The r/Serverlife subreddit has been around for more than 8 years. It was founded all the way back in late May of 2014. At the time of writing, the community was 73.3k members strong.

The mod team invites redditors to take off their aprons, have a glass, and chat about work. “Cause c'mon, as much as you act like you don't wanna talk about it, you do. I know!” Aside from hilarious memes, these internet users also speak up about their job experiences. Rude customers are just the tip of the iceberg!

At the core of working as a server lies a singular mission: making your guests’ experience at the restaurant memorable. In a good way, of course! Nobody wants to have wine spilled all over their fancy clothes, after all.

A great waiter is bound to have high emotional intelligence. In other words, they know how to communicate well with others, can adapt to unexpected social situations, and will be able to make someone feel right at home.

Waiting on someone is all about balance. You have to be welcoming and helpful without groveling. You have to be genuinely pleasant without pretending to be over-the-top happy that your table is about to have the most amazing time everrrr! Professional, calm, and always present without disturbing anyone.

A great server enhances the entire dining experience and ensures repeat customers. Meanwhile, a bad server is someone who drives everyone away with rudeness, incompetence, and arrogance. In other words, any restaurant is more or less an accurate microcosm of human society!

Sooner or later, you’ll have to deal with a rude customer. There’s hardly a job in the world without run-ins with unpleasant peeps from time to time. But in the food service industry, it’s part and parcel of the job experience. Servers don’t just take your orders, bring you food, and send you the check in paper airplane form. They’re problem solvers! They are the face of the entire establishment and act as the bridge between the hungry-hungry customers and the kitchen.

So there you are, always on your feet, dealing with dissatisfaction, and juggling gastronomic vernacular as well as Gordon Ramsay. If you work at a fancy restaurant with a good reputation, and you’ve got a ton of experience to back up your awesome skills, you can rest assured—you’re financially stable. However, if you’re employed at your regular, run-of-the-mill restaurant, whether you’re compensated fairly depends a lot on your country’s laws.

For instance, tipping your server isn’t a custom that’s regularly practiced in European countries. There are laws in place which mean that the service charge is already included in the price you see on the menu. Things are pretty darn straightforward.

Meanwhile, in the US, it all depends on your particular state. If you’re considered to be a ‘tipped employee,’ the way your minimum wage is calculated can be very different from the actual minimum wage. Say you’re living in California, right? The minimum wage there is $15/hour. Meanwhile, the tipped wage is also $15/hour. However, in Alabama, the minimum wage is $7.25. The tipped wage? $2.13. The rest of their wage comes from tips. This means that some American servers desperately need their customers to tip. And to tip well.

When your ability to put food on the table and keep a roof over your family’s heads depends almost entirely on the goodwill of your customers, you’re left with a ton of pressure in your daily life. If you happen to get a stingy or rude customer, you might not be able to make ends meet.

Of course, not everyone who’s rude to their waiters is evil incarnate. Some folks simply had a bad day. However, there are people out there who use their rudeness as a weapon, trying to weasel out discounts and to generally make others have an awful day. The way to handle them is to stay professional throughout the interaction. Try not to take their comments personally. If you’re harassed, however, speak to your manager. Ask them to step in.

A while back, Bored Panda spoke to a server at a fancy restaurant, who had once waited on the musician, Seal. “He could not have been nicer. Tipped well, made friendly, genuine, conversation with the staff, just radiated kindness. It was really an encounter I’ll remember for the rest of my life,” she told us during an interview, earlier.

Unfortunately, not everyone was as pleasant to work with as him. The server explained to Bored Panda that before the Covid-19 pandemic, the biggest challenge was working for little pay. Since the start of the pandemic, some new problems appeared alongside the abysmal wages that are unable to catch up with inflation. Some customers physically threatened the members of staff over safety requirements. Others pick fights over insignificant details. More and more people have been on edge.

“I spend more time now soothing tantruming adults than I do running food. Just last night a customer followed me out to the parking lot and tried to take down my license plate because I charged him for extra ketchup, (as per our business policy, written on the menu),” the restaurant employee revealed to us.

“So, the biggest problem with being a server right now is, in short, that many people treat us as sub-human trash. Say hello, look us in the eye when you order, leave a tip, and don’t call us names or threaten us. Is it so much to ask?” she said.

“The essence of being a good server is making sure everyone leaves the meal having had a nice time. The essence of being a great server is making sure everyone leaves the meal having had a memorable time. I’m always on the lookout for anything extra I can do to make the night special for our guests. If I overhear a birthday mentioned, we bring out a piece of cake. If someone comes in wearing a Dolphins jersey, we’ll turn on that game if they’re playing. We take pride in our work.”

If you happen to see someone raging at a server, think about stepping in. Even if they appear to be unbothered by all of the rudeness, it means a lot to the staff to have someone on their side.

“The server may look unbothered, but that’s because it’s their job. ‘The customer is always right,’ is one of the only pieces of training many of us get. It is literally our job to be sure tables leave happy. We cannot argue with you. So, just because they’re smiling on the outside doesn’t mean they’re not offended, or even feeling unsafe, on the inside,” the server told Bored Panda.

“If you’re not comfortable saying something to the abusive customer directly, just find a manager and quietly inform them of what’s going on, they’ll take it from there. A lot of servers are students who are too nervous about losing the job or looking unprofessional to ask for help. And, as someone eating in the restaurant rather than working there, your words will carry far more weight with the harasser than ours would anyways.”