The Serving Experience

“Any tipped employee, male or female, is on a stage… [Servers] have to act in a certain way in order to receive those tips. That being said,  that opens an opportunity for women and men in the industry to feel that they have to accept certain levels of harassment – be it sexual or any form of rude behavior for guests” (Dr. Miranda Kitterlin).

            I have been in the service industry for about four and a half years now, where three of those years, I was a server. I had spent my first year, at the job I still work at today, as a front desk employee. To become a server, at first, was a very difficult thing to do. Behind the desk you had authority, you have the ability to say no. So when the answer is always supposed to be yes, the first thing you lose as a server is autonomy. On a daily basis servers are touched, yelled at, glared at, ignored, hit on, or talked down to by their customers and/or management. I wanted to create this video as a commentary of the server/bartender experience that the mass public typically does not hear about.

The value of the service industry is that it is always the customer first and you second. You are serving someone else, which by definition puts them in a higher place than you are. Corporations are still able to pay servers, bartenders, bussers, runners, sub-minimum wage. Thus, a waitress needs the consumer to get paid, and through creating this paradigm, needs to provide good service in order to get paid well. But what is good service? Good service is defined by the customer in charge. Katherine, within the video, states, “…like a relationship with these people… and they have to like you, because your entire tab depends on it. It could be a five hundred dollar tab, and if they decided you weren’t competent, or maybe that you were, but they just didn’t like you, then your tip will suffer.” Freelance journalist and public interest attorney, Jean Stevens, writes “Service does not determine the size of a tip; rather numerous factors related to gender, a pleasing appearance, and friendliness do.” The video works to delve into those topics. Brianah discusses the way she feels she must act in order to get tipped. Frances highlights that fact that people often will ask to speak to a manager if she doesn’t talk to them in a bubbly and cheerful way. Timothy discusses the way men treat him because he is a gay-male server. In that there are only minimal instances where a customer takes the harassment too far to get kicked out, a server is dealing with the other 99% of the subjugation which is acceptable within this industry. In the New York Times Sunday Review, “Can You Be a Waitress and a Feminist?,” Brittany Bronson writes, “This week I will be sexually harassed on the job, like many women in the Las Vegas service industry, I will count my tips at the end of my shift and decide that it’s worth it.” Waiters and waitresses are taught to desensitize themselves to what occurs, to end their shift and tell themselves it doesn’t matter. This video works to highlight the fact that it does matter. That the people bringing you your drink should not defined by their appearance, by their tone of voice, by their sexual orientation or race, and where it all stems down from, their job. 

Distribution 

Facebook

BuzzFeed
As Well as Submission to Community Post

Instagram
As well as a Submission to Popular Instagram @ServerLife

Twitter

-Also Submitted to Restaurant Opportunities Centers United

Some Not Fun Facts (To Leave a Bad Taste In Your Mouth)

-Full-Time Female Servers make up 71% of Nation’s Service Industry (Earn 68% of what Male Serves Earn)

-Nearly 37% of all sexual harassment charges filed to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission are from the Restaurant Industry

-90% of women in the restaurant industry report experiencing some form of sexual harassment while on the job

-Over half of women in the service industry report experiencing sexual harassment on a weekly basis 

-Both explicit and implicit discrimination pervade the restaurant industry, producing visible occupational segregation of inequality for workers of color and women (Restaurant Opportunities Centers United).  

Links

ROCU - The Great Service Divide

Works Cited 

Bronson, Brittany. Can you be a Waitress and a Feminist? New York Times Review. 17 Apr. 2015. Web. 12 Dec 2015. 

Dupere, Katie. Tipping your server makes sexism worse, whether you intend to or not. Mashable. 24 Aug. 2015. Web. 12 Dec. 2015.

Gorelick, Carly. Sexism & Serving: How I reconcile being both a waitress and a feminist. Iris Magazine : for thinking young women. 21 Sept. 2015. Web. 12 Dec. 2015.

Kesler, Jennifer. Waiting tables: a great example of sexism. The Hathor Legacy. 9 Nov 2010. Web. 12 Dec. 2015

O’Connor, Ema. 9 Appalling Stories of Everyday Sexism, As in the Service Industry. Buzzfeed News. 23 Mar. 2015. Web. 12 Dec. 2015.

“One Fair Wage.” Restaurant Opportunities Centers United. n.p., n.d. Web. 12 Dec. 2015.

Stevens, Jean. New York Restaurant Workers Face Lower Tips, Still Not Enough Wages. RH Reality Check. 11 Mar. 2015. Web. 12 Dec. 2015.