Meet Fiona
Anyone who has ever worked in the service industry knows how demanding the job can get. Not only do you have to work hours upon hours on your feet, bending over backwards making sure your patrons have their needs met, but sometimes you run into customers who give you a hard time just for the fun of it. It can be truly disheartening.
One Redditor, who we’ll call Fiona, tells a story of a time where she was able to witness an epic shutdown of an entitled customer.
Fiona is a natural hustler, working 7:30-4:00 at an office job while making extra cash working at a sports bar on nights and weekends. Given her busy grind, if she’s ever a closing server on a weeknight, she’s bound to be the pretty exhausted by the next morning. Well, this story takes place on one of those nights and, of course, the bar was short-staffed and the patrons were on their extra-worst behavior.
Crazy Busy Shift
In the beginning of the shift, the bar had a steady flow of customers. Then, they started to get slammed around 7:30, and unfortunately, it didn’t let up until about three hours later. Fiona’s coworker, who we’ll call Sarah, was hit with two large parties back-to-back. So, being a supportive coworker, Fiona stepped up and jumped on to every other table sat during that period while Sarah ended up taking a couple more tables. At the busiest point of the night, Fiona was serving about 10-14 tables by herself.
Donna, the hostess, was seating people at a perfect pace. She always gave Fiona enough time between guests to allow her to greet, get drinks, input orders, and run food with ease. Despite the restaurant being swamped with customers that evening, Fiona paced her time with each of her tables pretty well. Multiple guests took notice of Fiona’s hard work and even took the time to let her know how impressed they were with her service. “I was proud of myself,” she recalled. “Sarah told me I rocked it, and even the two managers on duty complimented me.”
Little did Fiona know how much more chaotic the night would get.
The Group
10 pm eventually came around and it was time for Sarah to clock out. Fiona had a handful of tables left, but one-by-one, they started trickling out, allowing her to catch up on bussing and side work.
At 12:15, just fifteen minutes before the dining room was set to close, a group of 13 wasted college kids walked in the restaurant: three men, 10 women. They were all seriously sloshed. “Before I even got a chance to greet them, my manager informed me that under no circumstance am I to serve any of them,” recalled Fiona. “They’d clearly had too much to drink, and I didn’t want to be held liable for anything, because, laws, so I quickly made up 13 ice waters and started handing them out.”
One of the guys, who was wearing a bright pink polo, was the first to notice Fiona. He tried to order a Stella, until he was informed that they were being cut off. For the most part, he and the other guys in the group were pretty chill about it. The girls, however, decided that cutting them off was the most heinous thing a server could do and decided that Fiona was no longer worthy of a tip or respect.
“We’re 21! You Have To Serve Us!!!”
The girls tried to argue their way into getting some drinks. “What do you mean? We’re 21. You have to serve us!” they demanded.
On one hand, Fiona felt for them. “I’m really sorry,” she told them. “I know you guys are trying to have fun, but I’m just trying to make sure everyone is safe and happy tonight. I’d be happy to bring you a soda or lemonade.”
The girls just weren’t having it. “No, no. Just water. Whatever,” the said.
In that moment, Fiona noticed her manager was watching from afar, rolling her eyes at the girls. Fiona felt a sense of relief knowing that her manager had been observing the girls, just in case they decided to cause some trouble.
Do You Want Ranch With That?
Despite knowing how difficult this table was going to be, Fiona carried on with her job as normal. She started at one end of the table to take orders. Then, her flow came to a halt as she got to a girl who couldn’t put her phone down for 20 seconds to order something. So, Fiona did what any server would do: skipped her and came back to her last, hoping she’d be ready by then.
Nice try.
Fiona came back 15 minutes later after getting the other 12 orders and was STILL waiting for Phone Girl to end her call. She tried walking away, but the table of idiots insisted Fiona wait and nudged their friend until she got off the phone.
Finally, Phone Girl took two seconds to tell Fiona: “Oh my God! Fine. I want 10 wings with BBQ sauce.”
Fiona: “Would you like any ranch, bleu cheese, celery, or any other accompaniment?”
Phone Girl: “No. Just the wings.”
And just like that, she picked up her phone again and started blabbing away as if the exchange never happened. Fiona kept eye contact with her. Phone Girl rolled her eyes, pulled the phone from her face, looked at Fiona and, with the rudest tone, said, “WHAT?!”
“I just wanted to repeat your order to you to make sure it’s correct. 10 wings with BBQ sauce, no ranch, celery, or blue cheese.”
“Yes! That’s right!”
Fiona finally had what she needed to speed up the process of getting this group their food so they can go on their way. In the meantime, she had to greet three other tables that had just walked in.
