I am working as a waitress one evening when a young man comes in and sits down. He politely asks for an Arnold Palmer. Since it’s slow, I take a little extra time to make it “pretty.” The restaurant has those generic plastic cups, mostly in red, but a couple in clear. I grab a clear one, add ice, pour half a glass of tea, and carefully top it off with the pink lemonade from the dispenser. The colors sit pretty nicely on top of each other.

I bring the young man his drink. He smiles and tells me his folks will be in shortly; he’s just saving a table before the dinner rush. No problem.

Sure enough, twenty minutes later, the restaurant is in full swing and what looks like Mom and Pop come in and sit with him. I rush over to greet them and get drink orders.

Pop: *Pointing at the young man’s drink* “What’s that?”

Me: “An Arnold Palmer: tea and lemonade mixed.”

Pop: “I want one of those.”

I leg it to the drink station. Lo and behold, no more clear cups. I grab a red one and make the drink. Same process, but because the cup is red, you can’t see the color separation as well and it looks kind of tan/murky but not unlike a normal drink in a semi-transparent cup. I take it back to the table.

Pop: *Eyeing it suspiciously* “What’s that?”

Me: “Oh, it’s an Arnold Palmer like you asked. I’m sorry we ran out of clear cups, but I can remake it in a glass beer mug if you’d like?”

Pop gives me a side-eye before finally sitting back.

Pop: *Grumpily* “I guess it’s fine.”

The entire rest of the meal, Pops glared at me like I was trying to pull something over on him.

We once had a scammy waiter that tried to put another table’s stuff on our bill. We were a party of ten, and I always double-check and make sure there aren’t extra things on the bill when we have large parties because no one is going to want to pay the extra. I’ve gotten stuck before so I always double-check.

I wrote next to each item the person who ordered whatever and saw drinks, food, and desserts that were not ours on there that brought our bill up about $70. I called the waiter over and said the bill was wrong and pointed out the items that weren’t ours. He came back with an amended bill that only removed a few of the cheaper things.

When I pointed it out again, the manager, who happened to have been bussing a table nearby, came over and asked what was going on. I explained and he glared at the waiter but adjusted the bill correctly and also said dessert was on him.

The scammy waiter tried to put the dessert on our bill and not comp it. The manager had to fix that, too. 

The food and stuff that was on our bill? That belonged to the table the manager had been bussing. Apparently, they were friends of the scammy waiter and he figured we wouldn’t notice the extra charges since we were such a large group. Of course, his friends had already booked out, so I’m guessing the scammy waiter had to pay the bill. I didn’t see him the next time I was there, so he probably got sacked, too. It just makes me wonder how many times he pulled that stunt before I caught him and called him out.

I work in a Chinese restaurant. I sometimes deliver and sometimes do the front desk. Today, I am delivering.

I knock on a lady’s door who has a $64 order. The entire time, I have my nice customer service voice.

Me: “Hello, your total is [total].”

The customer reaches her hand out for the bag but doesn’t motion to grab any money or anything.

Me: “I’m sorry, I need the money before I can hand the bag over.”

Customer: “I’ve ordered from you guys before. Just give me the bag.”

She holds her hand out aggressively.

Me: “I’m sorry, I just need the money first.”

Customer: “Just give me the bag so I can go get you the money.”

Me: “I’m sorry, I need the money before I can give you the bag.”

Customer: “Do you want me to call your office? Just give me the bag!”

Me: “You can, ma’am. I just need the money first before I give you the bag.”

She huffs and walks away to grab the money. When she comes back, she gives me $70.

Me: “Would you like any change back?”

Customer: *In an angry tone* “No.”

Me: “Have a good day!”

She said something incoherent as I got to the bottom of her steps. I don’t think this woman had any intention of stealing; however, I don’t deliver to her often and I don’t want to take any sort of risk of someone stealing the food from me like people have from some of my other drivers.

Just before we open, we realize the toilet isn’t working, so I put an “Out of Order” sign in two different languages on the door. One of the cooks has already had to knock on the door to get a lady who had waltzed right in past the sign out of there before she accidentally made a mess, but this is the most interesting interaction of the day.

Female Customer: “Do you have a restroom?”

Me: “Unfortunately, it’s out of order. Sorry.”

She looks a bit disgruntled but hurries out the door to find somewhere else that has a bathroom, which is not hard since almost every building for two blocks is a restaurant.

Customer’s Husband: *Accusatorily* “Why is the bathroom ‘out of order?'”

Me: “Because it’s not working?”

Customer’s Husband: “Well, what are customers supposed to do? Some of them want to use the bathroom!”

Me: “Sir, I would also like to use the restroom, but I can’t, either. I have to go next door, too.”

He huffs and walks out to wait for his food.

Me: *To my coworkers* “What does he think, I just put the ‘Out of Order’ sign up for fun so he couldn’t use it?”

Years ago, I worked as a cocktail bartender and waiter. A group of suits came in and sat down and I went to take their order. I got a bad vibe from them from the get-go. After I finished the order and went to leave, this sleazy guy in his thirties said, loud enough for everyone to hear:

Customer: “Walk away slowly, baby, so we can watch!”

I smiled at him and started to do an over-dramatic slow-motion back away, keeping eye contact with him and smiling the whole time.

I told the other waiters about it, and everyone started doing these slow-motion walks whenever they walked past their table. The best one was a busboy who deliberately dropped something next to their table and then did a very slow and sexy pick-up, like the “bend and snap” from “Legally Blonde”.

The group left pretty quickly.