10 Things Servers Want You to Know About Them

When people go out to eat at their favorite restaurant, plenty of them pay no mind to the person who is serving them. Customers might grunt out an obligatory hello or let their eyes glance up to their server for a brief moment, but far too many of them completely ignore the person helping to create a wonderful dining experience. Servers get a real “don’t speak until spoken to” kind of vibe a lot of the time. That being said, there are a few things your waiter or waitress would like for you to know about them and their job.

We want you to be kind

Sure, we servers want a decent tip, but what we also want is compassion. Some days compassion and kindness is all it takes to make a shift tolerable. And the nicer you are to us, the nicer we want to be to you.

Maybe we just don’t want to smile

The lack of a certain facial expression does not affect food service. If a server is having a rough day or a sad moment, telling them to smile isn’t going to help matters. No one is happy at their job 100% of the time, but some customers think their food will taste better if the person who brings it to them has a smile plastered on their face.

We don’t keep 100% of the tip

We tip others with the tips we receive. A portion of every dollar you leave goes to other people. From the bartender to the busser to the food runner to any number of support staff, we tip out of our tips. When you stiff your server, you’re also stiffing others.

We work hard for our money

When you see us, some of us are in the middle of a double or maybe we haven’t had a chance to pee for the last two hours. Our arches have fallen, our backs are sore, and our fingers are burned from holding hot plates. We might have ten other customers who are also waiting on something from us. It’s a tough job and if you have a server who makes it looks easy, that means they’re working even harder to give that illusion.

It’s not always our fault

If your food is too salty or the music is too loud or the sun is too bright or the table is too wobbly, none of those things have anything to do with your server. You can certainly tell us you’re dissatisfied so we can try to make them better, but you can’t hold it against us if we’re unable to dim the sunlight or change the recipe.

We are trying our best

We know our tip is based on our service, so no server is intentionally doing a bad job. We want things to go as smoothly as you do and if things go awry, please know we’re not happy about that either.

We don’t make the rules

If you’re unhappy about a mask requirement, don’t take it out on us. We are lowest in the pecking order when it comes to making policy and we do what we are told to do.

Your goal should be to not be remembered for anything bad

We’re going to talk about our customers at the end of the shift. As we sit there rolling silverware and sipping a shift drink, would you rather we talk about how awesome you were or how awful you were?

We’re not stupid

A lot of people assume someone waits tables because they have no other options and that’s simply not true. A server might be a high school dropout or they might have multiple college degrees. Regardless of our education, waiting tables takes skill, foresight, and the ability to multi-task. Wearing an apron doesn’t mean someone is stupid.

We appreciate you

Those in the service industry have a habit of complaining about annoying or disrespectful customers, but we also know those same people are literally our bread and butter. When someone lives off of tips, we know how important it is to have customers no matter how much we complain about them. We might not say it enough, but thank you, thank you, thank you.