Says who?

No, actually, you don’t.

People owe each other professionalism and civility. Not politeness and aquiescence to the point of making a doormat of yourself. If someone breaks the rules of basic civility you are entitled to push back commensurately so they don’t transgress farther. The trick is not to return obnoxiousness with obnoxiousness of your own.

A guy who behaves that way is likely to stiff or shortchange you on tips regardless of whether you take the abuse or not. You gain nothing by taking it.

Stand up for yourself. You’re not going to be tipped properly anyway.

I’ll tell you something else.

These people make other guests uncomfortable too. It’s true and it hurts the overall business because people won’t frequent a place where they feel uncomfortable. They go to restaurants and bars because they want to relax and unwind, not because they want to be on guard against obnoxious behavior themselves all night or fret about if/where/how they should step in.

You stand up for yourself and make a non rude or aggressive show of it and you will be tipped higher by the surrounding people. They’re going to be proud of you — youre standing up for them too. Now they can relax and enjoy their evening. Their tips will make up for and exceed what you lost in tips to the jackass. People who stay longer have higher tickets.

This idea that you have to take it comes from “the customer is always right" and bosses who are thinking only in terms of one lost sale rather than building a good stable business. It’s bullshit. Absolute bullshit.

Customers like that hurt business. They can literally kill a business. You don’t want them around. Make sure they know their antics aren’t welcome and they’ll go be your competition’s problem. A boss who doesn’t realize that is a bad boss and not worth having quality employees.