I am a server at a small family-owned restaurant. Tonight, I am alone up front with a prep/dishwasher and a cook in the back. The three of us are holding things down nicely as we have all been through this more times than we can count. I stop by a table — a middle-aged couple with two teenage daughters — to collect their check, and when I get to the register, I notice that they are trying to use an expired coupon for $5 off a two-entree order. The expiration date is the only issue I have with the coupon, but since we are family-owned, if I accept an expired one, the difference comes out of my pocket. I walk back to the table to explain the situation.

Me: “I’m sorry to tell you this, but your coupon expired a year ago, so I’m not going to be able to accept it. Would you like me to go ahead and charge the full amount to the card you gave me?”

Mom: “WHAT DO YOU MEAN, IT EXPIRED? I BOUGHT A COUPON BOOK FROM THE RADIO STATION! IT COST ME $45!”

Me: “Did the radio station make any guarantees as to the coupons having no expiration date?”

Mom: “NO, BUT I WOULD ASSUME THAT IF I PAY THAT MUCH FOR SOMETHING IT WOULDN’T EXPIRE!”

Other customers are starting to stare, probably because of the sudden screaming, but also because their ONLY server hasn’t been racing through the restaurant taking care of them like he had been up until the screaming began. The two daughters are pulling up their hoods and staring down at their phones now, trying not to show how embarrassed they are.

Me: “Ma’am, the coupon’s expiration date is clearly printed here in the bottom right corner.”

I lean in to show her and she snatches the coupon from my hand, grabs a pen, and changes the last digit of the year by hand. She triumphantly hands it back to me.

Mom: “THERE! NOW TAKE MY F****** COUPON!”

At this point, my cook and dishwasher have come up front and are standing by the bar, watching. All other activity in the restaurant has stopped as everyone watches the crazy unfold.

Me: “EXCUSE ME, MA’AM! That kind of language is inappropriate, and if you persist, I will have to ask you to leave.”

Mom: “F*** YOU! HOW’S THAT FOR LANGUAGE?”

She stands up to get in my face. She is a good foot shorter than I am, so I’m sure the image was quite comical to others.

Me: “Ma’am, I would like to respectfully ask that you turn around for a moment and look behind you.”

She shoots me a confused look and then does as I have requested.

Me: “All of these people came in here for a nice meal. Every single one of them. Do you think that they are all staring at me right now?”

Mom: “WHY ARE YOU MAKING THEM STARE AT ME? TELL THEM TO STOP!”

Dad: “He’s not making them stare, dear. YOU ARE BEING A TRAINWRECK.”

The mom calms down a bit, and I go on to explain our policy regarding accepting expired coupons.

Mom: “Well, what if I tip you the difference? Would that be okay?”

Me: “…”

I have forgotten that my cook and dishwasher were behind me. Suddenly, I feel a hand on my shoulder.

Cook: “Ma’am, if you tip him the difference, you’ll be paying exactly the same amount as you would without the coupon, except that he won’t get his tip, and to be honest with you, after seeing the way you just acted, he deserves a h*** of a lot more than $5. Now, you can either pay the full amount plus a generous tip and apologize to all these nice people and your poor family for your behavior, or I can call the police and have you ticketed for disorderly conduct and creating a public nuisance. Your call.”

She runs out of the restaurant, leaving her family and her purse behind. Her husband pays using a credit card and tips me $20 in cash, and on his way out the door, he “drops” his wife’s driver’s license on the ground with a smile and a wink.

Cut to the next morning, half an hour before we open. I am regaling the owner with the story of why there is a driver’s license in the till and a hand-altered coupon on the counter. She is undecided between livid and hysterical. It’s either the best thing she’s ever heard or she wants to kill this woman on sight. That’s when a sheepish knock comes at the window. I turn around and sure enough, it’s the mom.

Me: “Speak of the Devil!”

The owner walks to the window, holding the coupon and license, but neither are in the mom’s line of sight.

Mom: “Hi. I came in last night and I guess I must have dropped my license somewhere. Have you seen it?”

Owner: “Well, we haven’t found anything yet, but we’re still cleaning up at the moment. If you’d like to come in and wait for a few while we finish up, I’m sure we’ll find it if it’s here.”

The mom accepts and is let inside. At this point, she sees me for the first time, and a look of recognition flashes across her face. She stuffs it down and returns to resting b**** face, presumably to save face in front of the owner in case I decide to call her out. She sits at the table where the owner is going over last night’s receipts.

Owner: “Hey, [My Name], what’s up with this hand-altered expired coupon in here? You didn’t accept this, did you?”

Me: “No, and the lady made a big deal about it. Disrupted several people’s meals.”

Owner: “Oh, no, that’s terrible!” *Turns to the mom* “I sure hope you weren’t here to witness that, ma’am. It’s just terrible when people don’t understand basic human decency.”

The mom grimaces, trying to play it off as though she wasn’t here, but she understands what [Owner] is saying. At this point, the cook arrives, on his way through the dining room to the kitchen.

Cook: “Oh, hey, you must be back to apologize!”

Mom: “I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir. I am here to retrieve my license that I seem to have left here last night.”

Cook: “No, you didn’t leave it; you left your entire family sitting in the wake of your s***ty attitude, and your husband apparently decided not to let you get away with it. Now, what I said still stands; you either apologize and tip this man or I will have you ticketed.”

Mom: “For what? It’s your word against mine, and who would believe a line cook?”

Owner: “Me, and my six cameras.”

The mom ended up apologizing to all three of us, leaving a decent tip, and writing an exemplary review of the restaurant on social media. The dad still comes in for lunch on his own sometimes, but the mom has yet to be seen again.

