If there’s one thing to be said about waiters and waitresses it’s that they certainly get paid enough to deal with rude customers like the ones in these stories!
Snooty At Starbucks
“I spent six years managing various Starbucks locations. One of the expectations is that if a drink isn’t right, we will remake it. Usually not a problem, everybody makes mistakes either in the ordering or in the making once in a while.
One afternoon an older lady came in and ordered a cappuccino, which is a crap shoot, as many people don’t know what a cappuccino is!
I made her drink and handed it off to her. She took a sip and said, ‘That’s not right. Something is off.’ I apologized and took it back and started making another one, following the same recipe, on the same equipment, using the same ingredients…I wasn’t really expecting a different result.
I finished her cappuccino, handed it off, again, and she took a sip and sighed. ‘I don’t know what it is, but it just isn’t right!’ I asked her to be more specific, trying to narrow down what wasn’t right, in an attempt to fix it, as a third attempt was going to turn out just the same as the first two… She said, ‘It just isn’t right, you’re going to have to make it again!’
At this point, we are starting to get busy, I’m starting to have other drinks pile up, and I’m annoyed that she can’t provide specifics. I grab her cappuccino and set it on my side of the counter and make a few of the waiting beverages for other customers. While I’m doing so, she just keeps saying things like ‘I don’t know what it is, something is just off!’ And, ‘It just wasn’t right, it just wasn’t! ‘
I hand off the other drinks and then gave her the same drink she had previously rejected, which she promptly declared delicious and much better than the two previous attempts.”
Splitting Meals And Tempers
“I work at a local tourist spot as a food services supervisor, and we have a few different food outlets in the park. As a supervisor, I’ve had to deal with all kinds of challenging customers, including some that have turned out well (communicating with deaf customers, a Korean group who wanted $200 worth of hamburgers–twice) and some not-so-well (a customer who wanted a free bottle of water and screamed at me, Asian man who accused me of discrimination, a lady who said abusive things because she lost $2 in a vending machine, all sorts of silly food requests/complaints). Fun times.
One of the dumbest ones I came across, though, was dealt with by a co-worker of mine. Near the very end of the day, a lady came up to our fish and chips window and ordered a four-piece chicken strip combo. She said that she wanted it split four ways for her four children. My co-worker said sure, but informed her that since the combo just came with a small fries, that meant each of those four portions would include just one chicken strip and a few fries.
He repeated it a couple of times, but she impatiently told him that was okay. You can probably see where this is going. When she came to pick up her order, she was irate. From the sounds of things, she wanted each of those portions to have at least two strips and a small fries–even though she was only willing to pay the price of a single combo. She screamed at my co-worker, told him he was incompetent, and all kinds of things. (The fish and chips place is in a remote location from the main kitchen, so there was no manager there, just supervisors.) She wasn’t willing to pay more, though, and my co-worker wasn’t about to make her more chicken strips and fries for free.
So finally he told her the outlet was closed and that if she had any more issues she should take it up with the manager. She left and he closed the shutter, but then she came around to the side door of the building and screamed at him some more. Even when they closed the door, she waited for them and followed them across the park when they walked back to the main kitchen…where they were able to meet up with the manager and she was asked to leave the park. We don’t allow meal-splitting anymore–if customers want something split, we’ll give them plates and knives and they can do their portions.”
“The Worst Family Ever.”
“Okay, the worst family I served, ever. Ever.
Mum, dad, oldest sister (around 20) and her boyfriend, and youngest sister, (about eight). I can tell from the first second they stand at the door that they’re going to be awful. The mother’s jaw is clenched and her eyebrows are already knitted, and she looks on the edge of tears.
I seat them, give them their menus, and the boyfriend says first ‘Get me some bread’. I reply meekly that actually, I was just about to, as was the policy here. I’ll get their water first. He can wait for his stupid bread now that he’s been rude. Anyway, I head on over to the waiter’s station for water, and the mother gets up and chases me around the restaurant, slaps a hand on my shoulder, and spins me around.
‘What on the menu can we have very quickly? Straight away? My youngest is starving!!’. I’m fairly stunned, so I tell her that I’ll put an order for the instantly assembled nibbles through, and it’ll be a couple of minutes. Mother sprints back to the table and I can now collect and serve the water. And the bread. What restaurant would anyone do this at? Especially a Michelin-starred fancy place?
The first person to have a glass of water poured for them is the mother. She picks it up and slams it down in front of her youngest sister, who immediately grabs it with both hands, downs it, holds the glass out to me, and pants ‘another’. I didn’t react fast enough because mother spits ‘come on!’ and this process repeats until I have to get another stupid bottle of water. Meanwhile, dad is perusing the menu, older sister and boyfriend are playing with phones, but for some reason, his mother is having an aneurysm.
I realize that she is a mother that cannot allow her children to be put before her in any circumstance, and he has raised them wanting for nothing. The snacks come. Dad stops me for a lengthy explanation of every dish each time I walk past. By this stage, I have had to ask other runners to look after my section because these guys are taking up all my time. They put in order in, all sharing, as it comes. At least that part is easy.
However, now that they’ve had their snacks, they want new plates. That’s fine, but as I’m circling the table methodically stacking everything, my youngest sister clicks her fat fingers at me and says ‘clean it now’, pointing at a mess she’s made. I just about splutter out ‘now, I’ve only two hands, bear with me’, and scuttle away to drop the plates. After that, the youngest sister just resorts to holding her glass in the air when she wants water. The bottle’s right in front of her. Her parents palpably don’t care that they’re raising the worst person to ever have lived.
