Egg-specting You To Just Roll Over

I am working the breakfast service, and a lady of considerable wealth, dripping in diamonds and fur, orders from one of our servers.

Customer: “I want a three-minute — and precisely three-minute — soft-boiled egg. You will also peel the egg for me.”

The server brings the order to me.

Me: “No, I won’t be doing that. I know if I peel the egg it’ll burst it, or I’ll leave a tiny piece of eggshell on it or something. She will complain, and we will go through this runaround three times before [Manager] gets called in and just gives her a free meal. I’m not doing it.”

The poor server looks a bit scared; he doesn’t know how to say no to this customer.

Me: “Get [Manager] to do it for you.”

He does so, and the manager comes over to me.

Manager: “You have quite strong feelings about the egg, eh?”

Me: “I’ve been doing this for over twenty years, and I know her type. She just wants something to complain about.”

Manager: “She will complain about this.”

Me: “Let her. Ten bucks says she kicks up such a stink you need to ask her to leave. If she doesn’t, I will try to peel the egg for her.”

My manager tells her. She gets up, slams her chair back, and comes for me at the back — literally comes for me, arms in the air.

The manager gets in between us and ushers her out the door as she calls me everything under the sun. I give her a smile and a salute.

Manager: “How did you know?”

Me: “Twenty years, you can smell the customers who just live to make a scene. It’s like a sixth sense…”

Luckily, it didn’t happen too often, but the manager didn’t question my “sixth sense” again.