I work as a bartender at a restaurant that sits on a lake. As summer turns into fall our customers turn from party lake goers, that are pretty laid back; to mostly regulars. Most are bearable but I have one that is absolute obnoxious and likes to sexually harass the staff. His “friends” even admit they refuse to bring the women they’re dating around him because he’s such an arrogant pig. Let me start off with this story;

One night a middle aged man comes in with his two daughters:

Customer: “Man, that’s a lucky guy…”

Me: “ummm, just so you’re aware, those are his daughters and they’re about 14 years old….”

He regularly is known to get buzzed, gets cut off, then proceeds to berate the staff about how we’re out of line for cutting him off and offering an Uber.

This all came to a head recently; this is the man who regularly insists we’re going to have sex with each other, that I should drive him home, and asks me to flash him while bartending. Finally he was asked to respect me. Que his melt down:

Customer; “ya know, you’re a real f***king idiot. You should never be allowed to bartend and I don’t even remember saying those things to you because I was drunk so they shouldn’t even matter. I take care of you when I’m here!”

You can bet your ass I told this man that being drunk is never his excuse to sexually harass anyone. He walked his tab and stormed out of the bar. I had so many people apologizing for him and offering to pay his tab.

The sad thing is; he’ll come back and tell me he was drunk so he should be granted forgiveness. He doesn’t know I’ll refuse to serve him any longer. A few dollar tip is never worth the sexual harassment from that man.

Client: Why is my business listed as vegetarian and not vegan in your directory?

Me: Because Sir, we looked at your website and saw that you serve honey and two dishes with eggs. Are you no longer serving these dishes?

Client: No that’s right – so the restaurant is vegan.

This happens during my first week on the job as a food runner for [Restaurant]. I’ve just delivered some meals to a table in the bar and am checking if they want anything else. I feel someone poke me, hard, in the ribs. I yelp in pain and shock, spinning around to see a couple on the next table over. The man starts loudly complaining at me, oblivious to my startled scream.

Customer: “My food is cold!”

He holds the plate out to me. It’s a partially-eaten gammon steak, with a couple of wet mouthfuls of chewed food piled next to it. Other people’s saliva deeply grosses me out, and I can’t help but flinch away from the plate. He shoves it closer and all but yells in my face.

Customer: “Touch it! Feel how cold this food is!”

I am pointedly ignoring his request while trying to recover my composure.

Me: “I‘m so sorry that’s happened! Here, let me take that. Would you like me to get the chefs to make you a fresh one?”

Customer: *Accusingly* “You don’t believe me, do you?! I’m not making this up!”

Me: *Desperately* “I do believe you, I promise, can I just—”

I moved to take the plate from him, and he GRABBED MY WRIST and forcibly smooshed my hand into the chewed food. I don’t remember anything about whether it was actually cold or not; it took all the concentration I had to not throw up in my mouth.

Related:
On The Need For Hazard Pay, Part 21
On The Need For Hazard Pay, Part 20
On The Need For Hazard Pay, Part 19
On The Need For Hazard Pay, Part 18
On The Need For Hazard Pay, Part 17

I’m at work and two older couples come in and sit in my section. I approach and everything is normal.

Customer: “I have a gift card. Do you need that now or what?”

Me: “No, that’s all right. I can take it later when I bring the bill. No worries.”

Everything proceeds as usual; the food is correct and comes out in a timely manner. No complaints to be had. Everyone is in a good mood.

The time comes to drop off the bill and he hands me the gift card. It’s addressed to him and is unopened. I go to run it, and while it is clearly from our company and says on the inside packaging that there should be $100 on it, it keeps getting declined with an error message telling me there are no funds to be used. I run the card three times and I type in the card number, but no luck. I head back to the table.

Me: “I’m sorry, sir, but I’ve tried everything I can, and I keep getting the message there aren’t any funds on the card.”

Customer: “Then you people stole money from my granddaughter. She bought it at another store as a gift, and then she sent it to me.”

My initial thought is that perhaps whoever purchased the card for him had an issue with their bank or payment originally and they were never charged so the card was never truly activated. Or perhaps the card was purchased at a corporate location and for some strange reason won’t work at the franchise location where I work.

Me: “Well, I’m sorry about that. I can grab the manager and see if there’s anything he can do that I wasn’t able to figure out.”

I go tell the manager the same thing; he tries the same things but to no avail. He tells me he’ll go talk to them. A couple of minutes later, I see him at the customers’ table, and when he walks away, I ask what they said.

Manager: “Oh, they said, ‘F*** you, f*** you, f*** you.'”

Me: “What?!”

Manager: “Yeah, the guy was super pissed and yelled at me because we wouldn’t honor the card, but I told him we would be losing that money by comping everything. We would need to keep the card so he couldn’t pull the same stunt again, but I didn’t tell him that part. And since the card was worth more than the total bill, what was I going to do, give him the last $30 back in cash or on a different gift card?”

Me: “Yeah, that makes sense. So, I guess I still need to go over there and give them the bill. Not looking forward to this.”

Manager: “No, I already got their actual card, ran it, and gave it back to them, so they should be all set now.”

I was so relieved, and they got up a minute later to leave and I was glad to be busy enough not to have to go back over there and talk to them again. Sir, I hope you do call corporate and get that figured out, because I wouldn’t want that to happen to someone else. I also don’t ever want to be on the employee end of that again, getting yelled at for something way out of my hands.

Related:
The Gift Card That Keeps On Giving, Part 18
The Gift Card That Keeps On Giving, Part 17
The Gift Card That Keeps On Giving, Part 16
The Gift Card That Keeps On Giving, Part 15
The Gift Card That Keeps On Giving, Part 14

On the phone:
Me: Good evening, (store name)
Customer: Hi, I’m in your men’s washroom and I need more toilet paper.
Me: Uh, we’ll have some out right away.

Thank fully I did not have to deliver the toilet paper.