How should we treat waiters and servers?

Considering Philippine celebrity blogger Alex Gonzaga’s viral video showing her smearing icing on the cake server’s face, here’s my five cents about the question; How should we treat waiters and servers?

It’s simple.

We treat them with the same courtesy and respect we should give anyone. We treat them with as much grace, dignity and kindness as possible. That is how all other people should be treated.

If you are in the Philippines then being a waitress, waiter or server is one of the most underappreciated jobs and most are not tipped what they are worth.

Keep in mind the minimum wage for a waitress, waiter or server in the Philippines is just P355 daily and rely on tips. Most of them have to even slip tips with cooks, chefs and cashiers who have a minimum wage not higher than them.

The “Waiter Rule”

Why does this rule work? Customers in a restaurant are anonymous. We know the name of the waiter, but the waiter knows nothing about us, so we are protected by this anonymity.

In addition, we are protected by “the customer is always right” motto which shields us even further, so if we decide to treat the waiter poorly, there aren’t any real repercussions.

And, if we decide we probably won’t return to a certain restaurant ever again, this is additional armor for us to behave in any way we choose without having to answer for our actions.

So, with all of this temptation, it is quite easy for someone to want to treat a waiter poorly, and if they decide to hide behind this anonymity, this is when their true character will shine through.

It goes with the saying “Give a man a mask and he will become his true self.”

Also,

So why are some people rude to waiters?

My experience with people who are rude to waiters, is that the person who does this feels very powerless in their lives. So they pick on those whose job is to provide services to them, knowing that most service people will not talk back. This gives the rude person the feeling of power over someone. They also may look down on many types of people.

Honestly, rude customers are so common that it would be more unusual for a waiter to not know what to do. Customer service is an unappreciated art of patience, understanding and, perhaps most important of all, being fake.

So next time, once we step our foot inside a restaurant, fast food or any fine dining places, we should think about the efforts of the guards, servers, cashiers, kitchen helpers, cooks, chefs and even their utility people.

They strive to give us an excellent service, we could at least return it by showing little appreciation.

Save your toxic behaviors for the privacy of your own home against yourself, not others.