Servers have it rough. They are on their feet all day, carrying hot dishes to their tables. The last thing they need is nasty people telling them how to do their jobs or how awful they are. And yet, the world is full of these
(Content edited for clarity.)
The Lowest Of The Low
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“I work for a chain restaurant as a night manager. A couple of weeks ago, a party of five came in about half an hour before close. One of my servers, who I’ll call ‘Stella,’ was waiting on them.
Stella is one of my best. She has a sunny, happy personality and she’s always sweet and unfailingly polite to everyone who comes in. The customers adore her. That’s why I was surprised, that this particular table, had her flustered and aggravated. I asked what was wrong, as she is usually unflappable.
She said, ‘Girl, you know I don’t mind waiting on tables that come in late. That’s not the problem. But don’t come in here with an attitude, and then run me to death.’
At that point, I started paying attention, to see what had her so flustered.
They were just your typical party of idiots and jerks, demanding and feeling superior to us lowly restaurant folk. Irritating, but nothing really over the top. Stella, however, was being her usual sweet and very polite self to them.
I did notice when I helped Stella run the food to their table, that the one woman, who seemed to be the alpha female, was glaring at me like I’d just shot her dog.
I thought, ‘Woman, I don’t know what your problem is. I’m just bringing you your food.’ But I digress.
There was one other table in the restaurant. A lady in her seventies, who was a regular who always came in alone, and who was devoutly religious. She finished her meal, paid and left, only to return a few minutes later, right before close. She pulled Stella to the side and asked her if she knew anything about the party of five that she was waiting on. Stella replied that she did not.
The woman said, ‘The Lord keeps telling me that I should do something to help them and that they have a need. I ignored it, but after I got in my car, I felt that the Lord was putting it on my heart to do something nice for these people, so I came back in. How much is their bill?’
Stella told her it was $43.40. The woman said that she would like to pay $40 of it anonymously, and proceeded to put it on her debit card. As soon as she finished paying, the party of five came up to pay.
My cashier told them, ‘You only owe us $4.30. A stranger wanted to do something nice for you, and has already paid $40 of your bill.’
They were sure happy then! Oh, it made their whole night! But I did notice alpha female watching quietly while studying my nametag and contemplating.
I was off for the next two days, but when I came back, my general manager wanted to speak to me about a phone call they’d gotten while I was off. He asked me if I remembered a table on Tuesday night…
The same party of five called back, the first thing the next morning, wanted to know which manager was there before they would speak to them, then proceeded to tell the daytime manager that Stella had waited on them the night before, and was rude to them. (Lies!) They repeatedly demanded that she be written up and fired. (Seriously?)
Then, they demanded to be reimbursed for the full $43.40. The $43.40, of which they only had to pay $3.40. The day manager, having no way of knowing what had happened the night before, and not wanting to bother me on my day off, gave them a full refund.
Our policy is to reimburse with gift cards. The other manager was suspicious enough that she made them wait while she tried to pull their ticket up on the computer, thinking that she wouldn’t be able to find anything, but when she saw that the ticket was legit, she went ahead and gave them $40 worth of gift cards.
Way to pay it forward, you heartless, greedy jerks.
Sometimes, I hate people.”
She Just Doesn’t Get It
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“I worked at a lovely bakery while I was in college. We made everything from scratch, the prices were extremely reasonable, and most of our customers were great, and had shopped there all their lives. It was a mom and pop shop.
At one point a competitor had to shut down for an extended period of time. I think they had some flood damage or something, and they had to do some extensive repairs and couldn’t open. We had quite a few of their customers come in to get birthday cakes, cookies, etc. since there were only a few bakeries available outside of a chain grocery store. Most of them were nice and understood that we didn’t offer the exact items that our competitor did. Some even chose to come back after the competitor reopened.
There was one woman that did NOT understand. A young mom pushing a stroller came in one day inquiring about a birthday cake for the adorable cherub in the stroller. She asked about flavors and fillings. When I asked her how she wanted it decorated, it went sideways real quick.
CL = Crazy lady; M = me
CL: ‘I want the cake carved into the shape of a one and covered in fondant with no buttercream.’
M: ‘I’m sorry, we don’t carve cakes, and we don’t use fondant at all. I can ice a number one on the top in a shade of blue to match your decor, or just about anything else.