Watch What You Say
The table’s food came up, so Fiona started passing it out as fast is she could. Then, Phone Girl started to chime in with her attitude again.
Phone Girl: “Um, excuse me! I didn’t get my ranch or blue cheese!”
Fiona froze right in her tracks. She looked at the other guests at the table for a minute.
You could hear the irritation in her voice through her politeness as she said, “I’m sorry I thought you said you didn’t want any, but I can go grab some real quick!”
One of the other girls at the table, bless her heart, quickly chimed in and said, “No, you told her you didn’t want any, and she asked twice.”
Phone Girl: “Shut up, I did ask for it!”
This other girl put her head down; she was clearly low on the totem pole of whatever clique this was.
Fiona told Phone Girl she would be right back and headed toward the kitchen.
She hadn’t even made it two steps away from the table when she heard Phone Girl say very loudly and rudely, “Well this hag ain’t gettin’ a tip.”
Fiona stopped dead in her tracks and spun around. Phone Girl was staring at her, wide-eyed with a “Oh no, she heard me,” look on her face.
Game on.
Server Of The Year…Except To Phone Girl
Fiona smiled, then walked over to the bar and chatted up her manager and bartender, who had both seen the whole exchange.
Over the next 20 minutes, she visited all of her other tables, brought out refills, spot swept, made coffee, then delivered some other guests at the table some extra napkins, lemonades, etc. Fiona did just about everything a good server would do except getting Phone Girl’s ranch and blue cheese. She wasn’t going down without a fight.
Phone girl tried waving Fiona down and asking for her ranch and blue cheese.
But of course, Fiona giving zero craps at this point would just say, “Oops, silly me, I forgot. I will be right back!”
Guess who never got their ranch or blue cheese?
Would That Be Paper Or Plastic?
By this point, it was well past closing time. The table of idiots FINALLY asked for their checks, which had to be separate because of course they did. By this point, a few other girls in the group had been giving Fiona death glares and making snide comments every time she shuffled by. They obviously didn’t care how rude they were being.
Fiona, being a class act, pretended she didn’t see anything, cashed them out, bid them a farewell, and literally ran into the back as fast as she could so she no longer had to deal with them.
Of course, that wouldn’t be the end of the encounter. The entire group walked up to the front desk and requested to see the manager.
Now, Fiona and her manager are about the same age (26). Her manager is very funny, not too serious, but does take pride in her job. She knew from the beginning that this group was going to be a problem (except the guys, they were pretty chill – either too wasted to notice or too wasted to care). The manager put her best smile on as she came out to the front.
Fiona hid behind the door with the cashier and overheard Phone Girl complain to the manager about how terrible of a server she was. Phone Girl went on and on about how the restaurant should be ashamed of her and how she made the company look. All because she never got her ranch and blue cheese. One by one, the other girls started chiming in and started berating and belittling Fiona. They said just about every terrible thing you could say about a woman’s customer service skills and appearance and even asked if she was “mentally challenged.”
Fiona’s manager just stood there smiling. When it finally circled back to Phone Girl, who had the audacity to ask for a free meal over a tiny cup of ranch, the biggest grin appeared on the manager’s face.
All she could say was, “Would you like a bag for your leftovers?”
They Really Hate Her Now
The manager’s clap back left the group completely silent. They were stunned, jaws dropped to the floor. And they were MAD. A few said, “Forget this, we’re leaving.”
Phone Girl just stood there. She slammed her hand on the counter and threw the most embarrassing tantrum a hammered 21-year-old girl could throw. She demanded that Fiona be reprimanded. She also felt that she deserved her meal comped.
But the manager wasn’t having it. Her smile didn’t falter for a moment as she reached below the counter, grabbed a handful of to-go bags, and extended them to Phone Girl.
Fiona and the cashier were laughing so hard that they had to go further into the back so the group didn’t notice them.
A few minutes later, the manager met them smiling. She looked at Fiona and all she could say was, “Boy, they really hate you,” and walked away chuckling.
See You Never!
Needless to say, Fiona really loves her manager. And it’s nice that her manager stuck up for her, because anyone who has ever worked in the service industry knows that isn’t always the case.
Upon their exit, Fiona realized then that she should have rang in 20 sides of ranch and 20 sides of blue cheese to Phone Girl, and charged her for all of them. That would have been some truly sweet revenge.
In the end, half the party tipped her, the other half did not, which was kinda expected. Still, Fiona got to wave at them through our windows as they stumbled down the sidewalk into the night.
Let this be a lesson to anyone who decides to be rude to their server: you will forever be known as “that one entitled idiot” and your waitstaff will probably make your life as miserable as possible while you’re in their presence.
