finishing cleaning a table when I walked over to let the three hostesses know they could seat guests there. It was then that I noticed that Sarah had run into the kitchen, face in hands, crying. Since I didn’t witness what had happened I asked the other two what happened. Leyla had explained to me that we had a 25 minute wait. Sarah had told two older guests and requested that they wait outside, or in their car, since we were in the middle of COVID-19 and we still had to follow protocols. The female guest had begun getting aggravated and yelling at the three hostesses. Sarah had apologized, but the female guest called her a b**** and a c*** and told her how useless she was, prompting Sarah to get upset and go into the kitchen. Mary had continued to argue with the guests and at this point, insisting that they leave. It was then that another female guest had begun threatening the woman and almost got into a physical altercation until our manager intervened. Crazy stuff, right?   

The main problem with the way service workers are treated is that the people of this world have all grown extremely impatient and irritable. Why they decide to take it out on the people who serve and make their food, I have no idea. It’s clear that people who work in the service industry aren’t respected enough, even though I’ve seen from experience that most of them are just as hardworking as anyone else, for much less pay. That’s why tips are so important to your servers. Now, I could sit here for hours and talk about why tipping your servers is so important, but let’s narrow it down with another story, shall we?   

It was again, at the same job. There was a server, let’s call her Alice, who is one of the kindest, hardworking and most easygoing people I’ve ever met. She volunteered to take a 40 top, a party of 40 people, where she spent most of the night dealing with this party and various other tables throughout the restaurant. At the end of it, she had come out with five dollars worth of tips for the entire table of 40. I was working at the hostess desk that night as I saw her slowly walk over, check in hand, tears rolling down her face and fists balled up. She had told me that her tips weren’t that good for the entire night and was expecting something much bigger for the large party. She had rent due that month for her apartment and was severely behind on cash. What was most shocking to Alice was that she was very attentive and nice to them. They were very nice to her as well so she assumed the tip would be decent, but no.

Many service workers are parents. A lot of them are also students, much like myself and I’m sure a lot of you. I cannot stress enough how important it is to them that they end their shifts with enough money in their wallet to take care of themselves and/or their kids. 

Let’s take a break from talking about restaurants and talk a little about grocery store and gas station workers. 

They’re just as important as restaurant workers, if not more, due to the fact that without them, we wouldn’t be able to afford the everyday essentials we need. It kills me every time I see some crazy person being rude to cashiers at places like Walmart, Giant Eagle or any of my local gas stations because just like us or those who work in food service, they’re just trying to get by. 

It’s important to always greet them with a smile and leave them with a “thank you” because I’m sure you’ve gone through something in your life that other people just don’t understand. 

I’m a huge stickler for treating people how you’d like to be treated and remembering the phrase, “You never know what someone’s going through,” because it’s true. I’m 100% certain that if you got called profanities just from doing your job you’d be upset too.

I guess the moral of the story is that you don’t have to be a huge tipper, just a decent one and treat people with kindness as Harry Styles so famously said, or in this case, treat your service workers with kindness. Basically, don’t be a d***. 

Nick Keller is an opinion writer. Contact him at [email protected].