She was getting red as I was talking. She didn’t say anything for about 10 seconds, then she unleashed…
CL: ‘HOW CAN YOU NOT USE FONDANT? [Competitor] USES FONDANT ALL THE TIME! YOU CAN CARVE CAKES, THERE’S NO REASON YOU CAN’T’
M: ‘We don’t make fondant, and the majority of our customers don’t ask for it. We are known for our scratch-made buttercream. It’s good.’
CL: ‘BUTTERCREAM IS AWFUL! I DON’T WANT MY BABY EATING THAT GARBAGE!’
M: ‘That’s all we use, except chocolate, cream cheese, and German chocolate. And we don’t carve cakes because our cakes are too fragile, you would have a pile of cake crumbs and icing once you got it home.’
She continued ranting for a few minutes and was so loud that our baker in the back came to check what the noise was. She never did ask for a manager or ask to speak with someone else, she just yelled at me.
To his credit, the kid slept through the entire thing. I’m sure he was used to it.
She finally stopped yelling long enough to stare at me for a second, point in my face and say,
CL: ‘I will NEVER come back here again! You lost a customer today! Worthless!!’
I just smiled and told her it was no problem. Have a nice day.
She angrily marched to our door and struggled to get the stroller through, while giving me a death stare. I just smiled and waved goodbye.”
A Snob Hates On A Necklace
“Tonight while I was taking a table’s drink order, a woman noticed my necklace and asked about it. I let her know that my boyfriend bought it for me in Ireland and that it was green and orange amber in a silver Celtic knot design.
Lady: ‘Amber, that’s tree sap, isn’t it?’
Me: ‘Yes ma’am, fossilized tree resin.’
Lady: ‘It’s lovely dear.’
And then, her scummy friend pipes up in the most condescending ‘better than you’ tone I’ve ever heard.
Scummy: ‘It’s sad he’s too cheap to buy you diamonds. My boyfriend got me a diamond.’ (Flashes her ring at me)
I started tearing up and finished taking those drink orders as quickly as I could, and by the time I got back to the kitchen, I was crying.
I know that table couldn’t have known that I’d just recently lost my boyfriend and that I’m still not over how it happened. But she didn’t need to get nasty like that.
I’ve never been a diamond girl. I know there’s that old saying ‘diamonds are a girl’s best friend,’ but I’d rather have amber, or moonstones, or a prism. And my boyfriend knew that about me and got me something I loved.
Had she just showed me the ring, I’d have been super happy for her that her boyfriend got her something that she loved. But she didn’t need to make it into a ‘my boyfriend is better than your boyfriend.’
Thankfully, a fellow waitress traded me that table for one of hers, and I didn’t have to go back over there again. But her nastiness made me upset. Why would you feel the need to put another person down like that for no reason?”
Environmental Warrior
“My store only has plastic bags for customers, and they are rather thin plastic bags so sometimes, yes, they do need to be double if you want your purchases to make it home.
I cannot tell you how many times I have wanted to snap back when customers start lecturing me on using our plastic bags when they didn’t bring their personal reusable bags. Finally, one time, I did.
When the lady I was checking out saw me putting her purchases in plastic bags, she launched into a long diatribe of why I was personally killing off the environment. I stayed as pleasant as possible, but she would just not let it go and accused me of wanting to singlehandedly kill the earth for my kids and grandkids. That comment was the last straw for me, and I was done playing nice. I responded, ‘No, I don’t. Instead, I do an adult thing of recycling my bags and use reusable ones. You might want to try it sometime.’
She left in a huff. The customer behind her applauded. I was pissed. Ugh! There are so many other solutions to a store using plastic bags than berating the cashier with zero power. Stupid.”
She’s An Actual Cook
“In my supermarket, a lady asked me for canned cherries. I pointed some out, and she said,
‘No, not pie filling, just canned cherries.’
I told her to try aisle three for canned and jarred fruit. She said she had already looked. She then said, ‘I want canned cherries, not a can of goo with a few cherries in it.’
So I picked up another can of Comstock cherry pie filling that said ‘Now with 20 percent more cherries.’ She sighed and said, ‘No, I’ll just go to eBay and look for canned cherries. I’ve done weirder things.’
