I work at a seafood restaurant, and we’re known for big seafood boils, but we’re a small kind of hidden gem restaurant.

This happened a while back, and I still remember the incident six months later.

I have about four tables at the moment, and I am managing pretty easily until I am given a table of eight grown adults. They are all super nice and very chatty. Everyone orders their own seafood boils and has some alcoholic drinks from the bar.

About an hour and a half in, one of the guys at the table stops me.

Guy: “Let’s do a round of shots for everyone, but I’m going going to pay for four of my family members.”

I proceed to send the ticket in. The mom of the table says she is only going to pay for her son’s shot (he is sitting next to her) and her own shot, so now I’ve placed an order for six out of eight, and the other two meekly stated that they’ll pay for their own.

This is where everything goes downhill. The mother’s bill is well over $100, with about $15 of gratuity for me. The guy who pays for his own food but has a good amount of drinks on his tab has about $7 of gratuity, and everyone else has less than that.

I walk over with tickets. They’re all very confusing because everyone is paying for at least one thing that someone else ordered. Then, the mom sees her total.

I thought nothing of it since she was paying for her grown son, and they both had roughly five drinks alone on the ticket. She looks at me and yells:

Mom: “I can’t pay for this! I only brought enough money for the food we came to eat, and I can’t pay for the gratuity.”

After going back and forth for a few minutes, I have to keep explaining to her that the tip will go toward me for the service and that we do indeed have a sign saying that gratuity is added for bigger tables and for my time. She practically begs me to take it off.

At this point, everyone else’s eyes are glued to the bottom of their tickets, and they all start agreeing with her. I’m just standing there in shock because how does that even make sense? I am not that new to the restaurant, so I know I can take the gratuity off as the server of that table. I tell her this calmly while lowkey blooming with rage and embarrassment.

I grab her ticket, and of course, everyone else hands theirs back wanting their five dollars taken off. I sulk back to my managers.

Me: “My party of eight can’t pay the gratuity. Just take it off.”

This made one of my managers super angry; he was working as a host, and that same party of eight had tried showing up the previous night after we had closed and my manager had sent them away. The real kick in the balls was that he’d told them he would bring them the best server (me) if they showed up the next day, and that’s exactly what they did.

I wiped my hands of them and took care of my other tables while avoiding them as my manager confronted them, cashed them out, and sent them on their way.

Afterward, my manager approached me.

Manager: “The mom at your eight-top stated that you were a great server and they’d still leave you a tip. Here you go.”

It was $22 in cash, and honestly, since I didn’t care about the tip or them, I was grateful because I was so angry I was going to burst into tears.

I never saw them again and I hope I never do.

On Monday morning, I get this call:

Caller: “There’s a $300 overdraft on my account! How did that get there?!”

Me: “Whatever you buy during the weekend does not get subtracted from your account until the next business day, which is today, Monday.”

Caller: “But I had money in my account on Friday!”

Me: “Ma’am, I am seeing your end-of-business-day balance, which is whatever you had in your account Friday after the processing cutoff. It was $86.”

Caller: “Yes! See?!”

I then confirm that her weekend purchases of a 120-dollar dinner, seventy-nine bucks in a club, and $200 at a fancy retail store are valid. They are.

Me: “Ma’am, if you knew you only had $86, you should not have spent so much money during the weekend.”

Caller: “It’s your fault for letting me spend so much money! You need to ensure that all overdraft fees be reimbursed because you should have stopped me from making those purchases!”

About a year before the global health crisis hit, I lost my previous long-time job. The drama surrounding that could be several individual stories — maybe someday.

This story is about the first interview for a new job I got afterward. Having been working in a warehouse for years and repeatedly passed over for promotion or transfer, I was excited to answer an ad for a Warehouse Supervisor position. The pay wasn’t superb, but it was better than what I’d been making. It was explicitly listed as an “introductory” salary, and there were various decent benefits listed.

I’d already spoken to the operations manager on the phone, and he liked what he heard and saw on the resume, so a lot of the interview was getting-to-know-you-type stuff about me and about the company, general warehouse-related questions, etc. The manager was very gregarious and very personable but also very, very much a salesman. It put me a little on edge how much he was trying to sell “opportunity” and “futures” and sounding more like a multi-level marketing scheme than a restaurant-supply warehouse.

