So I work at a small local restaurant, mostly as a dishwasher. It’s understaffed as fuck tho, and last week, for one day, I was briefly “promoted” to waiter since our one (1) existing waiter happend not to show up. not great, i had no experience and am honestly terrible at interacting with people, especially in a language other than my own. nonetheless i quelled my anxiety and mostly did a good job but during that day i truly came to understand just how shitty customers can be, through two incidents.
the first was a particular table full of teenagers (or maybe young adults). they’d made a reservation and were only 5 so it should have been fine but they just. did not seem to understand how things worked. that’s quite vague so i’ll explain what i mean. i went to ask them for what they wanted to drink and they unloaded their entire order. ok, that’s fine, makes it easier tbh. one of them orders a litre of sangria for himself. i ask him are you sure, and he nods yes as if clearly, clearly, this 18 or so year old is gonna have a litre for himself and i was stupid to ask. ok. they then ordered 3 calzones between the 5 of them, a seemingly small order, and when i reminded them how big the pizzas we serve actually were they looked at me with such an exasperated, condescending look, as if i had just informed them the sky was blue. ok, fine, see if i give a shit about your orders then. i’m not asking any more questions.
we serve calzones open or closed, but when someone orders a calzone without specifying which it was i was told to assume closed. so i did. and so i delivered the order to the chef and he made them. i take them their three calzones and i get that same look from before. “we wanted them open”, in a pointed tone. i apologise and explain that if they want, i can go and ask the chef to make the open ones instead, at no extra cost, but they’d have to wait a bit longer. a bit of discussion and there’s a consensus that it’s not worth it, we’ll take the closed ones. except for this one girl who i guess must have had her day ruined and her dreams destroyed by the fact that i dared bring them a closed rather than open calzone. “i’m not eating that”
i might add that the open and closed calzones are exactly the same price. there is no difference in the ingredients, nor the amount of ingredients or pastry. the only difference is the presentation. it was all i could do not to get mad. really? did i really ruin things that much by bringing you the thing you asked for in the wrong presentation? i was pissed, but ended up leaving the calzones there and moving on. she did eat the calzone. whatever
that first incident was minor, i know, i’m sure most waiters experience things like that on a daily basis. i just wasn’t used to it. (clearly. i’d never done it before. my boss could have considered tht before shunting me into that job without a second thought) the second incident, however, was truly infuriating.
all the customers had left, it was a sunday night, an hour before closing for our day off. so everyone begins the process of cleaning up, tidying up, shutting off the ovens, dish washers, whatevr. our chef’s made us all some dinner (he’s a lovely soul), laid it out on the table where we’re gonna eat, and cleared up all his materials and out of his uniform. at exactly 8 minutes before closing time a group of 3 people walk in. now they have the right to do that, but. i don’t know about you, but if i walked in and saw a silent restaurant, with the employees half out of their uniforms carrying mops around, some already sitting down to dinner, i’d reconsider my choice of restaurant and apologise and go somewhere else. they didn’t. they went to the boss, who explained we weren’t making any more food. so they looked to our dinner.
our boss, still on the clock, realises he’s gotta serve something. so he gestures to our dinner and invites them to take their pick. they do. and they go and sit down at a table, without being asked, wait for us to grudgingly set the table for them, and begin eating. at no point did it seem to cross their minds that practically every employee there would have happily beat them across the face. we had no dinner left, our work cleaning things up was undone by careless customers, and now we would have to stay a good hour after closing time to serve these inconsiderate assholes. i just. don’t understand how they thought that was acceptable. we were about as close to being closed as you could get. visibly so. what is wrong with people?
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