The poor innkeeper in Bethlehem earned a permanent bad reputation for turning away a heavily pregnant woman at the end of a long trip. He could not have known as he got up that morning that people would be speaking badly of him for 2,000 years — even though, as far as we know, he may have been a very kind man who really didn’t have room. But now he’s a regular bad guy in thousands of sermons and devotions.

You sometimes hear people talk that way about the people who serve them in stores and restaurants. We need to think about the way we treat the people who make our religious work possible. I mean those over whom we have power, if only as the customer. (Businesses tend not to keep employees who talk back to jerks.)

In particular, we need to think about the way we treat waiters, because most of us deal with hundreds more waiters than we do with innkeepers. Customers can treat waiters and fast food clerks very badly, sometimes amazingly, jaw-droppingly, did-you-see-that badly. Some of it’s just inconsiderateness or selfishness, the failure or refusal to make the small effort to see things from their point of view, but some of it’s a cowardly assault on the defenseless. Here is a waitress’s response.

Our eldest son worked for a couple years in high school and then summers after at a sandwich shop in an affluent, boutiquely little town, and dealt with obnoxious people every day. They seemed to feel that the few dollars they paid for their sandwich also paid for the right to abuse the staff. If they ordered the wrong thing, for example, the workers were at fault for not reading their minds.

One summer a young woman working there became a particular target, perhaps because she was petite and polite, with people sometimes asking her how stupid she could be. She took the orders and started making the sandwiches, and her co-workers at the cash register enjoyed telling the abusive customers, “You know, she’s a classics major at Harvard. She sight-reads ancient Greek and Latin.” My son told me that the abusive customers were not always suitably abashed.

The Seven Rules

The laborer, as Jesus and then St. Paul said, deserves his wages. For those who benefit from their services, those wages include more than what they’re paid and what we add with our tips. Those wages include courtesy and the effort to see things from their point of view. Here are my personal rules for rewarding waiters. The model can be adapted for other occupations, like innkeepers.

1) Tip well. Then add a dollar. (I’m thinking of pubs and coffee shops here. Adjust the addition for more expensive places.)

1A) Tip by time as well as the price of your meal. If you’ve taken up a table for longer than the usual customer, add what the waiter would have gotten from the customers you displaced. If you don’t want to do that, don’t stay that long.

1B) Tip by what would have been the total cost when you order a special, like a two-for-one wings special. The waiter shouldn’t suffer because the restaurant is drawing in customers with a good deal.

2) Ask for everything you want when you order. When you want something else, like more water, say “When you have a chance” and mean it.

3) If you forgot something, wait till the waiter comes back to ask for it. Don’t wave the poor guy down as he’s trying to serve others in their turn. And only ask once, even if you then realize you forgot something else, unless the restaurant is half empty.

4) If the restaurant’s crowded or full of demanding people, give your waiter a break. You don’t need another water or more ketchup that much, and you certainly don’t need it right away.

5) Say “thank you” as if the waiter were not doing a job but doing you a favor. Try to think of him that way and not as your temporary employee, and certainly not as your temporary slave.

6) Be satisfied with the food you get, if you’re eating at a pub, diner or small townie restaurant; that is, places that don’t pretend to offer a fine dining experience. The food’s cheap because you get what the cook manages to make while making twenty other meals. The eggs are too runny or the toast too dark? Deal.

7) Tip well. Then add a dollar.

I’m tempted to include “Shame the customers being jerks,” but suspect this will usually just make things worse for the waiter. And it’s probably unkind anyway.

Many of us get all emotional whenever we think about that defenseless child in the manger in Bethlehem, and rightly so. We should remember that emotion when we deal with the defenseless adults who serve us. Otherwise we’ll be just like the bad guy innkeeper of Christmas sermons, without his excuse.

This is a slightly revised version of David Mills’ “Seven Rules for Being Kind to Waiters,” which appeared in his weekly column for the Aleteia website.