Dear Prudence,
A week ago, I went to a restaurant I used to work at. It’s not a particularly expensive restaurant, but it’s slightly more expensive than average where I live. It’s honestly the kind of place that any server trying to make good money would use as a stepping stone to a nicer restaurant. That being said, there were a few servers I worked with 15 years ago that were really good at their job. I went there about 10 years ago and was surprised that they hadn’t tried to find another job. This came up in conversation and one of them mentioned being comfortable and still making decent money. That’s fair enough, I get that not everybody has the energy to get used to another job. So when I went there this weekend, “Amanda” was still working there.
She didn’t end up being my server. I was a little surprised that she didn’t stop by to chat as she had in the past. We ended up staying there until close and as we were walking out, I noticed Amanda was too. I, along with the friends I went out with that night, all have jobs in public health. We were talking about the pandemic like we often do when Amanda made some comments about my online post. I live in a place that was very polarized concerning mask wearing and I posted a lot online about science. I often also dispelled conspiracy theories. I didn’t know Amanda’s last name but apparently, I got into an argument with her online. She started talking about more conspiracy theories as my friends and I tried to walk away. I gave her some information dispelling the myths but she kept just listing off other conspiracies.
I finally got fed up and said, “I’ve told you all of the legitimate information about the pandemic. Your opinions are nothing but conspiracy theories. If you actually want to be able to critically analyze public health data, then you should get a Ph.D. Until then, you should stick to being a waitress.” That clearly made her angry and she stormed off. I should note that Amanda was probably one of the smarter servers at the restaurant, but she fell for popular “health” (i.e. weight loss) books. At one point, I literally had a class demonstrating the shakiness of the data used in these books. She probably would have done well in college and with whatever career she chose, but she only has a high school degree. So, as we walked back to my car, half of my friends cheered me on and half of them told me I belittled her. I know how hard being a server is, but getting my Ph.D. was 10 times harder than that and I worked my butt off to get it. I’m done apologizing to people for being smart, but a part of me wonders if I was too rude to someone in a pretty thankless job, especially after the pandemic. Do you think I was wrong?
—Server Faux Pas