There are small indignities, and then there’s borderline abuse. Often, servers are on the frontlines of humanity’s pettiest behaviors. For Hannah Schmidt (@hannah_lynn16), a Virginia Beach-based server, indignities abound. Including a missed family celebration, wasted time, and an insult cloaked as a question.
Schmidt says that a table of two racked up a bill of $400 over a four-hour meal. Not hard to do if a table is feeling spendthrift.
“I stayed two hours past the end of my shift to stay for this table. I missed my dad’s surprise birthday party because I was not going to transfer a $400 tab to another server,” explains Schmidt.
Generally, it’s accepted practice to not just remunerate a server based on the total bill but also on time spent at the table.
This Is A Joke, Right?
So at the end of the meal, Schmidt brings the credit card receipt back to her guests. “And this man proceeds to ask me, ‘If I want to tip you $2, how do I do that?'”
Though it was almost half a decade ago (four years), Hannah still stews over it. So she’s taken to TikTok to pose the question to her fellow servers: “What would you do?”
Her own reaction was a little anticlimactic, though it did preserve her dignity. “I took the slip, and I walked away,” she says.
Then she admits, “At that point, I wasn’t even mad. I was just really defeated.”
Is Tipping Optional Though?
Schmidt goes on to say, “Yes, it’s optional to tip, but you just sat at a table for four hours.”
Additionally, she notes that she’d mentioned to the table that it was her dad’s birthday, and they were still in no rush to leave. And though that’s “fine,” she says, “I’m obviously still traumatized, because I think about it every single shift I work.”
Her video has gotten over 390,400 views and 1,006 comments (as of publication). Commenters replied with all kinds of advice—everything from “never miss a family event for work-type advice” to the notion that the last table will always betray you.
But Serenity Castor (@srenitycastor) offered a stinging rejoinder: “I would’ve said “keep the $2 you need it more than I do.”
However, the gold star goes to Summer (summermarion3), who wrote an essay in defense of the server’s job: “I have waitressed for most of my adult life and I don’t think people give credit to how hard of a job it is. It’s hard mentally and physically. Don’t get me wrong, I love waitressing. I like the fast pace, meeting new people, and my regulars who are like family. However, I would not do it for $15 an hour. If people enjoy going out and getting good service they need to tip accordingly. If you take that incentive away, your waitress is not going to care about your experience as much. How is your experience when you go through a drive through? Not always, but most of the time, I am frustrated because they leave half my order out because they don’t care.”
Why Is Tipping Optional (In America)?
Everyone knows one person whose tips are an embarrassment. So why is paying for a necessary service contingent upon diners’ whims and wallets?
Historically, tipping comes out of two 19th-century cultural events. The first was wealthy Americans returning to the states after a European tour. And the second was post-Civil War Reconstruction in America. Formerly enslaved people were often hired at very low hourly wages and relied on tips to make a living.
Though later various labor laws were passed, in 1966 servers being paid less than minimum wage was codified into law. Even now, there’s cultural resistance to a higher hourly wage for tipped workers (especially among Boomers). But whichever way you land, what is really being discussed is “people trying to make a living in unpredictable conditions.”
Of course, the biggest unpredictability of all might be the guests themselves. Those folks who can drop hundreds on a night out but pinch pennies when it comes to the tip.
BroBible reached out to Hannah Schmidt via her email and with a TikTok direct message. We will update this if she replies.
@hannah__lynn16 What would you have done ?? #serverlife #servertok