I work in a restaurant. I’m in the back making soups for a party of seven. I emerge to see a new couple sitting in my section. I say, “I’ll be right with you,” as I pass. The lady glares at me and gets up to complain to the host.

When I spin around to their table after handing out the seven-top’s soups, she’s returning. She yells at me:

Customer: “I just complained about you. We’ll take our entire orders right now!”

I’m stunned. Truly stunned. I literally just saw them for the first time as I was carrying a heavy tray of soups to that adjacent seven-top, right before this cheerful exchange commenced.

I take their order and rush back to the kitchen, slightly ugly crying while I’m grabbing everything. They look uncomfortable as it becomes clear how upset I am; there are long silences and a wobbly voice from me. The husband doesn’t eat most of his meal, while the woman tries to redeem herself with lots of smug “Thank yous” and an eight-dollar tip. At the end, I squeak:

Me: “It’s been a pleasure.”

I am the front-of-house manager at a trendy restaurant. It isn’t “upscale” but it’s a local restaurant that receives incredibly good reviews from national media. It’s the type of place you take a date to impress them. Part of this is due to the food; part is due to the service.

On a somewhat slow Saturday night at 7:00 pm, I answer our phone.

Customer: “I’d like to make a reservation for 8:00 pm.”

Me: “Sure.”

Customer: “Can you help me with something?”

Me: “What do you need, sir?”

Customer: “I need to make the night extra special. Can you set the table up with flowers?”

Me: “That’s not a problem. We have fresh flowers delivered for décor every few days so I can make a bouquet for you.”

Customer: “Do you have greeting cards?”

No? But it is a slower night, and we have a market next door where I could send a server to grab a card.

Me: “What would you like it to say, sir?”

I struggle to keep up with his rambling, but the gist is about how much he loves this woman.

By this point, I’m thinking, “Holy s***. This guy is proposing.” I tell some of our servers and everybody is stoked because none of us have ever seen a proposal before. We go all-out on this table.

Eight o’clock rolls around and there’s no sign of this couple.

Eight-fifteen comes and a couple walks in the door. I think it’s them, but I’m not sure. The guy looks incredibly nervous; he’s sweating bullets. The woman seems very tired and lethargic. Then, the guy asks for a table for two. The server walks him to a table. He sees the table with flowers and asks to sit at that table. The server tells him it is for a reservation, and he says, “Yeah, that was me.” Weird start, but okay. We seat them there.

The woman opens the card and reads it. She doesn’t seem that interested; she just sets it to the side. Every employee is watching this table from the corner of their eyes, waiting for something to happen. But they are silent. The only words spoken are their drink orders to the server.

After their drinks come, they order some food and sit in more agonizing silence.

Then, the woman turns to the guy.

Woman: “Do you think this is going to change anything?”

And the fighting started. Once the shouting began, it became clear that this wasn’t a proposal. The guy had cheated on her and was trying to win her back.

The woman stormed out of the restaurant. The guy started crying, chased her, and didn’t come back.

I am the maître-d at a busy Manhattan spot. On weekends we mainly seat reservations, but we take walk-ins, as well.

Customer: “Can I see a menu, please? I have a party of two, if we choose to stay.”

I give her a menu. She takes it outside and proceeds to sit at one of the tables, which is reserved. I can’t have her sitting there as it is for parties of four, and I have one coming in soon.

Me: “Ma’am, can I offer you this table over here that’s meant for two?”

Customer: “No, I want to keep this table.”

Me: “I have reservations coming in that need the tables for four.”

Customer: “Put them at that other table you offered me.”

Me: “I’m sorry, but I can’t comfortably put a four-top reservation at a two-top table. And it wouldn’t be fair to do that to people who booked in advance.”

She finally takes the two-top after LOTS of arguing.

Then, her friend comes, and things get worse. She comes up to the front.

Customer: “Can you please move us? My friend is allergic to the sun and she can’t sit there.”

Me: “I’m glad to move you to an indoor table.”

Customer: “We don’t want an indoor table. We want that one!”

She points to another four-top.

Me: “Ma’am, what you see is what you get. The table I have you at is the only outdoor one I can give you. Would you like to speak to the manager?”

Customer: “Please.”

The manager, who is also my boyfriend, takes a look at my iPad and tells her what I told her.

Manager: “We can’t offer you any of these four-tops. You can sit where we seated you.”

She puts up another fight but then goes back to her two-top.

The host, who works beside me, walks by them not even five minutes later to seat someone else. They flag her down and tell her I’m awful and difficult. I go out there again to see if she’s still causing problems for staff and see that she and her friend have moved themselves to a larger table. I walk over and she goes on her whole “my friend is allergic to the sun” spiel. Her friend is pulling an Oscar-worthy performance, acting as if she’s ill. Meanwhile, it’s raining and there’s not a spot of sun out.

Me: “Once again, I am happy to move you inside to accommodate the sun allergy.”

Customer: “No, we can’t do that! We want this table!”

That’s it. I get the manager and he goes to tell them they have to move as we have a party of five coming for that table in ten minutes. They look at each other.

Customer: *To her friend* “Just ignore him and keep eating.”

They made conversation over him as he was trying to talk to them.

