St. Patty’s Day is nearly upon us and, as a waitress and bartender for several years now, I must take one for the team. I must declare St. Patrick’s Day not just a day of drinking and celebrating and parade watching, but also a day of renewed faith and interest in tipping.

For those of you who drink and don’t wait tables or work in a restaurant, your day will be busy. You will be bar-hopping perhaps or even pulling an all-day shift at only one bar of your choice or going to the parade and then bar-hopping.

For those who do work in a restaurant, our day will be busy as well. We’ll be the ones bringing you those drinks you request and quickly supplying you with more once the first round is gone. We’ll be the ones helping to make this St. Patty’s Day as fun and loopy for you as possible. In short, we’ll be the ones getting you drunk. And we’ll also be the ones running our asses off doing it – believe me when I say that a busy evening at a bar feels about 10 times busier than your busiest day at work.

We work for tips and, yes, we chose to do so. We also chose to do so under the assumption that you are coming to our establishments equipped with the knowledge that tipping is a wonderful act of kindness, courtesy and benevolence. For those of you who engage in this act, we love you for helping us to pay that rent or car payment that’s so popular these days. For those of you who don’t, we are probably bad-mouthing you to the majority of Topeka by now.

Perhaps a bad tip is warranted on occasion. Sometimes I’ve been unable to keep myself from being somewhat rude to a table that I find somewhat annoying and sometimes I am just a bad, bad waitress. It happens. I’m not perfect, and I’m going to bet that neither are the people I’m waiting on.

Bottom line: it’s St. Patty’s Day. Please try to make your wait staff’s day just as enjoyable as yours by tipping accordingly. It only takes a dollar a drink to make us happy.

(A shot doesn’t hurt either).