A good chunk of the Auburn University student population has one thing in common: we’re broke and need to pick up a job to help pay for our extracurricular habits that mom and dad won’t support. I, personally, fall into this group as I recently started working as a waitress at a local bar.
I have confidence that my following statement is echoed by all of those who work in the service industry, particularly servers, in the United States: we make our money based on tips, not an hourly wage! If you don’t tip, we go home at the end of the night tired with aching feet with no cash in our wallets.
If you would like extra lemon with your water, I don’t mind getting it for you when you ask for it. I don’t mind making a bowl of bar snacks for you while you sip on your martini.
However, I’m not doing it because I feel like being a Good Samaritan. It’s my job. In America, people get paid for doing their job.
Servers get paid by you, the customer, in the form of tips. The more random requests you have, the higher the tip you should leave for us.
If you’re a student at Auburn, chances are you’re not some princess or duke of a small county, so you’re not entitled to anything. If someone waits on you, brings you your food and drinks in a timely manner, pay them for it. The key word is “pay,” not “reward.” Tipping isn’t something you do extra because you feel like being a nice person that day. Like I said, I’ll get whatever you want for you, but I expect to be compensated.
Waitressing isn’t volunteer work, people.
Getting a $2 tip on a $58 tab is like getting punched in the stomach, hard, by a person wearing brass knuckles that have been sitting in a furnace for the past hour. It’s not 1940 anymore when any more than rounding up to the nearest dollar was a generous tip. Giving any less than 15 percent even to a terrible server is like spitting in your mom’s face.
More importantly, if you can spend $58 at a bar on drinks, you can afford the minimum 15 percent tip of $8.70. If you can’t, go buy a jug of Carlo Rossi and a few cases of Natural Ice and serve yourself.
Bars and restaurants pay their servers about $2.13 an hour. After working a six hour shift, like I usually do, that makes a whopping $12.78 a night before taxes. With the economy in shambles the way it is now, that grand total isn’t going to pay for much. That’s a quarter of a tank of gas or a splurge at the Waffle House.
Aside from waiting on the potential cheap skates out there, servers do a lot of work. We clean bathrooms, which is perhaps one of the grossest jobs at a bar after a heavy Saturday night crowd.
We mop floors, bus tables and clean up after drunk folks who think the floor is a trash can.
OK, so you don’t want to eat the olives in your Grey Goose martini, but don’t toss them under the table as if that area is a secret black hole no one knows about and won’t find them.
Don’t get me wrong, I love my job. I love getting dressed up, meeting new people and keeping the alcohol coming so they can have a good time, all while working along side people I adore. Waitressing in a college town is leaving me with memories I’ll cherish forever.
Bartenders are hands-down the coolest people in Auburn and always have the best stories to share with you. No one works harder than bar backs who lug around kegs, stock liquor, wash dishes and make sure the bartenders have everything they need.
I don’t know about other bars in Auburn, but at my bar, the management is laid-back, down to earth and makes sure the customers have everything they need.
Finally, bars would be mayhem without the beloved bouncers who keep out the sneaky underage potential patrons and protect you from the angry drunks who think a fight-to-the-death with a total stranger is the perfect night cap.
Guess what? Each of those people work on tips provided by you, lovely customer. At a bar, chances are the people that come through the door are there to have a good time and unwind with friends. Servers get to hang out and chat with those people, sometimes making us feel like we’re not even working.
However, it is a job, and we deserve to be compensated.
Especially when we have to deal with rude people who ruin our shift with their snarky comments and death stares.
Stop being cheap and take care of your friendly service industry workers with at least the minimum tip.
I guarantee if you do, you’ll be remembered and we’ll take extra special care of you.
If you’re a jerk to us and come back, keep yourself occupied while you wait 15 minutes for your beer.
Rachel Morand is Associate Sports Editor of The Auburn Plainsman. You can reach her at 844-9118.
