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When was the last time you went to a restaurant and were happy enough about the experience to leave the obligatory 15% tip? What percentage of the blame for anything that went wrong could be placed on your server's shoulders? Probably, not much. Was it the food that made you consider a lower tip or none at all? Did you only consider the performance of the server when determining the tip?

A typical day in a foodserver's life goes like this:

Your shift starts at 4:00pm. You are required to be there at 3:45pm, but are not paid until your scheduled time. During that pre-shift 15 minutes, you are required to bus your tables since the bussers don't start until 5pm. The lunch servers didn't bus the tables before they went home, leaving that job to you. Once your shift begins, you clock in to get a colossal $2.13 per hour. Your employer assumes that you will get tips and makes certain that you will not make more than minimum wage by paying you what amounts to slave wages.

The manager seats a table in your section and doesn't notify you. You are in the walk-in getting lemons to cut for drink garnishes. So you don't realize they're there. By the time you see them, they've been there 5 minutes. You rush to the table. They're already angry. 5 minutes is apparently too long to wait for a server to talk to you. You take drink orders, which include special requests for lime instead of lemon in the water, and no ice in the iced tea. You work in a Mexican restaurant, so the customers get chips and salsa, but they haven't been given any. You run to get everything, knowing already that there is very little hope of getting a tip, but since you live on them, you do your best to make the customers happy. You are cheerful and try not to think about the money.

You place the orders for the four dinners and corresponding drinks. One of the other servers thinks you are their personal servant because they have seniority and wants you to deliver their drinks for them even though you don't have the time. In addition, the restaurant has implemented a new computer program and the abbreviations for the dishes don't make any sense. You get three of the orders right and one wrong because of it.

You deliver the drinks, chips and salsa, only to be told that the water tastes like fish. You take it away to get more while the hostess seats two more tables in your section. They are supposed to rotate so that no one gets overwhelmed and so that the customers aren't neglected but the hostess is too busy

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