I’ve been back at work for about a month, and every shift, there’s always at least one person that has their brain completely switched off. The other day is a prime example. My restaurant is on a limited menu while most of our staff is still furloughed. I’m greeting a table, and a woman interrupts me, shaking her menu at me.

Woman #1: “Are you back to your full menu or is this all you have?”

Let’s try to work through this together. I’ve given you a limited menu. I have not given you the regular full menu. What can we infer about our availability given this information?

Two days later, I’m opening the bar. Right when the doors open, this other woman makes a bee-line for the bar that has no chairs at it.

Woman #2: “Is the bar open?”

No! You can tell that by the fact that there are no chairs here.

My first week back, an eccentric regular was asking about our sanitation practices.

Regular: “Are you able to sanitize the glasses and plates?”

Do you mean WASH the dishes? Yes, it’s been our practice to WASH the dishes after every use. Even before there was a worldwide health crisis.

I have these interactions several times a week. Have people always been this stupid? Have I just forgotten that while being furloughed for two months?

The restaurant where I worked was in a popular college town. Every January, we would start taking early reservations for graduation week in the spring. We always deferred these reservations to our owner, as the grads’ parents could be very demanding and pushy. We were told to simply give them her email address.

One year, our boss was unfortunately out of the country due to a family emergency. This meant that we were constantly getting phone calls about unanswered emails regarding grad reservations. Most people understood that, due to the time difference, their email may not be answered for a few hours or days. This one call, however, still baffles me to this day. 

Caller: “Hi, I wrote an email to the owner about fifteen minutes ago regarding a grad reservation and I still haven’t gotten a reply back.”

Coworker: “Yes, ma’am. Unfortunately, the owner is out of the country due to a family emergency. And because of the seven-hour time difference, she may not be able to answer those emails right away. It usually takes a few hours to a few days, anyway.”

Caller: “But I’m in California, so my email is already three hours behind! So she’s not going to get my email for ten hours?!”

Coworker: “…”

Related:
No Fortitude For Longitude, Part 17
No Fortitude For Longitude, Part 16
No Fortitude For Longitude, Part 15
No Fortitude For Longitude, Part 14
No Fortitude For Longitude, Part 13

I greet a table of two middle-aged women. They tell me that they would like to order some wine. I ask for their preferences.

Me: “Would you like red or white?”

Customer: “White.”

Me: “Okay, and would you like something light or fuller-bodied? We have—”

She cuts me off and scoffs.

Customer: *In a snotty tone* “Ha, white wine doesn’t have body!”

She then looks at her friend like, “Can you believe how dumb this waitress is?”

Me: *Internal facepalm*

Shortly after graduating from high school, I got a job working as a waitress at a local restaurant. It was a pretty popular place, but it really boomed during the holiday season.

A few days before Christmas, a woman comes in wanting to pay for and pick up a phone order. Now, to be clear, there are seven pages of takeout orders. Each page has ten to thirteen orders.

Me: “Can I have the name on the order?”

The woman gives me three names.

Customer: “I’m not sure who placed the order; I’m just in charge of picking it up.”

I look through each page and find a few matches. None are the correct order, though. As I reach the last page, I tell her that we don’t have any more orders with those names and ask if there is another that it might be under.

She is visibly annoyed, and she gives me another two names that it might be under. I scroll back to the first page and start searching again. I find another match, but again, it is the wrong order. Now, she is actually angry.

Me: “I’m so sorry. We don’t have any more matches for those names.”

Customer: “Well, it’s got to be one of them! I don’t know why this is so hard for you!”

Me: “Maybe it would be easier to search for the order itself. What exactly are you picking up?”

Customer: “How am I supposed to know that? I didn’t place the order. It’s your job to check me out and just get it to me! Why is this so hard for you?”

Me: “Well, unless there is another name to search for, I’m not sure what else I can do for you. There were about seventy-five orders placed for this weekend, and I don’t have any other way to know which is yours.”

Customer: “Are you f****** kidding me? It shouldn’t be this complicated. Are you stupid or something? You are working a register. It cannot be that hard.”

Me: “Okay… How about I read the names of each order, and you let me know when something sounds familiar? We can go through each order that way.”

Customer: “F****** fine! If that’s what you have to do, to do your job, then just waste my g**d*** time, I guess.”

Then, she mutters something under her breath that I don’t quite catch. She definitely uses the R word, though.

I get about halfway through the first page.

Me: “[Company]?”

Customer: “Yes! That’s it!”

I smile wide — a genuine and true smile, ear to ear.

Me: “OH! Do you work at [Company]?”

Customer: “Not that it’s any of your business, but yes. Now hurry up. This has taken way longer than it should have. Is it even ready yet?”

Me: “Do you know the owner? Mr. [Owner]?”

Customer: “Yes… He is the one who organized the party. Why?”

Me: “That’s my dad.”

I’m now smiling even wider than I thought possible.

Me: “I’ll have to tell him about this! What a small world!”

The color visibly drains from the customer’s face.

Customer: “Your—”

Me: “Yup! My dad! Who would have known?! I’m actually going on my thirty when I’m done here. I’ll have to give him a call! I’m sure he’ll love to hear all about this.”

Before she had a chance to respond, I turned around to grab her food. I spent the rest of that transaction just positively glowing, basking in her silent panic, before saying, “Goodbye! Have a wonderful day! I’ll be sure to tell my dad that you said hi!”

It. Was. Beautiful.

I told my dad about it and he was absolutely livid, mostly about the fact that she would dare to speak to someone in that way while actively representing the company. He didn’t fire her, but she was given a severe warning and was put onto probation. She didn’t last long, though. Less than two weeks later, she lost the company a pretty big client by responding very rudely via email. Honestly, I may be biased, but I think that the company is better off without her.

This story is part of our Best Of August 2021 roundup!

Read the next Best Of August 2021 roundup story!

Read the Best Of August 2021 roundup!