So, I end up changing the plates between every dish that they share. I’ve had to call the porter to let him know the little cream plates need prioritizing because we can’t keep up with this family. And then it happens – the last, biggest dish hasn’t come yet. Rightly so, because I quoted them forty minutes and it’s been thirty. But the older sister, who’s been silent this entire time, puts down the rhinestone-encrusted phone and then just bursts into tears spontaneously. Wailing. Drawing a great deal of attention.
Now, I’m rushed off my feet trying to re-lay this table for the seventh time, but I am quite literally barged out of the way as mother throws herself out of her chair (falling to the ground along with all the knives and forks I drop – this is a loud restaurant, but people are turning around and looking, expecting a fight). She runs round to the oldest daughter, cradles her head, and strokes her hair, crooning, ‘there, there. Don’t worry. The food will be here soon.’
I am just flabbergasted by this. My older sister is an adult. Dad and boyfriend continue to not give a care. They eat their meal when it comes (the tears turned off the second the pie arrives), and they pay but sit there in silence for a good half an hour or so more. I asked for a pillow so the youngest sister can go to sleep under the table. We ask them to leave.”
The Legend of Mayo Lady
“I worked at a Beef O’ Brady’s while going to college. As a guy working in a family sports bar, tips weren’t the best but I’d occasionally get a few guys watching a game and would get to sit and BS with them. We serve a chicken sandwich, which is just one step above a McChicken. The lady and her family order and she requests extra mayo, no big deal. Since it’s slow the order comes out fairly quickly and before I can put the rest of the baskets down she’s already complaining about not getting extra mayo. There was already a side container of mayo in her basket, plus the mayo on her sandwich, but she wanted more. I apologized and grabbed another two plastic cups of mayo.
Before I can even set the cups down she responds with, ‘Are you f****** slow or deaf?’ I’m a little taken aback and frankly a bit ticked since she now has 3, 2 oz cups of mayo and what’s on her sandwich. All this time her family is eating their respective meals and have that all too familiar look of shame. They know this has happened before and the outcome.
She has me call my manager over and berates me as I tend to other tables. It was slow so it was pretty quiet, except for a little background tv noise, which she easily shouted over. My manager has me grab one of the soup bowls and fill it with mayo. This is easily a cup of pure mayonnaise, plus what is already on the table. I drop it off at her table and ask if there is anything else I can get them. Her response was, ‘Now you’re just being a moron!’ She wolfs down her sandwich and every drop of mayonnaise. I am not exaggerating when I say she consumed over a cup of mayonnaise for a chicken sandwich.
They quickly pay and bolted before I could come back around the corner. Lousy pricks left me a $.27 tip. The upside is a regular couple of mine saw what was going on and rightly assumed they would stiff me, so they made up for them. The greatest couple I ever served, but that’s a different story for a different time.”
A Prick At Panda Express
“As a connoisseur of fine dining, this story took place in the local Panda Express…
<Hazy dream sequence>
Panda Express Counter, Noon. I got in line behind a man on his cell phone. When it was his turn, he made the counter staff wait while he finished his thought on his phone. He didn’t hang up. The clerk kept waiting. Finally, the guy pointed to the Fire Chicken and the Orange Chicken. The clerk was left to determine if he wanted a bowl or a combo tray. I proceeded to make my selections while following the loud talker through the line.
When he got to the cashier, he finally decided to look at his order. ‘This isn’t what I ordered. I told her I wanted x and y, not b and c!’
The person who made the tray came over and started to apologize and the dude laid into her. ‘This isn’t what I ordered. I told you I wanted x and y! And I wanted a combo!’
At this point, I decided to be ‘that guy’ and butt in. ‘Uh, actually, you didn’t tell her anything. All you did was grunt and point like a monkey. I think you are lucky to have gotten that and not spit-fried rice.’
He looked at me for a moment. I chose to square my stance to him, not breaking eye contact. He made some sputtering noises and walked out of the restaurant; all the while yelling into his phone about how terrible Panda Express was.
I stepped up to the counter to pay for my meal. The manager slid the tray my way and simply said, ‘Thank you. Please come back again soon.’
<Hazy swirly memory foam>
Present-day. I recognized that this isn’t snobby, per se’, but it was rude and the man treated the employees like dirt.”
Good Karma = Free Pie
“My horrible former sister-in-law was a world-class snob. Once, I was unfortunate enough to go to a diner with her and a couple of other family members. First, she made a fuss about where she sat in the diner, forcing the hostess to move us twice – and she wasn’t nice about it. The waitress dropped off menus, and within seconds, my SIL managed to knock the (glass) ketchup bottle to the floor. A passing bus person saw what happened, and dropped off another bottle of ketchup on her way by, on the opposite side of the table, no doubt planning to grab the other one when she came back the other way.
This of course wasn’t good enough for SIL. She tsked loudly, and for some reason, moved the ketchup bottle to where the previous one had been. Then she somehow knocked it over too. It fell onto the first bottle, and they both broke. Ketchup splashed all over SIL’s shoes, as well as my mother’s. SIL shrieked and proceeded to blame the bus person for being too lazy (her words) to pick the first bottle up from the floor. The hag just stood there, snapping her fingers, demanding the mess be cleaned up, and threatening to sue for the cost of her shoes. What a mess of a person, I was so embarrassed to be with them.
Well, I had been putting up with her BS for several hours that day, and I’d had enough. I immediately apologized for her rudeness and asked where they kept their cleaning supplies. Then I helped them to clean up the mess this hag had made. My outspokenness made me even less popular with her, of course, and my family members later informed me that I had been rude to SIL – but to this day, whenever I go to that diner, I get a free pie.”
