As some of you know, I’m a waitress and bartender at a trendy local cafe. My job rocks and I meet awesome people all the time, but sometimes I just need to bitch and vent on the crappy customers. The ones who come through the door with a frown, whom you cannot please (no matter what you do) because not only did they wake up on the wrong side of the bed, but someone pissed in their cheerios this particular morning. So, bear with me here. Feel free to comment or add anything you think deserves to be in here as well.
Service Industry Rant in
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Pet Peeves
People who order 5 beverages for themselves
I can’t stand people who walk into a busy restaurant, ask for coffee, beer and a water just for themselves (not to mention the other people at their table, I’m talking 1 person drinking all 3 of these). When’s the last time you went home and made yourself 3 drinks and drank them all at once? Hm, while I’m at my fridge getting some milk, I think I’ll pop open a diet coke and make myself a cup of coffee…. ::no:: I mean, first of all – you’ve only got TWO HANDS. At the very best you can only lift two of these to your mouth at one given time, unless you have feet worthy of an acrobat. Why do you need so many liquids? Are you going to clandestinely pour that coffee into a giant to-go mug once we leave your table and leave the restaurant with a whole pot of coffee that you’ve stored up, camel-style during your stay? Are you hiking across the Sahara? Are you perhaps afraid we’ll run out of things to drink? Like “guys we better get 10 waters and five iced teas for the 3 people at our table, cuz there’s a 5 top that just came in and they might run out. Those people next to us look like they might drink a LOT of water. Gotta be proactive and prepared in case there’s a drought.”
Then there’s the decorative water. Like the people who ask for 3 waters and some other drinks as well and then proceed to watch the glass of water sitting in front of them but never actually touch the glass. Thanks. I needed something else to balance out my tray. Better yet, I needed five of them. I know what you’re thinking – no flowers on the table, let’s order a water. It’s pretty and if we run out of things to talk about and get bored, we can gather around it like a television and watch the ice melt. It’s both an intellectually stimulating and thrilling conversation piece. Better yet, we can place bets on how pissed off our waitress will be when she clears the table to find 16 glasses of water with the straw tops still on because we couldn’t be bothered to take one sip of the water we made her carry over to our table. $5 dollars is a ‘oh no they didn’t’ head shake, $10 dollars if she mutters “motherfuckers,” under her breath and $20 dollars if she gets so pissed off she makes the bus boy clear them. Fun times. Unless you’re planning on putting an orchid in there or (I know it’s a crazy idea, but….) actually drinking it, don’t order it. [On a total side note, the above looks like a really fantastically delicious Japanese cocktail. Lychees in the bottom and a nice flower garnish. Yum..... But, I digress.]
Picky Bastards
Then there are the people who are so picky you wonder why they don’t look like a starving child in Africa. Christ sakes, they could *be* starving in Africa, have a Peace Corps volunteer offer them a burger and fries and then refuse to eat it it unless it was cooked in partially unhydrogenated thai soybean oil. Like “I want a salad with no cucumbers, no tomatoes, five onions, make sure you count them with russian, balsamic vinagrette, oil and vinegar and the lettuce on the side. Oh, and that girl next to me just wants a plate of pickles too. She’s on a pickles only diet.” When’s the last time you walked into a restaurant, popped open a menu and saw “side of pickles – $2.95?” Those people are also usually the ones who then cop a ‘tude when it takes a minute. We get it, you’re a picky bitch and want everything just “so.” So, don’t be surprised if you have to wait 5 minutes longer than another table and don’t be pissed when the server forgets your oil and vinegar, but remembers your other 2 dressings or the kitchen forgets to take the cucumbers off your salad because they’re *insanely busy.* If you’re going to be so high maintenance that you can’t pick the 4 huge freaking cucumbers off of your salad, then go home and make your own goddamn salad. There’s a reason the menu is the way it is. Unless you have an allergy (we get that – it’s cool and we’ll run to the kitchen and freak out to the cooks to make sure nothing touches a peanut because the last thing we want is to call an ambulance), man up and order the meal as it’s meant to be. When you own the restaurant or are a frequent customer who tips well, then you can create your own dishes. Or, if it’s slow in the restaurant (read: you’re one of the only 3 tables there) you’re polite about it, and willing to wait an extra 5 minutes (while we run around to find an owner/manager who can tell us how to go about putting in an order of pickles and how much to charge for it), we’re most likely happy to cater to special requests.
