Savanah Pierce.Photo:Savanah Pierce
Savanah Pierce
Savanah Pierce.Savanah Pierce
“I’m not necessarily a people pleaser, but I’m there for their experience,” Pierce says of her serving style. “So I’m trying to take them whichever way they want it to go. And so I did, the first time, try to, like, not make it a big deal and not make him feel bad about it because I also don’t know their family dynamic, and I don’t know what’s normal for them.”
Never miss a story — sign up forPEOPLE’s free daily newsletterto stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.In the video, Pierce says she also tried to empathize with the girls at the table, hoping to make them feel less uncomfortable.After taking the table’s drink orders, Pierce asked one more time if there was anything else she could get the table or if they were okay with her leaving them for a few minutes to put in their orders.The father responded again, “Other than women and their periods,” she recalls.“Once he came around to the second time of making a comment about it, I just felt like it was making me uncomfortable, to a point where I’m like, ‘Are you wanting me to dog on these girls too?’ " Pierce says. “I just couldn’t figure out what the guy wanted, and though it is unusual for me, yeah, I gave him push back.”
In the video, Pierce says that she looked at the father and, keeping her tone light and joking, asked, “Are you feeling good about embarrassing your daughters right now? I gave you the first one, but I might have to give you a little pushback now.“Pierce says the girls at the table were relatively quiet throughout the interaction, but she thinks that keeping her response light and humorous helped keep the atmosphere at the table mostly positive.“Throughout the meal, everyone seemed happy,” Pierce says. “It didn’t make the table awkward or anything.”
After posting about the encounter on TikTok, Pierce received an outpouring of support from commenters, many of whom shared similar stories, she tells PEOPLE. The video now has more than 380,000 likes.
Pierce, who often posts about her experiences serving on her TikTok page, shared her story to the platform in the hopes that it might inspire other servers to stand up for themselves and their beliefs, even while in a customer service role.“It doesn’t mean that we have to let people go unchecked and that we have to embrace people’s bad behavior,” she says of working in the industry. “I think there’s always a fine line to find where you can be nice and be gracious but still stand up for what you believe in and the right thing.”
source: people.com
