I work in a restaurant where I cook or wait tables depending on how long it takes me to get fed up with one or the other and need a change. We always have to be very conscious of allergies in food service as it can be life or death for some people with shellfish allergies, nut allergies, Celiac disease, etc.

Enter the gluten-free trend crowd.

While I recognize that some people have a legitimate allergy, there are so many that are trying to be trendy. The big difference is that a person with a true allergy already has a general idea of what they can and cannot have and will start the whole process off before ordering by letting us know what said allergy is, which we appreciate as it saves time. No big deal.

The trendy gluten-free peeps need to tell us three times throughout their order, and then, they always end up backtracking after they find out that basically everything they desire to order either contains gluten or is potentially cross-contaminated.

I am waiting tables this time around, and I’m starting to get tired of hearing about it. We have a particular almost-daily regular who tells us every time about her gluten intolerance, tells all the people sitting near her about it, and then proceeds to order items that have gluten.

I am having a bad day when she comes in. She does her normal spiel about being allergic to gluten.

Me: “Yup.”

That isn’t sufficient attention for her. She emphasizes what it does to her delicate system because she’s allergic. Then, she orders the usual: food cooked and prepared in the fryers — which have had gluten-ridden food fried in them all day. I’m thoroughly annoyed now, having to listen to her graphic details about her gut and the effects of gluten.

As usual, I inform her:

Me: “The food you’ve ordered is cooked in fryers that also cook items containing gluten.”

As usual, she replies:

Regular: “Oh, that’s fine.”

I have an evil idea pop into my head.

Me: “Ma’am, you just said you’re allergic to gluten. I cannot in good conscience put this restaurant or my job at risk by serving you food that you will have an allergic reaction to. I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to pick another item.”

She’s shocked and starts backtracking. I stand firm.

Me: “No. I’m sorry, but I just can’t do it. If you get sick from the food because I was careless about your allergy, then I could lose my job. These are the items you can choose from today.”

She asked for a manager and I called one over.

My manager was tired of this woman, too, and backed me up after hearing the story. The lady indignantly ordered one of the items I had listed to save face.

Obviously, there was no tip, but I don’t care; it was worth it.

She still came back two days later, miraculously cured of her gluten allergy.

Related:
Free Of Gluten, Free Of Thought, Part 9
Free Of Gluten, Free Of Thought, Part 8
Free Of Gluten, Free Of Thought, Part 7
Free Of Gluten, Free Of Thought, Part 6
Free Of Gluten, Free Of Thought, Part 5

I work in a restaurant. One day, I serve a group of teenagers who look around sixteen or seventeen. They order around $120 worth of food and eat pretty fast. Overall, they’re an “eh” table and I don’t expect to get a decent tip from them.

When it is around time to pay the bill, all of them get up at the same time and basically run out the door. The hostess and other servers try to stop them, but they claim:

Teenager: “Our mom is in the bathroom, and she will be paying.”

I didn’t even see them leave; they waited until I was busy before they dipped.

Here’s the funny part: at our restaurant, we have an online order system and customers (or whoever gives the name for the order) are able to pick up orders. We realize that one of the kids signed for and picked up an order before they got seated. We have the email and phone number of the person they picked up for, so we call up the number, and sure enough, a lady picks up. We tell her that her online order is ready to be picked up.

Lady: “Oh, my son should’ve already picked it up.”

Uh-huh.

Me: “Ma’am, your son and his group of friends dined and dashed. We’ll be calling the police if they don’t come back and pay their [$120-something] bill.”

Lady: *Sounding nervous* “Oh, they will come back to pay!”

Maybe a half-hour later, these annoying kids showed up again. They were loud and tried to make jokes about the situation, even joking about coming to drink next time. Not one of them apologized when they all took turns paying their part of the bill. No tip, either. Unbelievable.

Many, many moons ago, I worked in a building where the security team not only guarded at the front desk but also did physical inspections throughout the building.

The security director believed that his staff needed to do more inspections and that to do that he would need more staff and funding.

A part of his evidence for this was the rash of fires that had been occurring across the office paper waste baskets in the building — something his team spotted and dealt with. More inspections would help prevent such incidents before the fire alarms went off, saving the company from paying the fire department.

Unfortunately, despite being responsible for all the security in the building, he forgot that the building had security cameras…. which caught him starting the fires in the first place.

The security team got only one new staff member: a replacement director.

Back in 2006, I worked as a taxi driver on nights for a small (two-car) minicab company in a small town in North East England.