She started to walk away and then turned around. She leaned towards me, and said in a stage whisper, ‘You see, I’m from an area that actually cooks.’
My eyes rolled so hard, they popped out of my head and rolled away, and now I’m blind and using voice text to dictate this post.”
She’s Going To Ruin Everything
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“So this happened three hours ago in a Mexican restaurant that tends to be crowded around lunchtime. Maybe it’s the $5.55 enchilada, rice, and beans lunch combo. Maybe it’s the $5 pitchers or $8 tropical drink pitchers. Maybe it’s the big inflatable bottles hanging from the ceiling. Regardless, there is always an inordinate amount of people at this establishment and it makes me happy as heck because it’s family owned and the owners are the nicest people around.
I’m doing my weekly ‘me time’ thing and having a solo lunch to just think about life when a woman and her child are seated at a table near me.
For seemingly no reason, this demon child begins what I can only describe as the wail of a chupacabra in heat. It’s LOUD and obnoxious. No worries, I can put in some headphones until mom is able to control her spawn.
Over the next 20 minutes, I have to turn up the volume increasingly louder because the kid just won’t shut up. I look over and mom is completely ignoring him and on her phone. Whatever. I guess I’ll order a pitcher instead of a mug and drown my growing irritation in a delicious Belgian pale.
Immersed in my music and food, I feel a tap on my shoulder. It’s mom. She must be here to apologize for little Satan’s behavior as he’s now decided to take a break from his screaming to accost guests at the other tables.
SPAWN Mom: ‘How much longer are you planning on being here?’
Me: ‘Well I’m not finished eating yet so…’
My voice trails off because I have no earthly idea why she is asking me this. She says nothing and returns to her table. Fine with me.
Headphones back in. Life is good.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see mom pointing aggressively in my direction and speaking with the manager. I look out the window to see if anything is going on outside because I sure as heck didn’t do anything.
After a few minutes, the manager walks over to me looking exasperated and defeated. I get it. I’ve worked in retail. It’s ‘The Look.’
Manager: ‘I’m so sorry to bother you but this woman insists that you’re one of my employees and that you wouldn’t get up for her and her son to sit here. I understand this is a huge inconvenience to you but would it be possible for you to please come with me to her table to confirm that you are not an employee?’
Me: ‘I can do that or I can make all of our lives easier and just move. It’s no sweat off my back and if it’ll make the kid shut up, I’ll take one for the team.’
A wave of relief rushed across the manager’s face. I felt so bad for him having to deal with the customer that the least I could do is move over a few booths. He thanks me profusely and sent over my server to move me to a new table.
Mom and little Satan move to my old table and the monster finally settles down to eat his chicken strips. Mom sends me horrible dirty looks the rest of the time I’m there, which is weird but okay. Headphones back in.
tap tap
I look up, half expecting it to be the mom again. It’s the manager and he’s holding a delicious looking frozen strawberry drink.
Manager: ‘I just want to apologize for your inconvenience and thank you for helping us out. This one’s on the house.’
He hands me the heavenly confection and I happily accept the offering. Literally, as soon as he leaves, I get another ‘visitor’ to my booth. Mom is back.
Mom: hissing and red-faced I’ don’t know who the heck you think you are disrespecting me like this. I need your name and I’m calling the owner of this place to tell him myself that you lied to me and your manager covered for your lazy behind.’
I’m a pretty calm person and mostly awkward and confrontation isn’t my thing, so my response wasn’t legendary but it was pretty bold for me.
Me: ‘I don’t work here. Like seriously, I do not. I have never worked here. I’m here to eat, drink and relax. Your demon child ruined that for me and now so are you. Please leave me alone. My name is XXX and you can see my ID if you don’t believe me, but there is nobody working here with my name and the owners will tell you that.’
Headphones back in. I refused to look up and turned my music on as loud as possible until she went away.”
The Grossest Thing Ever
“Years ago, I had a pretty low-end job serving at Pizza Hut, and we used to have an all you can eat pizza buffet. (I know, my stomach hurts thinking of it). We used to have this pasta casserole we’d serve. Basic stuff – Rotini, marinara, mozzarella.
