Working in the food industry is hard, which is why the people who work in it sometimes take shortcuts, goof off, and take their revenge on rude customers. Let's just say, things get a little crazy at times.
That Escalated Quickly
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“I used to be a waiter at a small family owned restaurant. I worked there for 5 years and the owners were super nice and basically my second family. The problem was the owners were such pushovers. At any restaurant there will be complaints and people who don’t want to pay for meals and the owners would always cave to these people and give them their meal free. We had one regular that would complain every time they came in and they would always have their meal refunded. Well on this day I decided enough was enough. The regular had a peanut allergy so I decided to sneak some peanuts into their food. They had an allergic reaction and almost died. The restaurant ended up getting closed and one of the owners was sent to prison. Turns out the owner owed the regular a lot of money and gave free meals to pay their debt. The police thought the owner tried to kill the regular. I don’t work for small restaurants anymore.”
When Plotting Your Revenge Goes Terribly Wrong
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“I had a waiter friend once have a mother and her 15-year-old son. The mother was belligerent, rude and demanding. Every time she demanded something and was excessively rude to the staff, the boy would roll his eyes and give him a look that said ‘sorry.’ After consistent belittling, he goes to retrieve the food. They ordered chicken strips and a quarter pound T-bone steak with mashed potatoes. He wiped a thin but healthy booger on the bottom of the steak, scraped some gunk from the table onto it, hacked a lougee into the mashed potatoes and mixed it in with a few hairs. He grins to himself as he hands the steak to the mom and the chicken strips to the boy and says ‘enjoy the meal.’ He excitedly anticipates watching her first bites from the kitchen door but is stopped mid turn by the mom. She says ‘You can’t do anything right can you? Two people and you can’t remember who gets the chicken strips.’ She proceeds to switch the plates and a warm wave of dread washed over him as the boy takes a generous mouthful of the mashed potatoes. Afterward, the mother pays the bill and prepares herself to argue payment with the hostess. After she is out of eye-shot the boy mouths sorry and leaves a 24 dollar tip on the bill. He said he couldn’t sleep for days.”
They Just Took Out The “Red Parts”
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“In the hotel I worked at, I had to get two buckets of crushed ice from the machine. After breaking some of the hard frozen crushed ice with a metal shovel, I realized some red spots on the ice. I looked down and noticed that I had a little bleeding scratch on my hand.
Normal procedure would have been to empty out the whole machine and sanitize it. In this case, there would have been no ice for the huge gala dinner that we were preparing.
My coworker and I decided to take the ‘red parts’ out and keep the rest.”
Oh, It’s Not In The Lost And Found?
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“I worked at a large seafood restaurant that was pretty upscale. I had one regular customer who was a businessman of some kind who came by once or twice a week with co-workers.
This guy was a major jerk. He would order ridiculous drinks from the bar and not tip the bartender (and frequently insist that our bartender with 12 years experience made his drink incorrectly), abuse waitstaff (myself included), order off the menu, and was really arbitrary about tipping (sometimes he’d leave massive tips but frequently absolutely nothing). Maybe he did this to seem like a big-shot to his co-workers (who were usually nice) or maybe mommy and daddy just didn’t love him enough.
Anyway, every time this guy came in, he ordered snow crab. Anyone not familiar with this delectable treat should know that you eat it with your hands and it’s quite messy. So, every time he would take off his watch before he ate. You might see where this is going. One night, he took off his watch, presumably forgot about it, and left. I was hosting that night and his table’s server came up to me and told me that Mr. Buttwipe had left his watch. Conveniently, he also neglected to leave a tip of any kind. I took Mr. Buttwipes’s watch, sold it on eBay for over $500, and gave it to the poor server as his deserved tip.”
That’s Cold As Ice!
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“I work at a grocery store. One of my coworkers is deaf in his left ear, and this dumb lady (obviously on painkillers) was on his left side, yelling at him to get her some bags of ice from the freezer. He didn’t hear her until she was yelling obscenities at him and calling him mentally challenged. She then decided to just ask me for help. I politely obliged, already scheming as to how I was going to ruin this lady’s day.
