Dear Unpaid, Thirty years of banquets taught me to hear that word and reach for my wallet. Family is a lovely thing to be. It is also the only arrangement where you can work a Sunday and be thanked with a photograph.

Don't argue with the word. Ask what it costs. Put it in writing once: “If we're family, what does family pay for a Sunday?” Then wait. The word will do a small somersault, and now you'll know which one your company actually runs on.

Show up Sunday anyway. Be pleasant, keep your badge, work the floor. Then ask for something she can say yes to without losing face: a comped room, a paid Monday, your name in the next job description. Families trade in favors. Professionals trade in receipts. Keep the receipts.

And stop asking if you're wrong. Eleven years in, you're still requesting permission to want money for a day you gave them. That isn't humility, that's training. Somewhere between the dock and the booth you learned that being needed is the same as being valued. It isn't. The hall goes dark at ten and nobody in it remembers who stayed for the pizza.

Still on your side. Lunch is on you. Margo.