My boyfriend is an extremely chill guy. Not much gets to him, but I could tell that this was pushing him to the edge. He ended up calling the owner and the cops. He told them that these women were disrespecting his staff and he wanted to put a stop to it. He told the women he was going to call them beforehand, but this didn’t deter them, and they stayed put at the table.

The cops showed up and offered to escort them out, but the manager said no because at that point they were already basically done. (I would’ve just let them escort the women out because they were already there). The cops said they were happy to do things like this especially, when it comes to entitled customers, so that was nice, but they ended up leaving without talking to them.

I set up the five-top around them as they were eating, adding chairs and place settings. They ended their experience by telling the server he was wonderful and that he wouldn’t believe what “they had to go through”. Please.

When I was twenty, I was working in a restaurant as a waitress. The chef was a strange guy with many really disturbing stories to tell. I did my best to keep things civil despite him creeping me out and him having a very short fuse.

One particular night, we were short of staff so I was the only waitress. We were under the pump and I was running to and from the kitchen to get food out and dirty dishes cleared away. He was well aware that I was doing everything I could but chose that moment to go on a power trip.

The chef had a bell that he rang every time an order was up. I, like many in the service industry, was Pavlovian trained to get my a**e to the kitchen quick smart when I heard the bell. This particular night, he was giving it a pounding, which was starting to get on my nerves because I was only humanly capable of so much. I hit my limit when, at some point, I was stuck dealing with a customer for a minute and he just went to town on that bell, dinging it repeatedly every few seconds until I could make it back to the kitchen.

It was a rowdy restaurant and the kitchen was a bit separated from the tables, so the customers probably didn’t register the bell but I was acutely tuned to it.

I was absolutely fuming but knew no good would come from a discussion as I’d already told him that I was doing everything as fast as possible, not that he couldn’t have noticed that himself. So, in the red haze of fury, I somehow managed to finish up with the customer and very calmly walk into the kitchen, pick up the bell, and walk out with it. I walked over and placed it behind the bar. Then, I attempted to head back to the kitchen to get the food out.

The chef stormed after me, demanding the bell back from the confused barmaid, and came barreling toward me like he was going to punch me. I calmly told him again that I was doing my job as fast as humanly possible and that overuse of the bell could not make things move along faster. I truly thought he was going to hit me that night, but having the barmaid and drinks staff nearby made him think twice.

I returned to the kitchen and served the food that was waiting to go out. We didn’t speak for the rest of the evening, but he took it easy with the bell after that. And I spoke to one of my bosses later who, luckily, took my word for things, and I never saw that chef again.

I worked in an extremely busy restaurant in a very popular tourist town. We were so busy that we would often have people start, not be able to handle the workload, and quit before finishing their first shift.

I was the sous chef and hadn’t had a day off since I started, over eighteen months before this point. My head chef had worked for over three years without a day off. I loved my job and my head chef, and the money was really good, so I stuck it out.

This was the final straw.

My head chef and I would work from 6:00 am until around 2:30 pm and then from 5:00 pm until whenever we closed. The owners — a husband and wife, both qualified chefs — would cover our break but refused to work any more hours.

Three months previous, I had requested (and been approved) to take time off from the break on Friday until Monday morning to attend my best friend’s wedding four hours away. 

Me: “Great, see you Monday.”

Owner #1: “Haha, very funny. See you tonight.”

Me: “I’m off for the weekend. I’ll be back Monday morning.”

Owner #1: “No, we need you here. We don’t have anyone to cover you.”

Me: “That’s your problem, not mine. I asked for this months ago.”

Owner #1: “It’s not like you’re the one getting married. You need to be here, working, not partying and being a slut. Be back here at five or kiss your job goodbye.”

Me: “Are you serious? I’ve worked every single day for over eighteen months, and now you’re telling me I can’t take a weekend off to be the maid of honor at my best friend’s wedding?”

Owner #1: *Smugly* “Yep. See you tonight.”

Without another word, I turned around, went out the back, and got my personal belongings from the back. As I was walking through the kitchen, my head chef was finishing up before his break and could see I was pissed off.

Head Chef: “[My Name], you okay?”

Me: “Sorry, but I quit. I’ve had enough.”

I walked up to [Owner #2].

Me: “I’ve worked my a*** off for you and this restaurant, but I’ve finally had enough. I quit.”

I started walking out and [Owner #2] ran after me.

Owner #2: “What’s wrong? You can’t quit. We need you.”

Me: “I’ve worked every single day since I started, sometimes up to eighteen hours a day, without complaint. I want two and a half days off for my best friend’s wedding, and your wife tells me I have to work and not party and be a slut. So I quit. Good luck finding someone that’s willing to work as hard as I have. Tell your wife she can go f*** herself.”

I walked out, still shaking I was so angry. I had just made it home when my head chef, who’s also my neighbour, came by.

Head Chef: “You’ve got to be kidding me. I knew [Owner #1] was a b****, but f****** h***. After you left, she had the hide to say that you didn’t deserve the time off and she’d make sure you didn’t get another job in town, so I told her to shove it where the sun doesn’t shine and quit, too. I think most of the crew are doing the same thing.”

I went to my friend’s wedding and ended up extending my holiday. When I returned, I found out that my quitting had caused a chain reaction; not only had the head chef quit, but 90% of all the staff quit over the rest of the day. The restaurant had to shut for over a week as there wasn’t enough staff, and it permanently closed within six months.

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