Anyways, this one lady would come in every day, and she’d stay for the entire duration of the buffet. She would only take from the pasta casserole, load up her plate and go sit down. She’d then lift individual pasta noodles over her head, visible above her empty booth, and lick the sauce off each noodle and place the clean noodle on another plate. She would proceed to do this to plateful after plateful of pasta, licking the sauce off. I think she would go through eight full plates of pasta this way and the tray was constantly empty because of her noodle licking. Also….she used to wave her arms around like she was dancing… Eventually, and I mean a couple of years later, she was banned from the restaurant because her behavior became increasingly erratic.”
She Actually Apologized
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“I’m a deputy manager at a supermarket in the UK, and a few weeks ago, I served a woman who kicked up a fuss because she only had two items but I ‘wouldn’t let her skip the queue.’
What she essentially said was because she had two items, she should go ahead of someone with a big trolley of shopping. I told her that I couldn’t just let her skip the queue, it’s up to her to ask the people in front and then it’s their choice.
She didn’t take a liking to that and proceeded to be rude to me and said ‘you don’t want to tick me off today.’
So I just stopped replying when she was making off-handed comments.
Anyway, fast forward to today, and she’s in the shop doing some shopping again. She came over to me and apologized for being rude towards me.
In my near three years of retail I’ve never experienced that, so I thought it was worth sharing a positive customer story.”
Not Everything On Facebook Is True
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“I work in a sandwich shop with franchises all over the world. Today (Valentine’s Day), there was a special deal for a free sandwich or something. I’m not sure because that deal is going on somewhere overseas, not at my location. HOWEVER, Facebook has apparently been advertising this deal everywhere, because we’ve been fielding calls about it all day. Most people have been pretty cool about it. They’ll say something like, ‘Oh! Ha ha, that’s funny. Thanks anyways!’ and everything is groovy. One lady (or two ladies) got angry about it.
So the phone rings, and I answer it in the standard way. The woman on the phone asks about this special deal. I say, ‘No, sorry, that deal is happening in X Country, we’re not doing it here.’
I hear the woman on the phone telling someone else what I’ve said. I hear another woman making angry noises in the background. ‘X Country, are you sure?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
Cue more angry noises. The woman on the phone comes back sounding angry. She’s starting to yell a little. ‘But Facebook said you had a special deal today!’
I say, ‘Yes, but that’s in X Country,’ and I’m starting to lose my patience a little. There are people in line, and I don’t like being yelled at (does anybody?).
There are more, angrier noises on the phone and she comes back yelling, ‘WELL, DO YOU KNOW IF ANY OF THE OTHER STORES AROUND HERE ARE DOING THE DEAL?’
Maybe if you get on a boat.
All I can think to say is, ‘No, sorry about that,’ and while she and her friend are making even MORE outraged and outrageous noises at each other, I tell her to have a nice day and hang up the phone.
So many people have asked us about the special deal today, and our answer has always been followed by ‘But Facebook said…!’ Nobody else was that rude about it though. Today’s just been kind of weird.”
A Ups And Downs Of One Woman’s Rib Order
“I work part-time as a host in a family owned restaurant. The restaurant is broken up into a fine dining area and bar area. All to-go orders are handled by the bartenders, and we ask guests to pick their order up at the bar.
A week ago, a lady came in, and I could tell suddenly that she was going to be a major pain. She told me she was here to pick up her order. I told her that the bartender would have her order ready for her.
She said, ‘You get it.’
I bought the order out, and the bartender came with me to pick up the money.
The bartender said, ‘Just let me make you change at the bar.’
All of a sudden, the lady began to scream at us that we were discriminating against her religion and trying to force her into that sinful place. So she ends up storming out and cursing us on the way.
Today, a week after the incident, the lady comes back in with a to-go box. She asks for the manager and says she has brought back the ribs that they were too salty. So I bring out the owner to talk with her. The owner apologized that they may have been a bad batch and went back to pack her up some new ones.
Well as soon as he leaves, she begins screaming and accusing me of purposely putting salt on top because she said she was a pain.
I told her I would never do that, but she was insistent that I poured salt on her ribs. The owner came back out, and she started again saying that she doesn’t appreciate what I did. The owner turned towards me and looked at me.
