You got it.
Sure, it used to happen all the time. Around here everyone works through college, so I was constantly meeting classmates working as waitstaff, bartenders, security guards, bouncers… nobody ever blinked an eye. After all, a person’t got to make a living, right?
But are we talking about college though? I tend to think that’s a sort of unusual case, in that LOTS of people work various customer service jobs in school. I mean, I worked in the university’s tech support help desk and had people I knew call in for help, and most of the delivery drivers at the local Papa John’s were friends of mine prior to them working there, and I also knew people who waited tables at the local Olive Garden and other restaurants. It wasn’t at all weird to interact with them at work or outside of it.
But IMO, it IS kind of awkward to be in that situation outside of the college experience, especially if you’re out of college, and the person in question is a contemporary of yours. Not because of the server/served relationship, but because server-type jobs are typically really low-status and indicative of poor life choices once someone’s out of their early-mid 20s.
It could be indicative of poor choices. Or indicative of different choices.
One of my sisters works as a baggage handler for a major airline. She was raised in a middle-class family and has a couple of years of college under her belt and has worked a variety of jobs–from nursing assistant to financial advisor. She did the stay-at-home mom thing too. And now, with one kid just graduating from college and another on her way there, she has the glamorous job of loading airplanes.
I’m pretty sure she’d laugh in the face of anyone who judged her or her choices. She’s got a nice suburban house and owns multiple vehicles (including a motorcycle). She’s a world traveler because of the perks she gets from work. She’s been married for over 20 years and has two beautiful daughters. Based on the last two things alone, she’s doing a lot better than many of her old classmates. She just happens not to define herself based on what she does for a living, a quality which allows her to easily pick up and leave when she’s had a enough bullshit at a certain place.
A person like her will never be unemployed because she doesn’t give a fuck about what some high school classmate she hasn’t kept in touch with thinks about her. A person like me, whose career forms a huge part of her identity, can’t say the same.
It happens to me fairly frequently, usually friends of my (adult) children or kids of friends. I try to be a generous tipper anyway, so unless I happen to know that they are hurting for cash it doesn’t affect the tip.
Why no, I didn’t! Whatever happened to Susie’s baby?
One time while I was in college, I was back in my hometown and took my grandmother out to lunch at a Denny’s type diner (her choice) and our server turned out to be the super-snobby valedictorian from my high school. She had dropped out of college and was pregnant. I was just stunned at first, but then I wavered between mild schadenfreude and pity. I’m pretty sure I just tipped her the normal amount. I would not have stiffed her in any case as she had never done anything personally to me and her serving was adequate.
The only other time this happens is when we go to our local BJ’s where our neighbor’s college age daughter is a hostess. But since you don’t tip hostesses, it’s not awkward.
Why did you want to make him keep refilling your glasses?
It was a joke/prank! We played with him all the time, he lived across the street. Note he did similar stuff to us.
Back in high school in the mid-80s, there was a raffle of some sort, and one of my girlfriend’s classmates donated dinner for two at his family’s seafood restaurant. My girlfriend won that particular prize, so we headed there for dinner that weekend. Not sure if the hostess put us together deliberately, but sure enough, out comes her classmate as our waiter – dressed in full Fast-Times-At-Ridgemont-High pirate regalia. We all remained completely professional.
Of course there are exceptions, but the general rule is that most people who are waiting tables/delivering pizzas as a living in non-fancy restaurants after say… 25 aren’t doing it because they’re independently wealthy or successful and just feel like doing it for fun, but because that’s the job they have, and aren’t qualified for much else.
I’m not trying to be judgmental about it, but probably nine times out of ten, it’s awkward to run into a former classmate in that situation when you’re all over 25, for the very reasons I’ve mentioned in the thread.
My youngest sister used to wait tables before she became a full-time bartender. One day, my folks took us to have lunch where she was working - it was a bit weird, but then my sister is a character and I don’t think she treated us any differently from any other customer. No clue how well my dad tipped her.
Other than that, I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a friend working as a server in a place I patronized. Then again, I left my home town when I was 19 and have lived in several different places over the last 43 years.
My wife taught high school for over 30 years. It was common for us to have one of her students wait on us, they would often take summer jobs serving.
Many years later, I had to take her to the ER when she fell and sprained her wrist. The ER doc and one of the nurses were both former students. It was like old home week.
Some time ago, we were served by a woman I had dumped in favor of my wife, 40-some years ago. That was awkward.
It has happened to me twice. Both times the waitress recognized me. The first time, I was in Zurich and we went to a restaurant down the lake that you got to on the lake steamer. IIRC correctly it was called Im Staefa (that being the name of the town) and our waitress came up to me and greeted me name: Hello Prof. Seldon. It turned out she was a grad student in my department and, coincidentally, lived just a couple of blocks away and earning some money during the summer. As in most of Europe, there is no tipping in Switzerland.
The second time, I was in a Chinese restaurant near here, and not the one a block away from that one that I usually go to, but had had too long a line that evening. The waitress came up and greeted us by name. She was a HS friend of my two older children (who were a year apart in school) and recognized my wife and me from school functions. I don’t recall having tipped her any differently; I don’t think it would have occurred to me. This happened just a couple years after HS graduation and I assume she was a student. I know from my kids that 30 years later she is not married with family.
You are a better person than I am. I think I’d have at least made the connection and said hello, then tipped really well so that it would show no hard feelings. Of course, that might just be fantasy me.
As already mentioned, this isn’t always the case. And…
…it’s the “aren’t qualified for much else” part that comes across as judgmental. In this thread alone, I think several people have pointed out the IQ / previous college stuff that might disqualify that statement. Plus, as someone who now cleans houses for a living and has had more than one person appear to feel the same about me, I can promise you I have other options on the table. Sometimes it’s what’s happened in life (in my case, my husband dying and leaving me basically penniless after a lengthy illness and mental health issues) that informs our choices, not necessarily bad decisions.
I’ve been a server. These kinds of displays are typically not appreciated. Possibly demonstrated by the fact that the poor guy eventually left a pitcher on your table instead.
But the reason you feel awkward is that you’re choosing to take the most uncharitable view of the situation.
It’s people who take the uncharitable view who make it hard for the unemployed to “take a job, any job”. If a friend who has been laid off for some time told you he didn’t want to take a job serving tables because he didn’t want people thinking he was a loser, what would you tell him?
Because I would tell him this: “Yeah, people are going to judge you harshly, but they are probably jerks who don’t shit know from shinola. Worrying about them won’t keep the lights on. Go get your hustle on, bro.”
I don’t keep in touch with my high school classmates. But I imagine that quite a few work in retail or other low-wage jobs, and it’s not because they’ve made poor choices. It’s because they had limited opportunities and sometimes shit happens (like having to care for sick parents before you had a chance to finish your degree). It might be an awkward encounter, but only because of survivor’s guilt on my end.