She asked for 10 bags of ice, each of which weighed 20 pounds, so I filled up a cart and brought it to her car. She sat down in the front seat as I loaded them into the trunk. We carry box cutters with us at work, so I decided to use mine to rip open every single bag I put in, so that when she attempted to pull them out, the bags would come out, but the ice would stay.
She showed back up at the store in a rage, the likes of which I had never seen before. Apparently she took a while to get home (I live in Las Vegas too, so it’s super hot), and the ice melted, hit some open wiring in her crappy 2002 Ford Taurus, and completely screwed up all the electronics in her car.
My manager told her tough luck, and that she wasn’t on our property when the damage was done, so she lost her crap, started screaming and throwing crap for like 45 minutes straight, started hitting me, then got escorted away by security.
All in all, probably the most interesting day of work that I’ve had.”
He Got Everything He Asked For…And A Little Something Extra
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“I used to be a manager at McDonald’s and I got pretty used to dealing with jerks on a daily basis. One night, as we were closing up, a car started pulling around the drive thru. It was close enough to closing time where I considered switching the lights and saying were closed (like 2-3 minutes before closing) but for some reason, I was feeling ambitious that night and told the crew to take this one last order. Huge mistake.
The guy got up to the intercom and told us he needed a minute. I heard the drive thru order taker politely remind the man to take his time, but we are officially closed in three minutes and she needed to at least have his order taken by then. His response was, ‘I’ll take all the freaking time I want.’ We just ignored him for a minute, then I got on the intercom and said I’m about to lock up the store and if he doesn’t order now…He started ordering, taking the longest time he possibly could between items, going back and forth with others in the car and just taking forever.
He got up to the window to pay and as I handed him back his money, he pulled the whole, ‘and make sure that crap’s fresh off the grill, I don’t want anything that’s been sitting around.’ I explained to him that the meat was no more than 15 minutes old and kept heated. Yet there was no way I could give him fresh-off-the-grill burgers, so I would gladly refund his money. ‘I don’t want my freaking money back, I want you to cook me a fresh freaking hamburger!’
I responded, ‘I’m sorry that’s not going to happen, sir.’ We went back and forth for awhile, but eventually he gave up.
His burgers were ready and we had, like, a minute left waiting for fries. I locked the window, pulled the drawer, put it in the safe and came back to finish giving him his food. As I was doing that, my grill person had already thrown away the remaining food items and started cleaning. Fries came up and I handed him his food and told them to have a good night. As I went to turn around, he informed me he wanted five more double cheeseburgers. I explain that that was impossible and insisted there was no food left. He insisted that I was full of crap and that I was going to get him his food. We argued for what seemed like a very long time until finally I said, ‘Screw it, you want more food, I’ll get you more food.’
I went into the back and pulled crap out of the trash to make his stupid double cheeseburgers. Not just the burger and the bun, I scrapped the mustard/ketchup off the side of the bag (which looked like it was mixed with some nasty greasy looking crap), reached all the way into the bottom to find pickles and dehydrated onions for his burger and grabbed cheese that I’m pretty sure my grill person had found under the assembly table and tossed in the trash.
After I bagged it all up, I went back (feeling better much better now), pleasantly opened the window, ‘That will be $5.40 please,’ took his money, told him to have a good night, and closed the window. After that, I never took another last minute order when we were having a slow night. Also never before or after that had I or anyone I worked with (that I’m aware at least) done anything questionable to someone’s food.”
Those Vegans Better Watch Out
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“I worked at a vegetarian restaurant in college. There were vegan options upon request. A couple of times, I would get a vegan customer who would be rude or mean. If that happened, I just wouldn’t mark that the meal needed to be vegan. ‘This is the best dish I’ve ever had here!’ Well yeah, it’s because it has ANIMAL FAT IN IT!”
…Maybe It’s Better They Don’t Know
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“I used to work at the Cheesecake Factory, and we have a chicken and shrimp gumbo. One day I had Muslim guests, burkas and all, sit down with me. They explained pretty clearly they can’t have anything with alcohol (so no wine sauce) or pork. I said, ‘Sure, no problem!’ They ordered the chicken and shrimp gumbo.