I said, ‘Sir, I would never do anything like that. You can check the video footage from that day.’
Suddenly the woman changed and was saying how great and attentive I was to her. And that I was the one who was making sure she was okay the entire time. My brain began to hurt trying to understand how she changed so fast about her opinions of me.
After she left, the owner said to me, ‘All I wanted to say to her was ‘Forget you.””
She Really Wants Pizza
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“I work in the shipping department of a warehouse. Our phone number is one digit off from the local Domino’s, so we get about two or three calls a week from people trying to place an order. Normally after I answer every call with ‘Hello, this is Systems, how can I help you?’ Which usually makes them realize that they have the wrong number. Not this one angry lady who I shall call ‘AL.’ Here is how our conversation went.
phone rings
Me: ‘Systems, how can I help you?’
AL: ‘Delivery!’
Me: ‘I’m sorry?’
AL: ‘Are you deaf? I NEED A DELIVERY!’
Me: ‘Ma’am this isn’t Dominos.’
AL: ‘Yes it is, I got your phone number from Google. Now if you keep lying to me, I will contact your—-‘ CLICK
I hang up on her because I am far too busy to be dealing with some entitled wench. However almost immediately after I hung up, I get another call and guess who it is, AL.
Me: ‘Systems, how can I—‘
AL: ‘DID YOU HANG UP ON ME? I WILL HAVE YOU FIRED IMMEDIATELY, WHAT IS YOUR NAME?!?!’
At this point, I decided to waste this ladies time as much as possible.
Me: ‘My name is Tim, and I apologize, ma’am, I accidentally dropped the phone. What would you like to order.’
The lady gives me her order, and I tell her it will be around 45 minutes before her pizza arrives. After this phone call, I get finished with my work and clock out and go home. About an hour after I left I get a phone call from my manager asking if a lady called about a pizza. I told him the story and that she kept interrupting my work and wouldn’t believe that we were not Domino’s. He thought it was hilarious and told me she called our back asking why her pizza hasn’t been delivered and it took him 20 minutes to get her to figure out we were not Domino’s.”
No Help From The Woman
“I work in a large retail store that many people use as a grocery store (we sell pretty much everything). And I’m not going to lie; I love the customers who bag their own things. It’s so much more time efficient especially when it’s busy for me to just scan things instead of trying to fit their hundred items in their two bags.
Anyways, so I had one of those
It was one of those ‘what the heck?’ moments when a mom of three kids (kids looked between ages of 11 and 15) come to my long line with a cart filled to the brim with groceries.
To make it easier, C will be used for ‘customer.’
So the lady had her own bags, and in typical customer fashion, throws them at me as she starts unloading her cart (and when I say throws I mean it I don’t get what’s wrong with these people on the end of town where my store is, but they’re real jerks).
So I set the bags on the little table part of the register and get to scanning. I usually start bagging midway because I get the bigger items first to put in the bags.
But I noticed the young teens were bagging the groceries and I thought finally, a family like my own (my mother would have thrown a fit against me if I didn’t bag the groceries).
I smiled at them and continued ringing it up.
Finally, C looks up from her phone (for the first time since she got to the register) and sees her kids bagging. Her face frowns and, I kid you not, a look of disgust is on her face.
C: ‘What are you three doing?’
One of the kids: ‘We’re bagging?’
C: ‘Don’t bother. It’s HER job. Make HER do it. You don’t have to do anything.’
I sat there stunned for a moment because she said it so harshly and the way she said ‘her’ was condescending. Like lady, I don’t HAVE to bag your things. It’s not in my job description. I usually do it to help out, but I’m not required.
So just because I was irked, I made a special point to thank the kids. Me: ‘Thank you guys I appreciate it. It helps me speed things up when I get some help from people,’ I glanced at the mom, but she was nose deep in her phone again.
So I decided to take my time. I scanned one item and then placed it in the bag taking as much time as I could without ticking off the others in line off. I tried to brush it off and even said “have a nice day” to her, but she was still nose deep in her phone and just walked away.
The kicker was she left her bags on the table, and I call her over, and she yelled at me for not putting them in her cart. Thankfully, the other customers in line called her out on being on her phone and how it was rude.
She yelled, ‘mind your own business’ and left.
Some people are terrible.”
