Working as a waiter is an inherently stressful job. Juggling multiple tables and parties at once, trying to remember who asked for tea and who asked for Diet Coke, being the face customers complain to when the kitchen messes up their order and all the while straining the muscles in your face to keep smiling and staying polite in hopes that you’ll earn a decent tip. With everything that servers have to keep straight, the last thing that should be on their minds is dealing with sexist coworkers. Unfortunately, however, sexism is rampant in the food service industry, as one restaurant owner recently found out.

Below, you’ll find a rant that CalamityClambake shared on the Two X Chromosomes subreddit detailing how her male staff became creepy and unprofessional as soon as she hired an attractive, young waitress. After reading the infuriating story, you’ll also find some stories readers have shared that just go to show how prevalent harassment is among restaurant staff members. We’d love to hear your thoughts on the situation in the comments, and then if you’re interested in reading another Bored Panda article calling out sexism in the restaurant industry, look no further than right here.  

This restaurant owner posted a rant online about how her male staff started showing their true colors after an attractive waitress was hired

Image credits: Timur Saglambilek (not the actual photo)

Image credits: Jonathan Borba (not the actual photo)

The owner eventually had to terminate one of her employees to keep the waitress safe

Image credits: CalamityClambake

If you’re a woman who has ever worked in a restaurant, this might not come as a surprise to you, but in the United States, more sexual harassment claims are filed in the restaurant industry than any other. In fact, even if you’re a man who’s worked in food service, this may not surprise you, as 70% of men and a staggering 90% of women in the restaurant industry report experiencing some form of sexual harassment.

Sadly, harassment has become routine and standard for many restaurant employees, as they experience it from owners, managers, coworkers and even customers. According to Stefanie K. Johnson and Juan M. Madera at Harvard Business Review, there are several factors that allow rampant sexism and sexual harassment to thrive in restaurants. One of which being that the majority of high-paying roles in the restaurant industry are filled by men, and the majority of a restaurant’s frontline staff are typically women.

With a clear power dynamic in many restaurants where men are in charge and women are told what to do, restaurants can easily breed a culture of silence. When employees don’t feel comfortable confronting anyone about inappropriate behavior, perhaps because it has been tolerated for quite some time or they have no one to turn to aside from their perpetrators, harassment becomes normalized. Restaurants also have high turnover rates for staff members, with about 70% of any restaurant staff changing annually, so it is often more likely that an employee will just leave rather than bothering to file a complaint. 

But harassment from customers can create many issues of its own. Most employees are told that “the customer is always right” and are relying on tips to make ends meet, so it can be hard to challenge or report a customer. And when it comes to female employees, particularly attractive young women like the waitress mentioned in this story, they often receive comments on their looks and are expected to endure whatever harassment customers and coworkers throw at them because part of being a waitress is keeping a smile. 

It is crucial that restaurant owners and managers stay vigilant to how their staff is treating one another and take reports of misconduct seriously, or the restaurant industry will continue to be a toxic environment forever. It is great that the owner in this story will not stand for poor treatment of her waitress, but it is disappointing that these male workers needed to be told how to act in the first place. Hopefully, no one else will need to be fired, but if a person can’t treat women with respect, perhaps they deserve to lose their job. We would love to hear your thoughts on this situation down below, and if you have ever experienced sexual harassment while working in a restaurant, I am so sorry you had to go through that. Just because it’s common does not make it okay. 

Readers are applauding the owner for not tolerating harassment and sharing their own examples of experiencing harassment in the restaurant industry

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