After the less-than-impressive tour and meeting the warehouse manager — red flag #2 was that this group of less than ten people was to have both a manager and a supervisor — we finally sat down to discuss specifics on the job. Considering how happily he had responded to some extremely basic and common-sense questions, he was really overplaying a position of superiority when I could tell he was desperate. Then, this occurred.

Manager: “So, the pay rate is going to be $13 an hour, and—”

Me: “Whoa, hold on! The ad stated that the starting salary was going to be $16 an hour, and that was an introductory rate!”

Manager: “Well, let me finish. We run a minimum of fifty-hour work weeks, so that’s the equivalent of $16 for a forty-hour week, plus extras.”

Me: “Hm, that’s the first time I’ve heard about that because, again, in the advertisement for this position, it stated forty-hour weeks. So, you’re saying I would be getting a minimum of ten hours of overtime a week?”

Manager: “Actually, we don’t pay overtime; part of the contract is that you waive the right to it.”

Me: “I see, I see… Should I also assume that the benefits listed don’t match what you actually offer?”

Manager: “Oh, no, no! Our insurance is actually very high-tier for the amount it costs, and you qualify after twelve months.”

Me: “So, you want a warehouse supervisor who waives their legally obligated rights in exchange for below-standard pay rates and no benefits for a year?”

Manager: “Well, technically, you wouldn’t be a supervisor. We’d have you as a standard warehouse employee for a four-to-six-month evaluation before we decide where you’re going.”

Me: “Mhm. I’ll definitely have to think about that, but thank you for your time.”

I spent most of the hour-long drive home ranting and raving with my husband over the phone. The astonishing part was that the manager actually called me back twice, trying to offer me the “great opportunity” to work there and saying that I was passing up a “sure thing.”

Oh, yeah. So sure.

For the record, the job I DID get was a desk job with better pay and benefits, and I’ve already gotten a promotion and a raise despite the tumult the world’s gone through.

It seems like that company eternally has a “warehouse supervisor” hiring ad open. It’s a real mystery how it never gets filled!

My fourteen-year-old step-brother is looking to make some extra cash. His mother (my stepmother) asks if there is anything I can have him do, so I offer him $50 to mow my half-acre lawn.

The next day, my stepmother calls.

Stepmother: “You owe [Step-Brother] more money.”

Me: “Why?”

Stepmother: “He was at your house all day for $50! That’s child labor abuse!”

Me: “I picked him up, fueled the lawn mower, and dropped him off at your house. That’s all gas paid out of my pocket.”

Stepmother: “Yes, but—”

Me: “I also fed him before and after he mowed.”

Stepmother: “Well—”

Me: “He also took a shower here, which is water and electricity on my bill. So, yes, I do think $50 is more than fair for a fourteen-year-old working one hour when I provide everything else that day.”

Stepmother: “You could have given him a little extra. He was helping you.”

Me: “I am capable of mowing my own lawn, but you insisted that I should help him earn money.”

She hung up.

My step-brother called later to apologize and thank me for the cash. He told her all the extra things I did for him, but she still only heard that he made $50 for spending about five hours at my house and decided I was taking advantage of him.

I work for my college’s dining services in a kiosk located in one of our largest buildings.

We have a regular come up to order.

Regular: “Mocha without espresso.”

Me: “That’s just a hot chocolate.”

Regular: “No, it’s a mocha. Just take out the espresso.”

Me: “I can ring that up for you, but I’m just telling you because a hot chocolate is cheaper while still being the same thing.”

She cannot get it through her head that milk and chocolate syrup without espresso is hot chocolate. I give up and just charge her for a hot chocolate, make it, and give it to her.

A few days later, she comes back to the counter, exceptionally angry.

Regular: “Why does my receipt say hot chocolate?!”

Me: “I was charging you less money.”

As I said, I’d given up on explaining the other part.

Regular: “Refund that and re-ring me up as a mocha without espresso!”

She threw her card at me. I gave up trying to understand and just did as I was told. Strange way to pay fifty cents more.

Related:
Making A Mocha-ry Of Yourself, Part 3
Making A Mocha-ry Of Yourself, Part 2
Making A Mocha-ry Of Yourself