Restaurants are a great convenience for people. Maybe you had a long day and cannot fathom cooking an entire meal, therefore, you drive to a nearby restaurant. I personally love the convenience of being able to go out to eat. I am also always prepared to tip at least 20 percent on a bill. I give a tip because I am someone who receives them.

Do you want to know how much I get paid as a server? $2.13. Yeah, I know. Crazy, right? And after taxes, our paychecks are nothing. Therefore, servers depend on one thing to make it by in life: tips. It is the goal of a server to give guests a great dining experience. We do not want you to come in and not enjoy a good meal, because we know how it feels to want a night off.

Here is something you must know, although your server is who takes care of you; they do not have much control.

We are one thing: a server. We are not the cook, the busboy, the manager, the bartender, or the hostess. It is not our fault you did not get a booth, that your burger had pink in it, that your food is taking too long, that your cocktail isn’t ready yet, or that your table wasn’t cleaned off quick enough. We cannot help that you ordered a pizza and it is taking longer than ten minutes to cook, if you want food out in a minute please refer to your local McDonald's or Wendy’s. We are sorry we couldn’t refill your drinks the moment the glass got half full, you are not our only table we need to tend to. A majority of complaints that servers receive are not in their control whatsoever.

So here’s my tip to you: do not punish your server. Unless you have been or currently are a server, you will honestly never know what it feels like. You probably don’t know that we also have to tip out the bar and busboys. That is on average $10, maybe less or more, that we need to take out of our tips. That may not seem like a lot but when you work 5+ days a week, that $10 adds up fast. The more food and alcoholic drinks servers serve, the more they have to tip someone else at the end of the night. Unlike minimum wage workers, we do not know what we are going to make in a week. Servers cannot plan ahead because we don’t know. We could make $200 or $50 in a week. On a slow Monday, the restaurant has to evenly distribute tables to servers, which means we maybe get 6 tables with no guarantee that they will tip even a dollar.

Servers get parties of 20 and do not get tipped. That is 20 drinks, maybe 2 or 3 appetizers, 20 entrees, maybe dessert, and whole lot of requests that a server has to deal with. Your bill is $150 because you got it to that, do not use it as an excuse not to tip. Just don’t do it. We have college tuition, car bills, phone bills and daily necessities like food that we must pay for. Do not tell me you cannot spare some money to tip out a server because your bill was too high. And if your bill is $30, do not tell me you cannot possibly spare $6 to tip me.

If you do tip, I can speak for all servers and say we love you. If you do not tip, please do not come to a restaurant. It is that simple. Go to a local grocery store, buy some bread and turkey and go make yourself a sandwich. Or instead of buying a $10 burger from a restaurant I heard that McDonald's has some affordable ones available.

I am not saying you have to tip 20 percent, but at least 15 percent is appreciated. And if your server is awful, please understand that they are human too and maybe they just had an awful day or maybe they’re new. You never know, but what you do need to know is that you decide their income. You will never understand how grateful your waiter or waitress will be when they see you tipped them well, especially when their other tables did not.

Be the bigger person, turn someone’s bad day into a good one and tip!