Food and Friendship

Food and Friendship I am a server, and have been for almost two years now. I like having a job, but am glad I will not be in server forever. Why this is important though is because my paycheck is different every week. What I make each night in tips is all I make. So when I am planning my budget I have to plan a little bit more short term, I generally know how much I can make given the same shifts and same days, however serving is never a guarantee. Now with this background I can say, that my week starts off the same, I figure out how much I made over the weekend and what my shifts are going to be for the coming week, and decide from there what kind of money I have to spend that week. Yes, I am aware that this is not out of the norm for responsible adults. However, where my weakness lies is with food and friends. I say almost every week that I should not spend very much money, if any on going out for food. I live off campus, so it makes more financial sense to eat at home more. Without fail though every week, I usually go out to eat at least two times. It isn’t really about the food though, it’s about the relationships. I have discovered that how I connect with people is to go out to coffee, lunch, or dinner, I value time. So no matter how poor I am that week, I can almost never turn down going out to dinner with people that I care about. It is just such a casual neutral environment to go out to dinner and talk. The real lesson here is, always tip your server well!