Life as a Server Archives - I Hate Working In Retail

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25 Surefire Ways To Get Your Server To Hate You

1. Leave them a different type of “tip”

Source: complex.com
“My suggestion about their hairstyle is surely more valuable than their ability to pay the bills.”

2. Snap your fingers to get their attention.

Source: dave-daring
They are dogs rather than human beings, after all.

3. Complain about your food after you’ve eaten all of it.

“It was so disgusting that I licked my plate.”

4. Tap them on the shoulder while they’re with another table.

Source: wisegeek.com
“MY FIFTH SIDE OF KETCHUP IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN OTHER PEOPLE’S NEEDS.”

5. Hang out for an extra three hours after you’ve paid your bill

Source: msn.com
“And here’s an extra nickle for your time.”

6. Come in five minutes before the restaurant closes.

“It makes me feel like a special snowflake to know that so many workers can’t go home to their families for another two hours just because of me.”

7. Make lots of substitutions so the original item you ordered is unrecognizable.

“Can you ask the chef to find a way to combine the cheeseburger with the fettuccine alfredo? Oh, and no meat.”

8. Yell at them when your food is taking too long.

Source: garavato.com
“You mean you don’t cook the food? AND I’m not the only person in the restaurant? WHAT IS THIS NONSENSE?”

9. Stay glued to your phone instead of deciding what you want to eat.

“You know the old saying: first tweet, then eat.”

10. Claim to know the owner and expect free food as a result.

“We went to high school together. Yeah, I was his ex-girlfriend’s neighbor’s cousin.”

11. Let your kid run around.

“She’s so cute when she dives between the servers’ legs while they’re carrying huge trays of hot food, isn’t she?”

12. Use your personal beliefs as an excuse for not tipping.

“Giving others a negative impression of my religion makes me feel powerful.”

13. Let your kids make the table look like a war zone.

“You’re right, sweetie. Pulverized dry cereal adds a lovely touch to this five-star eatery.”

14. Push your chair out really far so that no one can get past you.

“My extra leg room is definitely worth inconveniencing everyone else.”

15. Complain about your seats during a rush when there is clearly no other place for the staff to seat you.

“I am sure that the food tastes much better while it’s eaten at that booth rather than this booth.”

16. Pretend like you’re leaving a tip, but actually nah.

“WWJD? Probably nothing nearly this rude, but I enjoy giving him a bad name.”

17. Interrupt their introduction by stating your drink order.

“How are you?”
“Iced tea, no lemon.”
See, it’s funny because iced tea isn’t a state of being.

18. Make no effort to move your phone when they’re serving your food.

“It’s a trendy new game: If you touch my phone, I cut you. If you put the hot plate on my phone, I still cut you”

19. Call them over while you are still deciding what to order.

“Do you know why you came over here even though you knew I wasn’t ready? Because of my gravitational pull. I am the center of the universe.”

20. Give them a ‘verbal tip,’ but not a monetary one.

“Now they can pay for their groceries with ~*~love~*~.”

21. Make them get you one thing every time they come to your table instead of asking for them all at once.

“I don’t even like tartar sauce. I just want to see you run.”

22. Assume that they know you’re in a rush without saying a word to them.

Source: aalamoki.com
“You’ll be back with the check in ‘just a minute?!’ We have a show to catch in forty-five seconds!”

23. Make no effort to move your body when they’re clearing or setting plates.

“It’s like an obstacle course, but with the added twist that I sue you if you get sauce on my new jacket.”

24. Try to make a political statement instead of leaving a tip.

“This will definitely prove that I am qualified to help choose the leader of our nation.”

25. Treat them like anything except what they are: a hard-working person trying to make an honest living.

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Incompetent Waitress Closes Down Restaurant (Apparently)

Just a bit of the harsh critique that ownership left for its former servers and kitchen staff.

Yelp is usually a place for restaurant diners to vent about bad service and food — and occasionally for restaurants to start ill-advised social media wars with those who complain. But it’s rarely the place for a restaurant to publicly point the finger at its own employees.

And yet, as Eater.com points out, that’s exactly what a now-closed Chinese restaurant in the L.A. area did earlier this week.

A note posted on Feb. 24 by an account claiming to represent the restaurant thanks customers who patronized the eatery for nearly 20 years and even extends gratitude to Yelpers who gave the restaurant bad reviews due to “incompetent” servers who ignored customers.

The major portion of blame for the closing goes to the location, which the owners say was getting too expensive.

Then it rips into waitresses, some of whom had been there upwards of 26 years, but whose substandard work ethic was “hurting our restaurant” and that many of them didn’t realize their “poor service or behavior” was damaging the establishment’s reputation.

Then there’s the kitchen, which is to blame for the “food quality also going southward” and no longer being up to the restaurant’s previous standards.

The owners say they are looking to open a new location with a “polite” staff and “higher quality of chefs.”

 

Sourced from consumerist.com

 

 

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Retail and Service Workers Share Their Crazy Customer Stories

Sure, we’ve all had our fair share of bad (or even horrible) customer service experiences. There’s even an annual list of the top 10 consumer complaints that ranks which areas of the marketplace we find most frazzling in any given year.

But what about tales from the other side of the counter? We asked our readers who work in the restaurant, retail or service industry to share their worst “crazy customer” stories. We chuckled, guffawed and sat with our mouths wide open as we read through your submissions, then we picked our 12 favorites.

