Some Bosses Won’t Be A Party To Anything
(When I arrive to start preparing for the dinner shift, I see that we have a reservation for a birthday party with 13 guests, and that they’re due to arrive about 30 minutes after we open. I organize everything essential quickly and then begin to move tables together so they’ll have enough places to seat everyone at one long table.)
Manager: “What are you doing?”
Me: “Setting up a table for the reservation of 13.”
Manager: “You don’t need to do that now.”
Me: “Uh… they’re coming in just half an hour. I should really have it ready before they arrive.”
Manager: “You can just do it when they get here.”
Me: “They shouldn’t have to stand around and wait for me to do something that I could have done before they arrived, and by the time they get here, we might have other customers as well. I’d rather set up the table now and avoid the stress.”
Manager: “There’s no stress in that situation. You’d have to do it. No stress for me!”
Me: “But we’d be forcing a party of 13 to stand in the entryway while the tables get set up.”
(My manager gives an exasperated sigh at this point but gives in. Though I was planning to move the tables myself, he ends up helping push three four-seaters together.)
Manager: “There, done.”
Me: “That’s only 12 seats. We’ll need to put one more of the two-seat tables on the end here.”
Manager: “All 13 probably won’t show up. They’ll just end up having a big empty table.”
Me: “Isn’t it better to just assume they will and not make fools of ourselves?”
Manager: “I don’t want to move them right now.”
Me: “You don’t have to. It’s just one table; I’ll do it.”
Manager: “You don’t need to.”
Me: “I’m going to anyway.”
(I move the last table over and then set up menus, glasses, napkins, and cutlery for 13. While I’m doing this, two other small tables arrive, so I am right that we’d have other customers by the time the party of 13 arrived.)
Manager: “You’re just going to look silly when all 13 of them don’t show up.”
(Two minutes later, the birthday party arrived. All 13 came at once!)
This story is part of our Birthday Party Roundup!
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Question of the Week
Have you ever served a bad customer who got what they deserved?
