So one of my OG’s came in this morning for therapy, as she does thrice a week. She’s not a very happy 83-year-old lady, but I beam like hell at her anyway when she walks through the door (she doesn’t like happy people, as she’s told me on several occasions).

This morning, she made great effort to drape herself across my desk and point her finger at me and command, “Don’t ever go to (well-known restaurant chain across the street). They’re terrible and they shortchanged me forty-eight cents and my friend eight dollars at dinner last night. I wanted my forty-eight cents so I could leave a dollar tip.”

I can understand grumpiness, but here’s where I have problems:

1. Do not climb/sit/stand on or drape your entire upper body across my desk. It’s rude and it’s an invasion of my personal space. Everyone - everyone - was taught at some point during their childhood that people (especially virtual strangers) have a bubble around them, and it’s considered bad manners to invade that bubble without consent.
2. Don’t point your finger at me. If you do: for the love of god, don’t point it close enough to me where I have to take a step back to avoid it poking me. I may just snap at it and then you’d have something else to be upset about.
3. It’s true that you’re more likely to complain about bad service. That’s fine - I’ve told anyone who will listen not to go to a certain hair salon in town because a trim apparently means “You’re right, I really didn’t need those extra six inches of hair.” But this “shortchanging” thing is ridiculous: did you ask your server to look over the bill again? Did she make an honest mistake and then correct it (kudos to her), or did you only notice it after you were gone (and therefore it becomes your fault. If it was the first, then you don’t need to tell me about your “poor service”. If it was the second, then you really don’t need to tell me about your experience.
4. A ONE dollar tip? Whoa, big spender. I hope you enjoyed that club soda, because that is the only thing you’re allowed to tip a dollar on in a restaurant. If you ate anything at all (which I’m assuming you did, since you said you went for dinner last night) then frankly, you should be ashamed of yourself. More on that later.

Sometimes I really, truly believe that people should be required to work in the service industry for a year before they are allowed to enter the world as adults. How many times have you gone out with a group of people to a restaurant/coffee shop/bar and one of the people you were with treated the server/barista/bartender in a less-than-polite manner? It’s embarrassing and beyond frustrating.

A few of my very close friends work in restaurants or behind counters in other service-oriented fields. They don’t make enough money to tolerate rudeness. Nor can they survive on one dollar tips. Honestly, what can that even buy you these days? This isn’t the 1950’s - people need a little bit more to survive.

One more point, I promise: did you ever stop to think what your attitude/poor tipping does to your server? Don’t worry, I’ll break it down for you in graph form:

It really comes down to this: the server, the busboy, the bartender who’s mixing your happy hour drink, the barista at Starbucks who takes your ridiculous coffee order - they’re all human beings. We are all human beings. We should all be treated as such.