Problem is, that gumbo had pork sausage in it, and I completely forgot. It’s not called a chicken and shrimp AND pork sausage gumbo, so my bad. The lady was halfway through eating it when she asked me what kind of meat it was she was eating. If she hadn’t eaten most of it already, I would have taken it back, but I just lied and said, ‘Oh that’s beef, you’re good.’ I walked away like fuuuuuuuuhhhhh.”
She Took Advantage Of The System And Someone Else Was Caught With The Bag
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“I used to work in a restaurant that had this reward card program. A fellow server and I started signing up fake cards by registering them with email accounts we had created. Whenever we would get a cash table, we would swipe the card after the table left and pocket the 20, 40, or 60 dollar discount. We did this a few times a night, five days a week, for over about a year, which netted us thousands of dollars. We kept trading cards with each other and we had enough that no one caught on. When I got my ‘big girl job,’ I passed the cards down to a couple other servers. A few months later, the owner found out and prosecuted the three servers who were caught with the cards. They each had to pay a $2,000 fine and do community service.”
He Really Needed To Cool Off
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“I worked at Pizza Hut in high school. We had this manager, who we’ll call ‘Jay,’ that was an absolute jerk. His life was one giant power-trip. One of those guys that takes his $8/hr job waaaay too seriously. Anyways, if you aren’t familiar with Pizza Hut, they have a walk-in cooler in the back; I’d say it’s about 12′ x 12′, and there are about 15 racks (with wheels) full of dough.
Fast forward to one Friday evening during rush hour, it was busy as heck. My friend made up a story that he spilled some sauce in the back of the walk-in, and he told Jay that he had no idea how to clean it up. There was just too much sauce on the floor. Jay goes into the walk-in to check it out, turns out there is no sauce. He’s in the very back of the cooler, though. Me and my friend proceed to scramble all of the racks of dough, making a maze of racks in the way between Jay and his exit and shut the door.
Jay was stuck in there for at least 30 minutes. At first, you could tell he was trying to maneuver himself around the racks without knocking them over, but it was pitch black. The longer time went on, the colder he got, and the more frustrated. Eventually, you could tell he was just knocking over racks (from the loud crashes we heard.) Once Jay made his way out, my friend got fired immediately, but somehow he didn’t really notice that I was involved. He told the General Manager, and I thought all heck was going to break loose, but the GM kind of blew it off. I don’t think he really liked Jay either. I feel a little bad about it looking back.”
How Subway “Runs Out Of Bread”
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“I used to work at Subway and before closing time, I would take all the bread and put it under the counter where the customers could not see. Then when people would come in, I would tell them the opening crew did not put enough bread out for the day and I ran out. ‘We still have cookies though… or maybe a salad?'”
She Had The Nerve To Ask For Change Back
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“I’m a delivery driver… Sadly, we do bad things all the time and have no shame. Now back to the story:
I was taking a delivery to the WC Austin area. The person that ordered the pizza made me wait for them as they took 15 minutes to come downstairs, delivery drivers will know what I mean. Anyways, her order was $75.43. She gave me $70 and I informed her that she was short by $5.43. She got upset and said she couldn’t afford it…. TRYING TO BE A NICE PERSON, I grabbed a $10 out of my own wallet and handed it to her. She stared down at it and then handed it back to me. I started walking off and she said, ‘Where’s my change?’ As I looked back at her, it was clear she was serious…So I go back to my car, grab ALL the pennies, nickels, and dimes I had and tossed them on the floor.”
He Had No Idea She Was Right Behind Him
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“I was waiting table and going to college at the time. I had waited tables at several restaurants in town already and knew enough people that I could get a job anywhere, so I wasn’t particularly worried about job security. One day, I was working the outdoor patio area when one of our chefs, who had just gotten off work, walked past me smoking some drugs. As I had just started my shift, I knew a little green would make the next eight hours go by much faster, and I didn’t have any tables on the patio, so I figured I was in the clear.
