If you’ve ever held a job in the service industry (restaurants in particular), you’ve probably reached some level of understanding as to how fickle and inconsiderate the human race can be.  It’s difficult to pinpoint precisely what motivates someone to treat another human being like a twice-recycled horse turd, and I’m sure the reasons vary case by case, but at the heart of every disrespectful fuck is a universal sense of entitlement.  They not only believe that they have a right to the figurative rim job you’re giving them, but also that you should be thankful for the opportunity to tongue that fart box. Customers are allowed to be as self-centered and cunty as their hearts desire (or the mountainous landfill of broken dreams where their hearts used to be); the type of polluted soul that chokes seagulls out of the sky and snares dolphins in rusty aluminum fencing, never satisfied in its incessant destruction of the innocent.

As a side note, despite the traditional gender bias of its root word, “cunty” is an adjective that applies to men and women alike.  Like, the other day I had a customer who sent his food back because it “tasted too much like farm raised salmon.”  Just in case the sheer ignorance of that statement didn’t make me want to beat him with a cheese grater, he said it in such a patronizingly passive aggressive fashion that “cunty” is truly the only word capable of encompassing all of the minute details of this man’s attitude.

Restaurants suck because people make them suck. It sets up a power dynamic that is weighted entirely to one side, and like the Stanford Prison Experiment, those in power are corrupted by it, treating waiters like the modern day equivalent of house slaves (except for that whole part where we get paid).  The worst aspect of it is that we have to grab our ankles, grit our teeth, and take it without a word.  And because servers aren’t allowed to call customers on their indulgent bullshit, it creates a self-sustaining cycle, in which the abusers go unchecked and the abused bury it deep down to save for future outbursts of irrational violence.

Young men and women earning their meal by serving other people theirs, at the ultimate cost of their health and sanity: it’s one of mankind’s most tragic ironies (excluding depression, disease, genocide, hunger, and human rights violations).  There is hope though. This epidemic of inconsideration can be fought, and in time, maybe it can be stemmed.  “How can I help in enabling this dream of hope and humanity?” you ask.  Simple.  Be nice.  That’s it.  Just be nice to your servers and bartenders.  Be patient  when waiting for your food, be understanding when they forget something; and above all else, tip well.  We get paid less than half of minimum wage, and the majority of customers are ungrateful taint muffins.  It’s only a few extra dollars, and not only will it make someone’s day, but it will also make you look super cool.

So be generous.