One Sunday, at about midnight, I get a call to pick up a customer from a pizza place on the high street. I get there and a young woman gets in carrying a takeaway.

Customer: “Drop me off [less than a mile up the high street].”

This racks up a fare of about £2.30. No problem. She then pulls out a £20 note.

Customer: “Ehh, but I don’t have any change.”

This is before contactless payment is a thing. She has just come out of a shop where she could have gotten change. This is a pretty common scam on short-distance fares; some people think male drivers will just let them go if they look needy or just bat their eyelashes.

I manage to make change, but it clears my float and I have to go back to my boss’s house to get more change. He isn’t happy as this takes me off the road, and he blames me for not making passengers pay exact fare.

Roll on to the next week.

I have had a bad Sunday. All night, I have been getting exact fare without asking for it, all in very small-denomination coins. My float is very heavy.

At the same time of night, I get a call for the same pick-up: the same woman and same destination.

She gives the same offer of payment of a £20 note.

Me: “No problem. I have over £17 of small-denomination coins!”

It took me five minutes to count out a double handful of coins that she could only store in her pizza box. She had to put the pizza on top of the box.

I never saw her again.

Some years ago, I quit my office job to be a stay-at-home mom and started a small home-based business doing freelance graphic design work. It had been a few weeks of having my website and Facebook page up and running and putting out ads when I got my first client. She wanted a simple logo created, as well as business cards designed for her herbal wellness business. I quoted her a very low price, mostly because I was excited to have a first client and I wanted to be nice. She loved the price and said that it was very reasonable and I was hired! I completed the job, she was thrilled with what I did, she paid on time, and all was well.

Over the next year, I ended up with many more design jobs for other clients and was keeping fairly busy doing it part-time while still being a mom. About a year after that first job, the same lady contacted me again. This time, she wanted some custom stickers designed, a brochure/pamphlet, and more business cards for her new colleagues. Design and printing for it all came to a nice sum of several hundred dollars. I sent her a detailed quote, which also stated that all was to be paid upon delivery of the printed items. She agreed, and I began the job.

Several weeks later, I had everything done and made an appointment to meet the client to deliver the stickers, brochures, and cards. I also sent her the invoice for the job and nicely reminded her that I needed payment at the time I gave her the items. She agreed.

She showed up and happily took all the items, but she had this sob story about how her vehicle had suddenly broken down that morning and she couldn’t pay me until her next paycheck in a week. I was still a bit naive, so I said it was fine and that she could pay me then. I’m sure you all know where this is going.

A week later, I reached out for payment and she never responded. Another week passed, and I emailed the invoice again and requested payment. Nothing. The third time I reached out, she had another excuse about how she couldn’t pay and needed more time. Again, naive me, thinking everyone in the world is as honest as I am, decided to give her the benefit of a doubt.

More weeks passed, and no response again. Blah, blah, blah, several months passed, and I finally realized that I was never going to get paid and decided to chalk it up to a lesson learned! From here on out, if someone can’t pay, they don’t get their design files or physical products! I should have known this already, I know, but like I said, I was naive. Oh, well…

Fast forward another six months. She contacted me, raving about how much she and her colleagues loved my work and how professional it looked. She asked if I would please design and print some postcard-sized ads for them to mail out to their clients to let them know of an upcoming sale event. I was surprised, to say the least.

I made up a quote for what she asked for but also included in the quote the amount she still owed me for the previous job, stipulating that the previous amount needed to be paid, plus I would need to be paid upfront for this job before I would consider doing it. I was very nice and diplomatic about it — no snark or anything.

Cue the tantrum! She was livid! How dare I demand to be paid upfront?! How could I put that previous amount owed onto the quote?! She ranted and raved about how she didn’t have the funds to pay for that previous job and I needed to get over it. She said I owed her this new project done, no matter what, because she was my first client and my whole business was built on her projects and her sharing me by word of mouth! (Her projects totaled maybe a fiftieth of what I had made total from the business; plus, I had never gotten any new clients that heard about me from her.)

After several paragraphs of her rabid ravings about how ungrateful I was and how she couldn’t believe I would do this, I couldn’t do anything but laugh. I just responded that my quote total stood and that if she didn’t like it, she was welcome to seek out a new designer.

I wished her well and moved on. After another tantrum email response, I added her email address to my spam filter, blocked her on Facebook, blocked her phone number from my phone, and moved on in life, much wiser about who I do work for and how I get paid!