'I Was a Waitress on $2. Non-Americans Don't Respect Our Tipping Culture'

I had been working as a server since I was in high school. I moved to Boston for college in 1999, and in 2002, I worked at a bar and restaurant which was mostly food-oriented, until around 8:00 p.m. in the evening. It would then turn into a bar until 2:00 a.m.

The bar where I worked was located in a suburb of Boston, next to Boston College. It was located in a five-mile radius area where the vast majority of people were college students. That was the demographic that the place I worked for was trying to serve. So, the vast majority of people I encountered were people in their early to mid-twenties. It was rare for someone significantly older or younger than that to show up.

What I liked about the job was that some of the people I worked with were my age. People in the kitchen tended to be a bit older, but some of the people on our floor, including the bartenders, were university students from somewhere in the Boston area.

We had a lot of time to chat and it was not inappropriate or frowned upon to drink on the job. In fact, the kind of atmosphere that this particular place wanted to cultivate was a more light-hearted, sociable environment.

So often, I loved serving a table of people who looked like they were having a good time. I would sometimes ask: "Do you guys want to do a shot and I'll join you?"

I had just turned 21 and had returned from doing a study abroad year in Madrid, so, I was very party culture oriented already. I also often did the emotional labor of speaking to customers and multitasking. I'd take pride in not writing down orders.

Most of the kitchen staff were Latin American, so I also got to speak Spanish with them which was a lot of fun. I specifically remember the day I revealed that I had been understanding what they had been saying the whole time.

What I didn't enjoy about the job was coming home from days at work with sore feet and backaches. Also, for every nice experience that I had with a customer, there was also a bad one.

Oftentimes, the tips would be nonexistent. Because I was new compared to some of the other girls who were servers, I would be put on terrible shifts. I would sometimes work on a Tuesday night and within those 6 hours, I'd only make $15 worth of tips. It was not typically a big night for people to go out and have drinks and dinner.

During that time, I was earning $2 an hour, so my salary depended on tips. I wouldn't receive paychecks until they were at least $100, so I'd often be waiting for weeks at a time. Tips, on the other hand, were cashed out at the end of the night.

At the place where I worked, I was expected to tip out the other members of staff. For instance, I had to tip the bartender a percentage of what I had made. However, the bartenders did not have to tip us out.

Similarly, because I was serving food that someone else had made, I had to tip out the kitchen staff and the busboys because they were all doing things that facilitated what I was doing, and kept everything functioning as smoothly as possible.

The difference was that the busboy was paid a minimum wage, and the kitchen staff were paid either minimum wage or over, or in some cases a salary. The bartenders were only paid $2 an hour, but they always made more money since they were only dealing with drinks. And so, they could accumulate tips very quickly and get a lot more cash than I could.

On a good night, I made as much as $200 in tips, but on less successful nights, I only made $15, even if I had worked the same amount of hours.

Boston had a lot of migrants that weren't from the U.S., who would come to the city to study or work for a couple of years. Many servers spoke about these people, saying, "They're going to seem like they're a lot of fun, and then you are going to work hard to keep bringing them beer after beer, and you will get no tips from them."

At the time, I knew it was because they were also working and young, so they may not have understood why they had to tip me.

I remember one of the first times that I didn't receive a tip, I was working a Sunday brunch shift and I was the newest person on the job. Brunch was always a busy time, and people demanded a lot of attention.

On this particular day, I had to serve a group of guys who weren't from the U.S. They had ordered a lot of food and drinks. Everyone was watching me rush to help these people, and at the end of the shift, they left only coins on the table, which was really disappointing.

There were at least four of them, and the tab was $150. This means that I should have expected at least $15 as a tip, and really more even back then, maybe even $30.

But their standard was just to leave coins on the table for me, not even a nod to show that they understood that I needed a tip but just couldn't do the math. I was so frustrated that I almost started crying, which was not unusual for that job.

It was hard work and it made me physically tired. When I showed the coins in my hand to my coworkers, they told me this was what those guys always did. And I said: "Why didn't anyone tell me?"

It was eye-opening. Many servers would be weary of taking orders from people who weren't from the U.S. because some of them were known to not tip.

I also remember on several occasions, people proudly told me in the midst of my serving them that they had no intentions of tipping me because they didn't believe in tipping.

Often, in the context of this little preamble, the person would say something along the lines of: "I think your boss should pay you properly."

I often replied: "You might not appreciate that what you're doing is not telling anyone in charge that you disapprove of this. You are actually punishing the person directly in front of you."

To explain it seems uniquely unfeeling or kind of insensitive.

I feel that as Americans, many of us get a bad reputation when we travel abroad because of our tipping culture. I'm someone who's lived overseas for a lot of my adult life. People would often have conversations with me about tipping and say: "I know this is a thing that you guys do culturally and I refuse to do it."

As Americans, we often get the short end of the stick. We are sometimes told that we don't respect other people's cultures, when in fact many other cultures come to the U.S. and openly tell us that they hate ours and that they do not want to tip us.

Currently, I'm a college lecturer. I teach world history and research Latin American history. I wouldn't have known it then, but my time living in Spain and spent working as a server in college is directly connected to what I do now.

Even though I didn't enjoy having to serve people who I knew were not going to tip me, I always thought that everyone was entitled to a good meal at any time. I personally always want to do a good job at whatever I do.

I loved serving, and ironically, I still feel like I am a server, and my college students are my customers.

Sarah Walsh is a lecturer at the University of Melbourne. You can find her on Twitter @swalsh6381.

All views expressed in this article are the author's own.

As told to Newsweek associate editor, Carine Harb.

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