On Behalf of all Bartenders — Tomi Lahren, Sit the Fuck Down

Stefanie Williams
Nov 5 · 6 min read

This week, I watched as a man in a “Confederate Veteran Family Member” hat haggled the owner of my bar on the price of a bucket of Bud Lights. I shook my head, walked away, and poured a Captain and sprite for a more friendly regular.

Sometimes bartending makes me hate all of humanity. Sometimes, it restores my faith in it.

I am 33. I have a college degree from the University of Maryland. I pay my rent, and my car payment, I buy groceries and higher-end dog food. I go to work and am on my feet every day, running food, interacting with people, some of whom suck and some of whom are awesome. I wipe down a bar at the end of the night and I go home and pour myself a glass of wine and feel grateful that I have a job that keeps me moving and thinking and learning.

I also sold a TV show in 2017. I’ve pitched a ton of shows, sat in conference rooms with top execs in Hollywood, and the last deal I worked out (that sadly, did not sell) was priced to give me $150,000 for a pilot and $40k per episode on a 15 episode season. (Yes, losing that deal nearly broke my soul). When I’m not at the bar, I’m usually somewhere writing scripts, or pitch decks. E-mailing my managers and lawyer. Praying for the WGA and ATA to make peace. Planning my trips to LA. Most of the people I take meetings with in LA don’t know that the night before, I was probably hurling a bag of bar trash into the dumpster outside the restaurant.

I have worked in a restaurant since I was 22. I graduated from college in 2008, and when the economy tanked and I was let go from my first job out of college six months after I graduated, I took the first job that was offered to me. I worked hard, I made bank, and I loved the flexibility it gave me. I found a little family in the steakhouse I occupied four days a week, we spent most holidays together and celebrated birthdays and marriages and personal achievements together throughout the years.

It’s draining at times. Customer service isn’t always fun, because people aren’t always fun. In fact, most people suck. Plenty of people treat you like a servant, are irrationally rude to you and do so in order to feel like they are at the very least, better than SOMEONE in their life. At this stage in the game, I can recognize those people from a mile away, and instead of getting mad these days, I just feel sorry for them. I believe it takes a lot of self loathing to treat someone who is working and trying to give you a good experience like shit.

I have struggled mightily, I have succeeded in major ways. I’ve at times, struggled to pay my bills, and at others, been flush with money, enough so to pay everything off well in advance and book trips to Australia and New Zealand on a whim. I’m educated, I’m involved, I have big goals and I work incredibly hard, both at the bar and at home, to make them a reality. My father died when I was 16, my mom struggled for a long time after to keep our house going, and I had no family connections to get me where I wanted to be with writing. So I simply work to get myself there, and I enjoy that journey.

So I don’t exactly know why Tomi Lahren (and a fair amount of GOP lawmakers and taking heads, for that matter), find a need to constantly belittle Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for having bartended before becoming a member of congress, like it’s some kind of major win in the insult department. (And let me preface, I do not agree with AOC politically). Are bartenders not educated people? Real people? Do we not pay our bills, have friends, need health care, get pregnant, have families, go to college, have dreams, buy houses? I get Tomi Lahren danced on a lot of bars in college, but has she ever stopped to think about what it actually means to work behind one?

No. Because that girl jumped from talking head job to talking head job. But none of her experience as a pundit for conservative talk networks like The Blaze or Fox News actually give her insight into the issues she’s talking about. I don’t think anyone looks to Tomi Lahren for thoughts on foreign policy or the deficit. No one is sitting around thinking, “hmm, wonder what Tomi Lahren thinks about the teacher’s strike in South Carolina”. What Tomi Lahren caters to is a group of often equally uneducated people who want someone on TV (and someone who looks like Lahren, let’s be real here) to tell them they’re right. That they’re opinion is right. That their beliefs are right. And Lahren does so in such a way where she tends to talk condescendingly to the camera as if she knows better than everyone in the room. Her job, at the end of the day, is to wear a lot of makeup, speak firmly, and memorize a list of talking points more often than not, created by a producer in order to give the viewers at home a sense of smug satisfaction that their beliefs about guns, gays, and the American Flag are as factual and commendable as anything that could be found in a text book.

Now, I’m not saying that’s not a job. She gets paid for it, I’m sure. Probably a good amount, too. But that job doesn’t fall in line with the majority of working class and low income people in the country. It doesn’t offer a sense of understanding as to what it means to work twelve hour shifts on your feet as a nurse or a teacher or a bartender, it doesn’t doesn’t correlate to the struggle of coming home physically, emotionally and mentally exhausted from a long day of labor and dealing with the public. And it certainly doesn’t certify her opinions as more informed or more educated than say, mine as a bartender. If anything, her cushy career and echo chambered life as a pretty white girl has done nothing but shelter Lahren from the actual realities of the middle and working class population and the struggles they deal with on a daily basis.

But should I be surprised? Should I be surprised that someone who identifies as conservative and Republican, lambasts a job that is distinctly working class? Should I be surprised that Lahren as a conservative would use someone’s honest work ethic as an insult to their intelligence? No, because at the end of the day, conservatives like Lahren don’t give a shit about the people who serve them drinks, or food, or coffee, who teach their kids or bandage up their broken bones. And to be perfectly honest, I don’t need her to. But I do need her to stop insinuating that the way in which I pay my bills on time somehow cheapens or lessens my ability to process information and facts clearly.

Tomi Lahren is the worst of America. She is the American who rails for things to be made in America because #BestCountryEver, but then hypocritically cries poverty when she’s called out for producing her gun-toting sexy yoga pants in a Chinese workshop. She’s a woman who spent her formative years dancing on bars while other men and women cleaned up after her spilling drinks. She’s a woman who seemingly paid no dues, but lectures the rest of us on hard work and welfare. She shouts and screams at the camera, but never stops to listen when she’s wrong. She insults an honest, good paying job while simultaneously providing nothing of substance with her own career. Honestly, can you tell me what service Tomi Lahren provides, aside from spank bank material for those who can’t afford a laptop or smart phone to log into Porn Hub from? Because I’m kind of at a loss. She’s not a journalist. She’s not a news anchor. She’s just someone who has an opinion. And you know what they say about assholes.

At the end of the day, I’m proud of my work ethic, my education, my accomplishments in writing and my ability to hustle behind a bar when the going gets tough. And whether I spend the rest of my life behind a bar, or I sell the next pitch and make half a million a year from a writer’s room, I know that I will always treat those in the service industry (and any industry) with respect and kindness, especially because I know what it’s like when someone doesn’t. I truly hope Tomi Lahren never experiences the harsh realities of life that she pretends to understand while shouting at the audience from a Fox News studio, far away from the realities of the world. My gut says one day in the real world, where blonde hair and a pretty face do not ave a place on the resume, and Tomi would shit her Chinese made yoga pants.

Stefanie Williams

Written by

The illegitimate love child of Indiana Jones & Annie Savoy. TV Writer. Terp Alum. Pitbull Mother (the breed, not the singer).

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