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Everyone goes out to eat every once in a while. From fast food to fine dining, there is an experience every patron has. So, let’s just get straight to the point, treat your server or cashier with respect. The South prides itself on its southern hospitality, so why does it stop when a problem arises when receiving food is taking longer than usual or an order isn’t correct? There is always a reason behind every mistake and a solution to follow.

The simplest way to understand how a restaurant works is to have worked in one yourself. There are so many pieces that go into working in a restaurant and, it is one of the hardest jobs in the world. Each person takes on this role for multiple reasons. Paying their student loans, saving up to travel around the world, feeding their children, etc. To say that there are no serious skills needed to be a server is completely ignorant.

When hiring someone to be on a wait staff the candidate has to fill in several requirements. They have to be personable, reliable, physically capable and can have a wide range of knowledge about food to booze. Each server has an education, maybe not all have a college degree, but it takes a level of knowledge to be a successful server.

Recent statistics have shown that employees in the restaurants and food services industry group make $22,660 per year. Primarily, the wait staff relies heavily on tips since the minimum wage for wait staff in the state of Alabama is $2.13 an hour. When a table dines and dashes or blames the server for an error from the kitchen, the server is the one who ends up paying for it. Out of respect, each server should be tipped between 15 to 22 percent based on their performance.

No one is perfect and everyone has bad days, we don’t know what it is like to be in someone else’s shoes. We have to be kind to servers who might not be doing their best since they might have multiple reasons for why their service isn’t superb. While there are servers who aren’t the best, maybe the one you have that isn’t doing great just might be having a bad day.

Servers are people too. They are mothers, fathers, daughters, sons and so on. Think about how you’d like your family and friends to be treated. You’ll never know what it’s like to be a server until you’ve worn their non-slip black shoes. Tip well and be kind.