Most of all, I hate people who completely ignore the menu and create their own dish, regardless of what the restaurant serves. Especially if the restaurant is ridiculously busy. You can spot them right off the bat. When you hand them a menu, they hand it right back. “A menu? WHY would I need that? I’m in a restaurant! You serve food! I want pancakes! Yo quiero pancakes!” Yes. You’re very funny and clever. You appear to have a command of two languages. Gold star for you. When told “we try not to deviate from the menu and we don’t serve breakfast,” they’ll still try to order pancakes at a restaurant that only does sandwiches and will argue with you that you have all the ingredients in the kitchen to make them. “Well, since you have bread, you have flour and you must have salt and eggs. Tell your cook to come out here and I’ll teach him how to make pancakes.” Thanks, but I’d rather stand in front of an Afganistan firing squad with an outfit made out of the American flag than tell any of our cooks that they “must come out of the kitchen because a customer needs to teach them how to cook.” ”No” is not typically in this type of customer’s vocabulary and they pitch a fit worthy of a 5 year old when they hear it. “I can go in the kitchen and make them! I want pancakes, I’ll show you how!” And I’ll show you my foot before I put it up your ass. Better yet, I’ll show you the door. No pancakes for you! And no soup either, just because you’re being a jackass! And too bad for you, we just had a massive drought and the five top at table eleven just drank all the water.
People Who Use the Menu to Play Trivial Pursuit with their Waiter
If it’s crazy busy in the restaurant and you ask us 500 questions about the menu, we will want to strangle you. It’s called reading. You learned how in first grade. Read the goddamn menu before asking us questions like (example of a question a customer asked me a month ago:) “are all of these sandwiches listed here different?” No. We listed the same fucking sandwich with the same fucking ingredients 10 times and used 10 different titles. We like confusing people like that. It gives us waiters a chuckle now and again. Then there are the obvious questions: “So, that burger, tell me about it.” Well. It’s made from a cow sir. The animal that goes “moo.” It’s a patty, circular in shape. You consume it, typically with ketchup and or mustard.
There are questions that are okay to ask your server. “What do you recommend?” is one of my favorites. That implys that you realize I’m fairly competent and probably have eaten most of the food served at said establishment. I will be happy to point you in the right direction and tell you about certain dishes. “Which is better, this or this?” Is also a good question. “My son’s allergic to wheat, we were thinking this dish, this dish, or this dish. Might any of those be a problem for him?” = good question. As a waitress, I like giving advice to nice people. However, I am not there to hold your hand. Choosing something from the menu is not like a choose your own adventure book. If you choose the wrong meal, you will not fall down a chute and be impaled by giant spears. After you ask a question or two and we give you advice, you should not take forever and a day to decide what you want. If I have to visit your table more than 3 times, only for you to ask for “just another minute to decide,” you will wind up waiting a long time for your food. I have other customers who are capable of deciding what they want within an hour of getting their menu and they need food too. So, don’t be mad when you look at your watch and realize you’ve been sitting at your table for an hour without getting your food. I visited you three times and tried to get your order in before that 20-top, but you kept me from doing my job by being indecisive. Also, if you see your waiter running around like the roof might collapse if they stay in one place for more than 10 seconds, now might not be the time to use the menu to take an anecdotal trip down memory lane. We really don’t care how our chicken sandwich reminds you of the time you went to Aunt Sue’s farm back in 1892 and plucked a live chicken, or how the portabello salad reminds you of how your husband Chuck got food poisoning on your honeymoon in Iowa and how while in Iowa you fell in love with potatoes o gratin and oh, could you just whip some of those up for us? I’ll tell you how to make them!
Annoying Children and the Parents Who Let Their Animals Run Unleashed
And another thing. If you’re going to bring wild or messy kids into a restaurant, you better tip well. It’s a bitch to move and carry high chairs and I really don’t enjoy picking cheerios off of the floor and moping up spills if you so choose to remove the lids on the kids cups for your bratty children. If you make such a mess that we have to pressurewash the table after you, you better tip more than 20%. Now, don’t get me wrong. I love kids. I used to be a teacher. Well behaved children are fantastic in a restaurant. We love them. I put like 5 cherries in those kids’ shirley temples and sometimes they get extra animal crackers. We hook it up. Those kids get big smiles. We’ll go to the ends of the earth to get crayons for nice kiddos and we’ll take time to talk to them about how cool Hannah Montana is and how neat their Spongebob toy is. But parents who allow their children to smear chocolate sauce with their fingers all over the table and watch it go down without a single reprimand, deserve to be shot. It’s not the kid’s fault, it’s the parents’. It’s called discipline. How would you like if I came to your house and fingerpainted all over your coffee table with Hershey’s syrup? Maybe I’ll spell out something clever. I’m sure you’ll be pleased. EXACTLY. It’s not *cute,* it doesn’t make the waitress giggle a tee-he and say ‘oh those kids these days, bless their lil hearts!’ I can tell you, from experience that one thing is going through your waitress’ mind when she comes over to your table after you and your devil spawn have left the building. After she tries to decypher the chocolate sauce, mustard and ketchup condiment heiroglyphics left behind, she thinks one thing. Here’s what it looks like. She stares at the table and surveys the mess that has radiated 2 feet in each direction from your table like a volcano at a 3rd grade science fair. She puts one hand on her hip and she reaches for the check with the other. And one thought goes through her mind: “those bastards have better have left me a damn good tip.”
