Hello again! It's me, your waitress, the one who waited on you with a smile through and through. Even when you were difficult, rude, or made requests that made my service to other customers suffer, I still did my best to make your dining experience enjoyable. So when I realized that you had not left a single dollar for the tip, I was a little disgruntled. Now before you get defensive and make excuses about why you decided to stiff me, I want to tell you about myself and give you a little perspective for the sake of your next waitress or waiter.

I am a full time college student, and I commute half an hour to school every day. I still live with my parents, and they do the best they can for me, but I am the one who pays a majority of my bills including my car payment, my car insurance, and gas. So I wait tables three nights a week to pay those bills and support myself the best I can. Trust me, I'm not complaining. I take a lot of pride in the things I am able to do and pay for on my own because I work, but this is where you come in.

The number one defense I hear when a server openly scolds people who do not tip the way they should is that "tips are not expected, they're earned." I get paid $2.75 an hour, and that is actually a little over the server's minimum wage. This low minimum wage is acceptable because it is expected that customers will make up for this with the tips they leave. And you should be thankful for this expectation, because it is meant to ensure that servers do their best to provide you with good service. So, yes, when I have busted my butt to serve you, I will be expecting my 18%, and I will remember you if you decide I wasn't worth that. I will still serve you with smile and do my best because that is my job, but I probably won't go that extra mile to make you sure you have a good time.

By all means, if your server has not given satisfactory service, leave the bare minimum, but make sure that the area of your service that displeased you was the server's responsibility. Your server does not prepare any of your food or decide the prices of that food. So, I'm sorry, but if you did not like your food or the bill was higher than you wanted and you tip your server based on either of those problems, it's just unacceptable. A bad attitude or a constantly empty drink are entirely different stories.

But even then, please do remember that your server is human. Anytime you feel like you are not being served well, take a look around the restaurant before you start subtracting tip. Is it packed full with people? Are there a lot of other servers in the same area? Is your server running around to many different tables? Please take a moment to try and understand why the service is suffering. I, myself, have eaten in many restaurants that were not staffed well for the number of customers present, and because of that, my waiter/waitress was having a hard time keeping up with everything. As a waitress, I understand that many customers are ignorant or simply unsympathetic to these issues and will tip accordingly. I make a point to tip over when this happens, just because I know the dread that sets in when you know you're sinking and not doing a very good job.

Believe it or not, we're people too. Sometimes the struggles in our life follow us to work, and sometimes that shows. But we still smile, greet you, and try to be the best we can at our job. The work we do should be valued and respected just like any other service you are given. We are teenagers and adults alike. We are students trying to make it through school, mothers/fathers trying to put food on the table, but most importantly, we are humans. So I beg you, show some compassion for your fellow human being who is obviously having a very rough night but still trying, simply because it is what you would want someone to do for you if the roles were reversed.