Jodi Webster, a server at Union Street Diner, loves waitressing, but she has some interesting tales to tell.
She described an incident about 15 years ago when a customer mooed at her. She replied to the customer, “Well, honey, since this ain’t a farm, why don’t you take your horse’s a-- outta here?”
“It’s just sad,” she said. “Until you work in this field, you have no idea what it is like. It gets stressful. Come work an hour, and you will see what it is like.”
According to Data USA, 2.25 million people in the United States work as servers. Most bartenders and servers are paid below the minimum wage, with the average waiter making only $16,678 annually. They make most of their money from tips. However, their struggles are often underappreciated, and many must often deal with difficult customers.
Webster described another incident in which her co-worker, who is gay, was left a $1 bill by a customer who “wiped his a-- with it.” Webster then took the $1 bill and instructed the customer to never return to Union Street Diner.
“(That) ain't the worst thing you can ever have happen,” Webster said.
Webster’s car door was once kicked in by some customers, and her co-worker’s car was turned upside down about 15 years ago because he is gay.
“A lot of people are just entitled nowadays,” she said. “I don’t care if you are white, black, green, purple, striped, gay, lesbian. You treat me good, and I treat you how I want to be treated.”
Webster said the worst customers she has dealt with were under the influence of drugs, and usually they don’t know what they are doing, which she said can be frightening. She also said she prefers to serve drunken college students over rude customers and believes she can serve college students better than people who insult her.
“The ones you think are going to be your best customers are usually your worst customers,” she said. “You have your good, and you have your bad.”
However, Dustin Zimmerman, a bartender at Lucky's Sports Tavern and a senior studying communication studies, has his own struggles with drunken college students. He believes bartending to be a difficult job sometimes, especially on a Saturday night when “a million people are waving money at you.” The loud music and large orders can be overwhelming.
Zimmerman said he was once tipped $30 on a $20 order but received no tip on an $80 order. He gets frustrated by people who don’t tip appropriately and finds it rude when people don’t tip at all. But he likes his job because he gets a chance to interact with people. He explained that “money is good sometimes and money is bad sometimes.”
“People treat us well,” Zimmerman said. “You get the occasional mean person and jerks and stuff, but for the most part, people are nice.”
Michael Miller, a shift lead at Pita Pit, said on one out of three nights, he might get a rude customer who makes lewd jokes. He said a customer, who was behaving in a drunken way, once kept repeating “your mother’s sauce” when a female server asked him what sauce the customer would like.
“She was pretty uncomfortable,” Miller said.
However, Miller enjoys his job because it has a more “chill environment” than other fast-food restaurants. He also enjoys the product.
Webster agrees that waitressing is a fun job. Despite having some experiences that would scare “normal people to death,” she has stuck with her profession for years because her co-workers look out for each other.
“I love my job though,” she said. “With all the bad that does happen, I actually can say I love this place. Probably more than anyone that lives here. This is my home. I treat my home and people that come into it just like my kids.”
