My father, mother and I were out at a local Chinese restaurant that we’ve gone to frequently over the years. I’m a sophomore in college, and getting a minor in Mandarin Chinese. This is my ninth year studying the language formally (6th grade through 12th as well as in college) and that’s not including the informal study of the language I did before I started in 6th grade. My father studied Mandarin some 30+ years ago when he was in college, and his pronunciation is always wrong. This time, he’s screaming at me about how I don’t know how to pronounce “Mei Zhou” (roughly sounds like May Joe. He’s pronouncing it May Show). The waitress comes up, after having heard the whole exchange, to take our order.

Waitress (in a relatively thick Chinese accent): Are you folks ready to order?
Me: Yes, I’ll have the Sichuan green beans and the sweet and sour fish.
Mother: I’ll have (whatever she ordered)
Father: I’ll have the Meizhou pork buns (again, pronounced May Show).
Waitress: Alright, so I have one Sichuan green beans, one sweet and sour fish, and one MeiZHOU pork bun (she puts extra emphasis on the fact that ‘zhou’ is pronounced the way that I have been pronouncing it the whole time)
Father: *blushing at this point* U-uh, yes…
Waitress: *turns to me* You are very good at Chinese. Keep up the good work.

This happened recently during a super busy night. We have chicken burgers on our menu, and since day 1 they’ve been made with chicken ground in-house. The front of house manager comes to the me (chef) with a returned chicken burger:

Manager: “Hey… just to check, this is the regular chicken burger, right? Not our veggie chicken?”
Me: (taking one look at it) “Yup… that’s regular chicken, do I need to make a new veggie one?”
Manager: “No no… this customer just keeps saying it’s not chicken, I thought I was going crazy for a second”

He leaves and comes back 5 minutes later:
Manager: “So… that customer wants to talk to you, he’s not angry or anything, please come?”
Luckily he came in a small lull in service, so I went to speak to this customer.

Me: (hiding my annoyance) “Is everything alright?”
Customer: (waving the burger in my face) “This isn’t chicken”
Me: “Uh… yes… it is…”
Customer: “No it isn’t, chicken has fibres and everything, this isn’t chicken! What is this?!”
Me: “I assure you, sir, it’s chicken. We just pass it through a grinder and form it into patties…”
Customer: “No it isn’t! This isn’t chicken! I ordered the chicken burger because I had it last time and it was pieces of chicken together! This isn’t chicken, I don’t know what this is!”
Me: “Like I said sir… this is chicken, I don’t know where you had that before, but it certainly wasn’t here, as this is how we’ve done our chicken burgers since day one…”
Customer: “Stop lying! I’ve had it before here! WHERE’S THE CHICKEN?? WHAT IS THIS?!”
At this moment I couldn’t help but laugh and just walked away.

The manager was annoyed with me at first, but apparently the guy didn’t leave any complaints.

Ever since then the kitchen staff will periodically pick random food items up (usually vegetables) and scream: “WHERE’S THE CHICKEN?! WHAT IS THIS?!!”

(I work at a drive-thru West-Mex restaurant known for its seasoned tater tots. We have a burrito with them in it, with three options for meat, which are all about as popular as the other, so there’s no “automatic” choice for it.)

Customer: “I’d like a meat and potato burrito.”

Me: “Sure thing, a meat and potato burrito. Would you like that to be beef, grilled chicken, or crunchy chicken?”

Customer: “I want the meat kind!”

Me: “Sir, those are all meat.”

Customer: *now yelling* “I want the meat kind!”

Me: “Okay, sir, and what does the meat kind look like?”

Customer: *calm again* “Oh, uh, I don’t know… brown and crumbly?”

Me: “That sounds like our beef taco meat, so you wanted that meat and potato burrito to be beef?”

(At the restaurant where I am a hostess, all customers can sit at the bar whenever they want, but have to check in at the front hostess stand in order to be seated at a table. This man who has a priority seating arrangement refuses to understand this.)

Me: “How are you tonight?”

Customer: *points to his name on the priority seating list* “That’s me. I want to go to my table now.”

Me: “Okay, I will check you in.”

Customer: “No, I want to go now. I’ve been at the bar!”

Me: “I’m sorry, sir, but you did not check in. I have no way of knowing you are here if you haven’t told me. I can seat you in a few minutes.”

Customer: “But I’ve been waiting at the bar! Why didn’t you come get me?”

Me: “As I said, we did not know you were here as you did not check in.”

(This continued for a while until he left, apparently angry that I didn’t have telepathic powers to tell me when he decided to grace us with his presence.)   

(I’m a host at a nice chain restaurant that is very popular in south Florida. A customer and his wife have just walked in, right when we’re starting to get into our dinner rush.)

Me: “Hi, guys! How can I help you?”

Husband: “We have a reservation under the name of [Husband] at 6:45.”

Me: “Yes, sir, I see it right here! Hold on to this pager for me, and I’ll page you a little closer to your reservation time, because it is only 6:30.”

Husband: “Why do we need this? We have reservations!”

Me: “Yes, sir, but your reservation isn’t for another fifteen minutes.”

Husband: *grumbles* “Okay.”

(He takes the pager and they both sit down. One of my fellow hosts looks at me.)

Host: “Oh, man, I’ve dealt with these people before. As soon as I heard his voice, I remembered him yelling at another host about not being seated immediately.”

Me: “Oh, God, this is going to be great, I’m sure.”

(Ten minutes later, the wife comes up.)

Wife: “We should be seated by now.”

Me: *checks pager number, sees they have another five minutes* “You still have another few minutes, ma’am.”

(She gives me a dirty look but sits back down. Three minutes later, she and her husband come storming up.)

Husband: *yelling* “Why are we not seated yet?!”

Me: “Sir! You have a couple more minutes left until your reservation time. We’re getting a table ready for you now.”

Husband: “We should have been seated by now! You gave the impression that we’d be seated before our reservation time! You lied!”

Me: *confused, but firm* “Sir, please stop yelling at me; it isn’t going to change anything! I’m sorry if you got that impression. That was not what I intended.”

Husband: “It doesn’t matter! You should have been more clear!”

Me: “Again, sir, please stop yelling! Your reservation time still hasn’t hit, and we can never guarantee that you’ll be seated before your reservation time. We are getting a table ready for you now, like I said, so please calm down and give me a couple of minutes.”

Husband: “I am not yelling. I’m just telling you what you should be doing!”

(My manager walks up and starts dealing with them, and I tune out to help other customers that have walked in and witnessed the entire thing.)

Customer: *eyeballing the man now standing silently against the wall* “We have a reservation for 6:45 also, but we’re okay with waiting.”

(Once we get a table set for the husband and wife, I immediately send a host to seat them to get them away from the host stand. A minute later, I look over and I see them sitting at a different table that wasn’t even bussed off, and the other hosts frantically trying to clean around them and them refusing to move from the table we didn’t seat them at. I just groan and let them stay, realizing the battle isn’t worth it to get them to sit at the table I originally put them at. And then, immediately after their server goes to them with water, they start complaining about that, too. Later, one of my server friends walks up, glancing at the husband and wife.)

Server: “Is that [Customer]?”

Me: “Unfortunately.”

Server: “I remember dealing with them when I was a host. They’re the actual worst. They hate waiting more than anyone else I’ve ever met.”

Me: “Yeah, I definitely figured that one out.”

(At least now I can say I’ve been yelled at for not seating someone BEFORE their reservation time.)