I am a waiter, and I hate working Sundays.
Absolutely cannot stand it. Since 2011, I have worked maybe three Sundays at my restaurant in Denton, TX. The second to last time I worked a Sunday at my restaurant, I walked out after a customer lifted up my shirt.
I worked in Arkansas for a few months while I was in a band up there, and despised Sundays because I would often be left “turn or burn” pamphlets, or stiffed.
Most people working at restaurants really hate working Sundays also.
Why?
Christians.
People coming out of church services are the worst people to wait on. Everyone in the service industry knows it. People who come out of church services rarely tip well, often stiff, and are pretty mean. Which is so surprising, right? I live in the South and in the South church can typically be more of a cultural thing.
But people on Sundays treat their servers so awful and mean and with a wicked heart that I know servers who just have breakdowns on Sundays after people coming out of church are so mean. At my restaurant I do not have to wear long sleeves, i have the freedom to have my tattoos showing or not, but if I am scheduled a Sunday I will wear long sleeves.
The negative stares. The hateful glances. The disrespectful comments. The not-tipping.
It seems so silly, doesn’t it? It genuinely blows my mind why people treat other people with such disrespect. If you are a Christian and you don’t tip, or tip at least 18%, there’s something wrong. Now, I understand there are extreme situations where maybe your server was on her cellphone in front of you and not filling your drinks ever, that would be an appropriate time to leave a poor tip. But most of the time, the server is doing their best and if there is a problem it is probably with the kitchen, or they’re just really busy, or there are so many different factors to it that it never justifies being mean to your server.
Servers have to tip out, usually about 3-4%. So if you stiff your server, they still have to pay out 4% of your sales. If you have $100 tab, and you don’t tip, that means that server is paying $4 out of their own pocket to wait on you.
Regardless of the way they appear.
I’ve had a table a couple of years ago leave one of those “turn or burn” packets in the check book after being really mean to me the entire meal. I took it back to them and explained to them that if they wanted to share the gospel then to have a conversation with me, and not be rude the entire meal because if I wasn’t a believer, I would want nothing to do with a rude person’s beliefs.
I know this sounds like a rant, and I’m sorry for that, I’m just really trying to get my point across.
If you proclaim yourself as a follower of Jesus Christ, and you treat people like complete trash and do not tip, you need to look at your heart and ask yourself how you are portraying yourself to others. What message are you sending to that server?
If I am witnessing to my coworkers about the grace of the Lord, and you come in and stiff them and call yourself a believer and invite them to church wit hyou then stiff them, that hurts my ministry of witnessing to my coworkers. You do way more damage than you think.
That time I walked out was because a table saw I had tattoos and tried lifting my shirt to see which other ones I had. Other things that happen on Sundays include, “What are you even doing with your life?” “What do your parents even think about you?” “What are you going to do when your tattoos look so terrible and old?” “You know the bible forbids tattoos…”
It’s ridiculous. Like. So ridiculous. It genuinely makes me angry. Don’t touch me, don’t ask me questions like that. One of my coworkers recently told me, “Well you should expect people to treat you like that if you look like that…”
Which is the same as telling a woman who has a form fitting shirt, that maybe is a little low cut that she should expect to be treated as a whore. Regardless, I wear long sleeves on Sundays. Don’t judge a book by your misperceived views. Don’t put people in a box.
What if we just tipped 18-20% regardless of the service we received? What if we showed grace like the grace that is daily shown to us by God and by others? What if we started acting the way talk about? What if we start being about it rather than talking about it?
Your actions speak louder than words.
