My service isn’t half-off during happy hour

Five truths about being a server that every customer needs to know.

I’ve worked in the service industry all my life. I’ve been a cashier, barista, server, museum attendant, healthcare receptionist, educator, and more. These roles have been full-time and part-time, functioning as my main source of income and supplementing other careers. I’m not alone in having worked so many kinds of service-oriented jobs.

Four out of five workers in the US are employed in the service economy, a broadly defined segment of the workforce that includes hospitality, healthcare, education, and transportation. Customer service is the common denominator across the private service sector; but I want to zero in on customer service in leisure and hospitality, an industry that employs 16.7 million workers. 

Hounded by the mantra that “the customer is always right,” my coworkers and I at a local restaurant put up a mask, a pleasant smile that shields us from the insults, slights, and atmospheric frustrations of the workplace that includes customers who are either entitled or emboldened by the server-customer power differential and perverse nature of the US tipping system.

And it’s this mask that I want to take off for a moment in order to share some simple realities of service work that I think people who haven’t worked in this industry may not realize. 

First, my service isn’t half-off during happy hour. People love a deal. You want your lavender infused martini at a special half-off price. It makes you feel good. And think of all the money you’re saving. Go ahead and order a second (or third) round! But be advised, tip your server for the full total; doing so is considered good practice in the service industry. If your bill doesn’t list the pre-discount total, do some simple math. 

Second, just because you learn my name doesn’t mean you own me. When I greet your table, I tell you my name. It’s a simple pleasantry. But there’s always a man (and it’s usually a man) who will abuse this pleasantry. This man typically waves me down from across the restaurant, makes unreasonable requests about food or drinks the restaurant doesn’t serve, sends me back to the kitchen five times for all manner of sauces, and repeats my name at the beginning and end of every sentence. It doesn’t make your request any less onerous simply because you know (and repeat) my name. 

Third, calculate the amount of time you spend at a table (or bar) when you tip. A 20% tip is standard these days. But 20% isn’t appropriate in all situations. If you come in, order a single drink and fries, and then sit for an hour, don’t leave me a $2 tip. If you sit for an hour, consider that my table is available to you at an hourly rate, say $15 per hour. Also, don’t be a “camper,”  someone who sits at a table hours after they have closed out their tab. That might be fine when the restaurant is empty, but in the middle of Friday dinner service, you are literally impeding my ability to earn my living. Pay to stay!

Fourth, service work is skilled work. You might think you can multi-task because you send emails during Zoom meetings. But consider the kind of high-order executive function it takes to meet the expectations of two dozen people at six different tables, remembering special requests while juggling the needs of all those other people, communicating with managers and the kitchen staff about issues, supporting other servers in a pinch, and delivering a positive and effortless-appearing experience. Servers are masters of executive function. Yet service work is often exploitative and dismissed as “unskilled” because of its feminized and racialized history as domestic labor. Don’t reproduce this mentality. 

Fifth, if you think you received bad service, tip 20% anyway. It’s not about you. You can choose to nitpick and judge a server’s skill, but that’s a very egotistical act. You have no idea what might be going on to make your experience seem less than ideal. The kitchen may have made a mistake, the bar may be overwhelmed with orders, your server might be stressed out about [insert: their finances, home life, other job, and/or school]. If you tip 20% for a mediocre experience, you’re ensuring that your server has the financial support to live their life and provide good service in the future. You already chose to go out to eat and were willing to pay to play, so tip anyway. 

If you’re still reading, you might think these points are outrageous or unreasonable. But let me remind you: the tipped minimum wage in Wisconsin is $2.33 per hour. Restaurants technically have to pay employees the federal $7.25 per hour minimum wage (a rate that has been in place since 2008), but in Wisconsin, restaurants count tips toward the minimum wage. Employers have no incentive to raise the base rate for tipped employees, though they could. 

Moreover, servers by and large don’t receive benefits like health insurance or paid time off, and restaurants strategically schedule servers under the number of hours that would qualify them for benefits. 

The tipping system allows restaurants to off-load labor costs onto customers, and this isn’t going to change anytime soon. As my coworkers and I say all the time, if everyone had to work a service job once in their life, the revolution would happen. 

But the thing is, more and more people across employment sectors are taking on customer-facing roles. As a recent Brookings report found, interpersonal interactions are becoming increasingly central to job responsibilities across industries. So don’t be so quick to infantilize or de-legitimize service work. The interpersonal skills and executive function my co-workers and I excel at are skills that you could learn from as you’re tasked with putting on the customer service mask in your job.