can honestly say I never spit in anybody’s food. There were far more subtle – and less punishable – ways of getting back at a customer. Handling money, scratching my head, holding a piece of raw meat then reaching for their collard greens without washing my hands was always a guilty pleasure.

I’ve worked pretty much every bottom-of-the-pyramid food service job there is, including counter, dish-room, and host stand. I was even a bouncer for six months, which is laughable if you know my physique. The only extremes I missed in the throngs of my not-ready-for-my-first-real-job phase were fast-food and bartender. Never desperate enough to wear a paper hat. Never around long enough to be trained at the well. By far, my days as a waiter were the most memorable.

I learned to be a waiter the only real way: trial by fire. I had been working dip-chest duty at a busy Faneuil Hall ice-cream shoppe for over a year when I decided it was time for me to move up from my $6-an-hour-plus-tip-cup. My "training" consisted of thirty minutes learning the table numbers and register from a jaded sixty-year old diner maid named Mary. Then I was on my own. Within one hour I was forgetting numbers, serving food cold, spilling drinks (there is a fine art to carrying trays), ordering items twice, forgetting to refill…

(I have crossed this country five times, lived in four major cities, nearly died twice, and I’m telling you, there is no feeling in the world as gut-wrenchingly dreadful as when you realize it’s been over a half-hour and you never punched in somebody’s order. And then you beg and plead with the cooks to put your order ahead of everybody else’s knowing they’re taking sinister pleasure in watching you squirm.)

It took me a couple weekends of 5% tips, but eventually I was working that floor better than Mary. (Orthopedic shoes my ass; the student had surpassed the teacher.) On a good ten hour day, turning fifty tables or more, hustling my ass off until my socks were soaked and I was sweating hamburgers and ice-cream, I went home with just over a hundred bucks. A damn good day’s wage for a college student. The money made the exhaustion worth it… barely.

I really am a people person. While it can be easy to annoy me, it takes a lot for a person – especially a total stranger – to truly anger me. That all changes once I’m depending on that stranger for my salary. There is no other industry where one’s pay is directly proportionate to their performance. In the administrative world, if somebody forgets to fax their boss’s letter, they don’t get docked ten dollars. Everybody always gets paid, even on a bad day when they’re less than their usual cheery self. Only as a waiter will you suffer direct and immediate consequences should you dare to drop below 100% at any given moment. Of course, that’s not totally accurate either. I can’t tell you how many times I have completely botched a table; poured the wrong drinks, ordered rare instead of well-done, forgot to bring the check, and I’d receive a 25% tip. Yet I’d work the next table flawlessly and they’d pay their $48.23 tab with a fifty and tell me to keep the change.

Eventually I moved on from that glorified malt shop to a "Restaurant & Microbrewery" in the Boston Theater District. The crowd was older and higher-class (it’s hard to go down from white trash, tourists and teenagers), which boosted my average tip to 20%. However, I was introduced to a whole new side of food service torture: The Corporate Way. This was a small Massachusetts chain masquerading as TGI-Friday’s. I spent a week in training where I learned the company history, the exact ingredients of every item on the menu, and of course… the procedure. There was an opening monologue for each table: "Have you been here before? No? Well let me tell you about our beers which we brew right here…" There were time limits: greet (not customers) guests within sixty seconds, have drinks out within ninety seconds, food in fifteen minutes...

Then there was the dreaded process of upselling. Mr. Corporate Image with the pearly white teeth encouraged you, "Don’t simply ask if they would like an appetizer; suggest one for them. Encourage the beer sampler; it’ll add another 25 cents to your bill. Ask if they would like cappuccino instead of coffee. Sure it takes ten times as long to make, but it costs a dollar more."

Both extremes, the low-class and the corporate establishment were enough to drive any sane waiter mad. (God only knows how employees of Friendly’s don’t slash their wrists.) Ideally, you were working with other waiters who became your support group. They were the ones you’d go out with to the bar across the street and blow the lousy tips you’d made on booze. Our microbrewery was good enough to include free beer as one of the perks. There were many times we’d close the restaurant then sit around drinking, bitching and laughing with each other until four in the morning.

I wound up back waiting tables early last year when I found myself out of work after two years in the real world. It was for a large chain that everybody has been to. I was several years older than the average employee and it just wasn’t the same as I had remembered. I felt beyond all that: beyond upselling the signature margaritas, beyond jumping up on the booth and singing Happy Birthday, beyond fajita grease flying in my face from the precariously balanced tray, beyond receiving an unsteady paycheck, beyond working three days here and two days there, not to mention every Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I lasted less than a month, and God willing, I have hung up my apron for good this time.

I used to think that 10% was a perfectly legitimate tip. I wouldn’t think twice about sending my waitress running back and forth to the kitchen to get things I forgotten to ask for. I would feel justified in giving the waiter a hard time and withholding a tip because my soda came loaded with ice when I specifically said, "No ice." Now I know better and am embarrassed to eat with people like that. 20% is my minimum tip these days. The only time I will leave less than that is if the waiter is an out and out rude bastard. But even on a bad night, a simple "Sorry about that," garners my total forgiveness. The extra three or so dollars that I throw down on the table is going to mean way more to that waiter than it would ever mean to my wallet.

Working in food service is something that every person should do at least once in their life as far as I’m concerned – if only for empathy’s sake. I learned the ropes the hard way, and while it did get easier, it was never an easy job. Customers and managers alike are capable of crushing a waiter’s spirit. Fortunately, I had good coworkers to help me through. There is no friendship quite like the one forged between waiters. It is a special bond based on mutual misery that you never forget. Although, a 30% tip was enough to make anyone forget about friends for an hour or so.