Preparing for a baby can be a stressful time, especially if you’re low on cash. There are tons of things we need to welcome a new life into the world— and, let’s be real, raising a family is expensive. These were the struggles David Fabila was facing.
Fabila, from Roseville, California, was preparing for the birth of his fourth child.
To help pay for everything his family needed, the father was working two jobs. Sometimes he even filled back-to-back shifts between both locations. It was a struggle, but it needed to be done.
On a Friday night this past August, Fabila was exhausted when he showed up to work at the local wine bar.
The House of Oliver, as it’s called, was flooded with guests, and Fabila had just finished a shift at his other job too. He told CBS Sacramento:
“I was telling my coworkers that tonight is not my night, I’m not having a good night, I just came from my other job, I’m exhausted,” he said.
He was the only server assigned the patio which was swamped with large parties.
During his time out there, however, he served several bottles of wine to a table of young men— one of whom was watching him very closely.
When the table of men was ready to leave, Fabila grabbed the bill to enter the transaction into the register— only to discover someone had left him a $192 tip.
On the bill, they had written: “We’re young, but we’re worth serving.” As you can imagine, Fabila had to stop and blink a few times.
“Unless you work in the service industry, you don’t really understand how much tips mean to a server, to a bartender,” he said.
And indeed, tipping etiquette is a contentious topic. While some people feel they should only tip for exceptional service, the accepted amount is generally 15-20% of the pre-tax total.
This is because servers rely on tips for their wages. In fact, the minimum wage for tipped workers in the United States can literally be as low as $2.13 per hour. Why we don’t just scrap the tipping system and pay employees a living wage, to begin with? I don’t know, but these are the unfortunate facts behind the practice.
So, as you can imagine, the unexpected gift meant a lot to Fabila, the exhausted server.
Turns out Steffen Berr, a Sacramento State student, was feeling generous and had noticed how hard Fabila had been working.
“I’m in a position where I have the resources and luck to do this so why not just go for it?” he said.
“I’m really glad I did it; he really needed that money more than I did.”
It’s unclear if Berr’s actions were part of the #TipTheBillChallenge that was circulating social media at the time. Berr said he had never heard of it and was simply celebrating finishing his senior year.
To Fabila, the expecting father, Berr’s actions meant the world.
“You totally just made everything so much better … you have no idea what you do for me, and that’s what made it so great.”
Hear the heartwarming story below!
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