In the restaurant that I work in, almost every server has a backstory for how they ended up becoming a server. With any job that doesn’t require a degree, many think that they chose the job just because they were too lazy to finish school, or didn’t have the drive to do something else, but in most situations, that is not the case.

My choice of working in the food industry was for a temporary job, first job actually, while finishing high school. From working in a restaurant I have learned so many stories about each individual person that I work with. Some of the stories I have heard make me very emotional. It is very hard for me to hear that someone who had the passion to get a college degree and to find a high-paying job ended up in a restaurant making minimum wage and sometimes barely making it month to month.

One night I was having a conversation with a server and they were telling me how they first started working in a restaurant so that they could pay for their tuition, but before they knew it, they were having to work more and more to make it by and all of the sudden they had to quit college just so they could make a living in general.

Every server has a backstory and works in a restaurant for a reason. Most likely, someone would not go out of their way to work under emotional and physical draining conditions just to make minimum wage. With all the new laws for small businesses, it is actually very hard for an individual to make a living off of a minimum wage paying job for the rest of their life. Restricted amount of hours, taxes, having to tip out for the back of the house crew, leaves servers relying on tips from customers.

Everytime my family and I would go out to eat I would always think that us tipping was just out of kindness and generosity. But, now that I have been working in the restaurant industry for over a year, I now know that some servers rely on tips to make a living.

Because I am a host, I am able to see how many tips the servers receive. Knowing the backstories for most of the staff, and just knowing how much tips affect how much we make, it can be very upsetting to see a server only make the bare minimum.

With how the economy is, and has been, everyone should be able to understand how expensive everything is. The purpose of going out to eat is so you do not have to cook. In a restaurant, the server waits on you hand and foot to make sure you are satisfied, and if you are, the least you can do is tip.

So, if you do choose to come into a restaurant, respect the staff, but most importantly, your server. Tip well, mind your manners, be patient, and don’t snap at your server, you are not the only one in the restaurant, and you most definitely do not know the servers back story.