I yelled to him, ‘Hey Tony, let me hit that.’
Tony obliged, passing it to me. I took a long drag, held it in, and passed it back to Tony, who strolled along on his merry way.
I turned around, facing the door from the restaurant to the patio, and exhaled slowly. A huge billowy cloud of smoke slammed into the doorway right as a 40-something, middle-class woman with her daughter walked out onto the patio.
I was scared stiff like a deer in headlights. There was zero way for me to play this off. The woman was staring right through the giant cloud of smoke directly to its source…me.
In an amazing stroke of good fortune, she didn’t say a word. She simply turned around with her daughter, left the patio, left the restaurant, and drove off into the sunset.
Definitely the worst thing I ever did at work.”
Extra Mayo Isn’t For Everyone
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“I worked at McDonalds when I was about 17, and I wasn’t really invested in keeping the job, per-say. One day, I got a bug up my butt when a customer ordered ‘extra mayo,’ and I just piled about 6 oz of white gold onto that puppy. About three minutes later, my boss pretty much just threw the soggy, mayo-soaked mess at me and asked ‘Would YOU eat this?’
I replied, ‘Well no, I don’t like extra mayo.'”
Today Is Yellow Day
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“I used to work at a grocery store as a cashier. It was the most boring job I have ever had and I hated every second of it, except the fact that I could stare at the female cashiers’ butts the entire time.
On certain days that got really slow, I would pick a color, a solid color, and omit scanning those items. Yellow Day was my favorite because bananas became free and those little fake lemon lemon juice containers would mysteriously ‘not get rung up.’
I think it’s a victim-less crime.”
“They Basically Treated Me Like I Was Subhuman”
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“I’m a server and I had this table full of really mean women. They talked down to me the entire time and basically treated me like I was subhuman.
One of them wanted their food in a box and while I was complaining about them in the back, I accidentally threw her food out. After the other server walked away, I scooped her sandwich out of the trash and put it in a to-go container and brought it back out to her.
I felt like a huge jerk, but I don’t really regret it too terribly much.”
The Boss Wanted To Charge Them For Water, So This Waiter Had The Perfect Response
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“After working at a restaurant for a few weeks, the owner decided he didn’t make enough money and started charging us to drink water and anything else at work, regardless of if we actually drank anything. I decided to put in my two-week notice.
On my last day, I stayed after my shift at the bar, took ALL of the menus, and hid them inside one of the booths. They didn’t find them for three days and were handing out carryout menus to the customers. I’m actually pretty proud of this one.”
A Lot Of Shocking Things Went Down At The Meat Packing Plant
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“When I was a teenager working as a meat packer, I discovered pieces of metal in the meat I was sending to the conveyor belt. The glistening caught my eye. After closer inspection, I noticed larger bits in about 150 kilograms of meat of various cuts all coming along the line at a fast rate. I hit the emergency stop on the packer as obviously there was a major problem…this meat was being taken directly to the sales floor. Apparently, the butchers didn’t see it that way.
After a fairly heated discussion/inspection, it was quite obvious the guard of the band saw had migrated and was shearing off portions of teeth. There were almost full 6mm shards of tooth through a whole heap of meat, packaged and ready to go.
I was expecting a manager to get called in, everything inevitably getting dumped (as the pieces of metal ranged from large to specks) and us having play catch up all day.
No. The butchers wanted to go home (they had been cutting since 4 am), and they ordered us to remove it all by hand. There were hundreds of packs we had to take off the shelf, unwrap each one, and inspect each meticulously, though no one could have removed it all.
I shudder to think what would have happened if someone had swallowed one of those teeth. I still feel guilty I didn’t alert a manager, but the butchers were all gassed out of their minds and would threaten you with a wave of their knife if you questioned anything. I was young and stupid.
So many fond memories. Like did you know, if you accidentally send a bag of meat through the mincer still in the plastic bag, apparently it is cool to just mince it on a finer grind so the customer doesn’t notice? Freakin’ shocking crap went on there.”