Poke and Sniff
Reader remotecandy says: “I was shopping in the meat department … when I noticed a woman picking up various packages of meat, poking holes in the wraps and sniffing each package before she put the package back where she got it. I was not only appalled, but was disgusted … I notified the meat department manager and he talked to this woman … She lost it, calling the meat manager every name in the book, and proceeded to randomly poke holes in meat packages that she had no intention of buying. Because the store security people couldn’t handle this woman, they called the police, but the woman made it out of the store just in the nick of time.”

Fishy Business
Reader Bballxlovex25 says: “A customer ordered anchovies on a pizza from our pizza place. She called back after receiving her delivery order to complain. She stated that she ordered anchovies on her pizza and received fish. We told her that anchovies were indeed fish and that was what she ordered. She proceeded to yell that she, “Did not want these f***ing fish!” on her pizza. Her son proceeded to tell her that she ordered anchovies and that they were fish. She threatened the manager by saying she was going to beat up the manager’s mother and husband.”

No, It’s Your Fault!
Reader AJH89 says:
“I work at a restaurant and this lady and a little boy, about four or five, came in to eat. The little boy sat down with his mom and peed in his pants. The lady told me it was my fault because I did not tell her that the little boy looked liked he needed to go to the bathroom. She wanted us to give her dinner [for] free. I could not believe it.”

(Chicken) Bills
Reader Gerrydee1 says: “As a young girl right out of school, I worked in the Customer Relations Department of Sears-Roebuck in Philadelphia. This was the mail order division. My job was to handle complaints via letter from customers and route them to the correct place for their problems to be solved. I received a note from a farmer that said his latest sale from the catalog of poultry … included some dead on arrival. My supervisor told me to write him back and asked him to send the bills from the sale indicating how many, and we would gladly replace them … A package arrived with my name on it soon. It smelled funny even before I opened it. When I did, the dope sent me the actual bills (beaks) from the poor little chickens. It smelled to high heaven and freaked me out.”

She’s “Wheely” Crazy

Reader JCDIFFEY says: “[This] lady came into our station for full service lube and oil change and wanted her tires rotated. She returned about two hours later, went to her car and came inside the shop, really mad. She wanted all the wheels with the design on them to all FACE UP. [We] tried to explain, the first time you drive the car [they] will change and [will] not be the same. She refused to pay the bill unless we corrected the problem. We pulled the car on the rack and made all the wheels look the same. She paid bill and departed a happy customer. We let her drive it off the rack.”

What a Gas
Reader TLWidner32824 says: “I had a customer (guest) come into one of my stores at MGM Studios, Orlando with armfuls of merchandise to purchase. She laid her stuff on my counter and whipped out a Mobil gas card to pay for her purchases. I kindly told her that Mobil cards are good for Mobil gas stations to buy gas and products. She could not understand why she could not use her gas card. Even after explaining and re-explaining, she still did not get it. She left, as that was her only ‘form of payment.'”

Too Much “O” in the H2O
Reader PANJO says: “While running my family’s restaurant in NYC, I had a customer call me over one time to her table … She holds a glass of water that the busboy had brought over when she sat down, and asks in very grave tone, ‘Do you see what I see?’ Being in the restaurant business, I figured maybe there was lipstick on the glass [or] something had fallen in it, but … I couldn’t see anything … She said, ‘I can’t believe you can’t see, but there is way too much oxygen in the water!'”

Guess That’s Not What He Wanted to Hear
Reader Chrisandkim04 says: “I had an older gentleman who had purchased his glasses from one of our companies eight years ago. He came in all upset, because his glasses had broken … He proceeded to tell me his story [about] how he bought the glasses several years ago and how he had never had a problem with them until now … His dog got a hold of his glasses and chewed them up beyond recognition … I explained that the frame was no longer being made and in order to get him a new pair he would have to see the doctor … He flipped out. He threw the remaining fragments of his glasses at me and kicked his chair at my other associate.”

Not Worth the Argument
Reader Bgk9876 says: “A customer wanted to return a canteen which she had recently purchased. When I asked her why she wanted to to return it she said it leaked. After inspecting the canteen, [I] noticed [it had] a hole in the center big enough to put your index finger in. When this was pointed out to the customer, she responded by saying, ‘Well, that’s not where it leaks.’ She got a full refund.”

She Did What??
Reader WAYDOWNTOWN2 says: “A woman came into the restaurant drunk, and when asked to leave she hiked her skirt up, squatted down and proceeded to pee in the middle of the dining room. “Oh yeah, she was arrested.”

The Wrong End of Things
Reader Marcanewman1 says: “I spent many years in drug stores and had many ‘confused customers.’ A few — ‘Why didn’t the direction label say take the foil off the suppository first, it really hurt?’ ‘I choked, why didn’t the instructions say take the pill with water?’ ‘Why didn’t the label say Insert in rectum, I swallowed it ?’ [This] customer orally took a suppository with the foil on it!”

Pizza Pain
Reader Bnchudson says:
“I work for a restaurant that has a website for people to place online orders. I had a customer who placed their order online for one size then yelled at us because she had [accidentally] ordered a bigger size and thought we had purposely changed her ticket. When we showed her the original copy she still didn’t believe it. We then even offered to remake it for her at no additional cost, and she flipped out saying she had already paid for the larger size (which she was shown she had not) and deserved a refund of her money as well. Needless to say she left with no refund and the smaller size.”

Sourced from dailyfinance.com

 

 

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