Mistakes Happen, And So Do Customers

I’m out with my friends eating sushi and all but one of us are done with our soup. We stack our empty bowls on top of one another, and a waitress comes to pick up our used dishes. As she’s picking up some of our other empty plates, the friend who didn’t finish her soup puts the almost-full bowl on top of the pile of five empty bowls. The waitress, not noticing the extra addition — likely because it wasn’t there before — picks up the pile and promptly tips soup all over the table. The spill avoids us, thankfully, but a few drops land on my friend’s purse.

We immediately apologized on her behalf, and the friend apologizes, as well, after turning a healthy shade of red. The waitress doesn’t react or say much, instead leaping to action to clean the mess. After she leaves, we think nothing of it and scold our friend for the mistake. Incident forgotten, we enjoy the rest of our meal.

At the end, a different waitress comes back with six free meal vouchers for us but doesn’t explain why. I turn the card over and see something written on the back, thinking it is just some promotion they are doing, but when I ask what it says, the new waitress says it is the manager’s signature.

I think what happened is that the waitress told the manager that she spilled the soup — even though it wasn’t her fault — or the manager saw, but either way we were likely given the free meal vouchers to “compensate” for what they thought was the waitress’ mistake so that we don’t complain. While nice of them, it’s completely unnecessary; mistakes happen! It made me realize that a different set of customers had likely gotten angry and complained over a similar situation, and that it happened enough that these vouchers became common practice.

Servers sure go through a lot!