What To Do About Sexual Harassment When The Customer Is Always Right

The customer is always right. I found out about this idea soon after I started working as a hostess, and then moved up to be a cocktail waitress, bartender, and food server. I did this work because the managers offered me the job on the spot, and, I took home quite a bit of tip … Read moreWhat To Do About Sexual Harassment When The Customer Is Always Right

Why Sexual Harassment Rates Are So High in the Restaurant Industry

In 2009, Michael Lynn, a professor of food and beverage management at Cornell University, published a study that found that waitresses in the U.S. with blond hair, smaller waists, and larger breasts received higher tips than women without those traits. His findings circulated among restaurant hiring teams and managers eager to jack up sales in the $799 … Read moreWhy Sexual Harassment Rates Are So High in the Restaurant Industry

‘You will be sexually harassed’: just one of the perils of working for tips

How are you doing today, sir? Dining in, or placing a to-go?” asks a cheery waitress. “Eating in,” a man in his late 20s replies. We are in a casual dining restaurant off a highway in eastern Michigan, Friday, mid-afternoon. Above him, televisions blare; behind him, squeaky-looking booths are starting to fill up. The man … Read more‘You will be sexually harassed’: just one of the perils of working for tips

Dependence on tips leaves women workers vulnerable to sexual harassment

Recently tipping in the restaurant industry has been the subject of two national opinion polls, both of which suggest the public is divided on the ingrained social practice that is tipping. In early May, the CBC conducted an online poll asking, “Is it time to end tipping?” Only about 12 percent said No, while over 40 percent … Read moreDependence on tips leaves women workers vulnerable to sexual harassment

First-Hand Experience: Things I did after being sexually harassed at my workplace

The unfortunate reality is that sexual assault is common in modern society. But the fact that we hear about it more now than we did a decade or two ago doesn’t mean that such misconduct wasn’t a thing. In fact, we dare argue they would happen more often, but the social climate was such that … Read moreFirst-Hand Experience: Things I did after being sexually harassed at my workplace