Keep Dennis the Menace on a leash if you have to. Watch your demon spawn and keep them well behaved when they’re out in public. The restaurant is not a theme park or a play pen. Freeze tag and capture all the silverware from all the tables in the restaurant are not suitable activities. The tables and chairs are not junglegym fixtures and if you watch your brats throw their silverware on the floor and do that to all of the 7 rolls of silverware on your table and sit idly by, be prepared to wait to get replacements (fyi: in those cases, your waitress is secretly hoping that the restaurant runs out of clean silverware and you will be forced to eat with your hands or use the dirty silverware your brats threw on the floor). And just so you know, not all waitresses will let this kind of bad behavior (letting your children behave like skunks in a trash can) go unpunished. One day, you’ll walk into a restaurant and after you get perfect service, make a mess, let your children run wild and leave a shitty tip, your waitress is going to stop you before you go out the door. And they’re going to ask you if anything was wrong with the service or the food and make you feel like the asshat you are. So, when you go out with the little monsters who trash the place, plan on leaving at least 30%. Or, better yet, use your brain. Pack a little bag that has a picture book, a coloring book and some crayons. To the parents of the well behaved, polite children, thank you. Come often. We like you. There’s nothing cuter than when a parent tells their child ’say thank you to the waitress.’ Way to practice good manners and set a good example for your kids.
Coming soon: Stay in your seat
&
Don’t Ask 5 Other Waiters to Get You Your Side of Mayo
Disclaimer
I’m not a bitter waitress. I love my job, I really do. I work with fantastic people. We all have our ups and downs and no one’s perfect, least of all me, but it’s really not all that bad. I do more than my fair share of bitching and complaining, but the truth is, I kinda like it. I get to meet cool people every day and each day is different from the next. Not to mention it keeps me in shape. Who needs a treadmill when you work in a restaurant?
For the most part, I like people who are polite and decent human beings (about 70% of our customers). People who smile, say thank you when you get them something and who don’t fingerpaint on their table or set things on fire with the candle. To all of you out there: thank you, love you, come often. It would be awesome if there was a “nice customer discount.” Like if the customer were super nice, we could just press a button and you’d get like a senior citizen like discount. That would just be cool, and if our bosses invented it, that would make everyone happy. On the flip side, there’s also a restaurant in Killington, VT (Outback Pizza) that has/used to have an asshole button. If you are an asshole, the bartender or waitress presses the asshole button when they cash you out and you get charged a misc. non-gratuity 10% that shows up as misc. food or liquor tax on your bill. I think every restaurant should have those 2 buttons: asshole and nice customer. If every restaurant had those buttons, I think good karma would abound.
Here are the lyrics from one of my favorite local musicians, Chad Hollister.
The song is called
Waitress:
My name’s not hey
Or honey, sweetie come over here
I’ve got me a first name
And I’m gonna tell it to ya clear
Don’t snap your boney fingers
Cause I think that is really quite rude
It makes me take extra time with your waters and I
I wanna spit in your food
But I would never do that
But sometimes I wish that I could
Ya see the chicken dish that ya ordered
Well it sucks, but ya bought it
And that makes me feel really good
This isn’t how I wanna spend my life
Dealin with you and your pain in the ass wife
I actually have my college degree
And I’m offering you some free therapy
On what it is, what it is to be nice
A courtesy I’ve learned in my short sweet life
Here is your bill, thank you so much for the tip
That’s 50 percent to put up with your shit.
To put up with your… shit.
You want a coke with no ice?
A water and a beer and a glass of wine too?
Shall I get you some more liquids?
Maybe some slippery nipples or a pitcher of woo-woos?
A side salad sounds nice!
With no tomatos
Or cucumbers
And could you put the lettuce on the side?
Shall I get ya every dressing?
It would be such a blessing
To have you out of my life!
This isn’t how I wanna spend my life
Dealin with you and your pain in the ass wife
I actually have my college degree
And I’m offering you some free therapy
On what it is, what it is to be nice
A courtesy I’ve learned in my short sweet life
Here is your bill, thank you so much for the tip
That’s 75 percent to put up with your shit.
To put up with your… shit.
I just had to get this off of my chest
I truly love life to its fullest
Ya see I dig people who are just like me
Cause they smile and they laugh and they even
Say Please
Now I feel much better, thanks for the ear
If this song sounds like you please try to change gears
Take care of all the people who take care of you
cause ain’t that what it’s all about, Charlie Brown?
Charlie Brown
Charlie Brown
And Lucy and Linus too
Don’t forget about Pigpen
This isn’t how I wanna spend my life
Dealin with you and your pain in the ass wife
I actually have my PHD
And I’m offering you some physical therapy
On what it is, what it is to be nice
A courtesy I’ve learned in my short sweet life
Here is your bill, thank you so much for the tip
That’s 190 percent to put up with your shit.
To put up with your shit.
OK, rant over.
