A Continuous Sauce Of Stress, Part 2

(I work in a restaurant where we make the majority of our food in-house, down to dressings and sauces. The menu says in at least two places that extra sauces are available for 50 cents. Three women sit at my table.)

Woman #1: “I want to try a couple of these sauces.” *indicating our buffalo style sauces*

Me: “Well, ma’am, we generally don’t do that. I may have to charge you 50 cents”

Woman #1: “We’ve done it before. And I need some celery to dip in the sauces.”

(Rather than putting up a fight I bring her two sauces and a couple of sticks of celery. Woman #1 gets 10 wings in one of the sauces she tried. When the wings come out…)

Woman #1: “I need some extra sauce for my wings.”

Me: “Yes, ma’am, that’s 50 cents extra. Is that okay?”

Woman #1: “It’s not extra cause I don’t have enough sauce on my wings.”

Me: “I’m sorry that you feel the kitchen didn’t give you enough, but I’ll have to charge you 50 cents to get you more.”

Woman #2: “That’s bad customer service! The customer is always right!”

Me: “Ma’am, I apologize but I’m just doing my job the way I was taught to do it, and the menu says that extra sauces cost extra.”

Woman #1: “Bring me the manager!”

(My manager visits the table, offers to re-toss her wings in the kitchen but she just insists on having extra sauce brought to her without wanting to pay. My manager brings her half of a ramekin of sauce as a compromise but tells me that anything else they order will be extra. The women are grumpy for the rest of their meal and request a to go box toward the end.)

Woman #2: *holding her ramekin of blue cheese dressing* “I need another container.”

Me: “An empty container?”

Woman #2: “No, with extra blue cheese.”

Me: “That’ll be 50 cents. Is that okay?”

Woman #2: “No! Its not like I want extra because I ate it all. I just want extra to go!”

Me: “I’m sorry; ma’am, but extra dressings are 50 cents…”

(She turned it down and their checks did not include any extra dressing charges. The women berated me more anyway, asked me if I was new, and asked where the ‘other girl’ they had before was. The girl they described to me had actually been recently fired. One lady asked for change for a dollar, which I gave her, and left two quarters on the table with a note that said ‘Customer service goes toward your tip. Here’s your 50 cents.’ Sorry, giving out free stuff isn’t part of my job, lady!)