I work in a restaurant. It was a slow Wednesday, and this lawyer regular of mine reserved a table for himself and seven of his lawyer buddies for 4:00 pm.

I like these guys. They tend to show off sometimes — one of them usually arrives in his Cullinan (Rolls-Royce) or the Mulsanne (Bentley) with his chauffeur, and other ones brag about their courtroom successes — but mostly, they are a respectable bunch and they always leave at least a 40% tip. They know and remember me by name and always ask for me specifically.

I made a pretty good prix fixe menu for them; they completely trust me with ordering for them. They ordered a few bottles of Champagne. I let them bring their own scotch — Glenfiddich, twenty-six years old — and they even poured me a few drams. Everything was going swimmingly.

They rang up a total bill of around $2,000 with a 20% service charge added on top of that, and tipped me another $400.

However, they did not plan on leaving just yet. By that time, they were really tipsy, smoked some weed — it’s legal now here in NYC — and decided to stay and continue the fun. It was already closing time by then, but what the h***? I just let them stay since I was in charge of the shift.

Since I let them stay, they became even more friendly and kept tipping me every time I checked on them. I’m not talking about twenties or fifties — only straight-up hundred-dollar bills. I kind of let them smoke inside. F*** it — they were the only table there and one of them gave me extra $500 to kind of disregard the fact that they were smoking.

They ended up inviting some girls for champagne, had a grand time, and ended up leaving round 1:00 am, drunk, high and in a really good mood.

Only two people were working that day: my busser and me. I paid him $1,500, and I left with $2,300 in my pocket. So, yeah, it was a very good day — the most that I have ever made in one shift.

I guess there is no moral to the story; I just wanted to share my pleasant experience. Cheers! And may all of you have such fruitful shifts on weekly basis.

I am Hispanic, but I know about as much Spanish as your average Johnny Q. Public: “Como se llama,” “Uno, dos, tres…”, and that’s about it.

Yet when I started working in customer service as a cashier, I would routinely come across these types of comments:

Customer #1: *After misunderstanding something I said* “Oh! Sorry, it’s your accent. I’m not Mexican, after all.”

Customer #2: *Again, after not clearly understanding something I said* “You can speak English with me, not Spanish.”

Customer #3: *After discovering an error with his order* “If you can’t understand fluent English, then you just need to work in the kitchen or ask your boss to give you an interpreter to help you!”

And then, there was this woman. She was in a separate line, waiting for another cashier. He went on break as she was approaching and directed her over to me. She walked up to my register while wearing a twisted, sour expression on her face like I was openly picking my nose.

Customer #4: *Very slowly* “Can you understand me?”

Me: “I most certainly can! How can I help you today?”

Customer #4: “What?”

I repeat myself more slowly.

Customer #4: “You’re not as fluent as you think you are, so just stop. And that’s ‘May I take your order, please?’ not ‘How can I help you today?’ You say that when you’re working in a retail store.”

She then proceeded to very slowly give me her order. When she was finished:

Me: “For here or takeaway?”

Customer #4: “…”

Me: “For here or takeaway?”

Customer #4: “…”

Me: “Madam? For here or takeaway?”

Customer #4: *Screaming* “For here! And it’s called ‘to go’, not ‘takeaway’.”

Me: “Your total will be $8.50.”

Customer #4: “Can you break a $100 bill?”

Me: “No, I just started and don’t have enough—”

Customer #4: *Loudly huffing* “Can I have someone who speaks English, please?! I don’t have all day!”

That was when the customer behind her stepped forward next to her.

Customer Behind Her: “Hi, I’ll have [series of food items].”

Customer #4: “EXCUSE ME! I’M STILL ORDERING!”

Customer Behind Her: “I’m on my lunch break. You want to play your games, do it on your own time.” *Continues his order*

She loudly protested, only for the customer to continue talking to me like she was invisible. I smirked, canceled the first order, and gladly took the new order, also while pretending she was invisible. She ultimately gave up and stomped out of the restaurant.

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As with most of us, there are nights that I just don’t have the energy to cook. My husband and I have a rotation of places where we like to eat. We have recently moved into a new house. The day we moved, I called to have pizza delivered but was told they don’t deliver to the address. I was annoyed but said fine and went to pick it up since we didn’t have the kitchen set up and unpacked. We had a couple of others hesitate to deliver as well, but usually, they caved.

One day, after having woken up late and working a fifteen-hour day, I was exhausted and didn’t want to cook. My husband had been wanting Indian food, so I called up the local Indian place that we frequent enough that they know us. I chatted with the girl that took my order and asked for delivery. I knew I’d make it home before the delivery driver made it. As soon as I gave her the new address, she informed me that they couldn’t deliver. So, I said fine. I’d pick it up. The restaurant wasn’t too far out of my way, and the thought of their naan and some butter chicken was all that got me through the day.

When I got to the restaurant, I walked in and chatted with the hostess as my order was finished. It wasn’t particularly busy, but I figured they must be short-staffed, so I said something about not being able to deliver. She looked at me funny and said they could have delivered, so I explained that I was told they couldn’t. She got confused until I told her we had moved, and when I updated the address, the server said no to the delivery. She apologized and went to update the address. Then, the truth came out.

The previous owners of the house would call and order food from there and always disputed the charges with their bank or credit cards the next day or two after. So, the business got tired of losing money and refused to deliver to them any longer.

Apparently, they did this all around town and had gotten our address blacklisted from delivery. I swear, some people are scum! Guess I will have to go into our favorites and show that we live at this address so we can have delivery again.

My wife, her daughter, her daughter’s husband, and I are eating at a restaurant during the evening meal. We are sitting in a booth just off the bar area.

The waitress brings our meals. My wife takes a bite of her pasta meal and pulls out a plastic strip that frozen food packages come with to pull and open to empty the contents.

She calls our waitress to show her. The waitress takes the plate back to the kitchen to have it remade.

In the meantime, just around the corner, I hear the waitress complaining to the manager about my wife’s food.

Waitress: “The cook has been hitting on me all week and asking me out. I told him to leave me alone, so he said he was going to ‘fix’ all my meals and that I would regret turning him down.”

The manager brought out a new plate for my wife and never mentioned anything about comping it.

The next thing I heard was the sound of tables and chairs being knocked over in the bar area. I looked back around the corner from our booth and saw the manager and the cook in question in a fight — right there in the restaurant.

We found out that the manager was attempting to escort the cook out of the building after firing him and the cook thought otherwise — at least for a few minutes.

I’m seventeen, and I am a waitress, server, and cashier at a semi-local Italian chain. I recently had to take a month off of work for health reasons, since I was in the emergency room and then had to spend time in inpatient care. While I was away, there were huge changes at my job, including new managers and two new employees.

I’ve only been working there since last June, but I picked things up pretty quickly, barring the first day that I had to deal with a packed dining room by myself while still in training; I’d messed up pretty badly with the computer system and needed the manager’s help. Still, it happens.

Yesterday, I met a new girl for the first time. It was her third day, and she was still in training. She’s my age and a complete sweetheart, and as the dining room slowly became more and more packed, we made a great team. She got to practice working with the computers and talking to customers while I took down the orders and showed her how everything worked. It was her first time “properly” serving there, and she really did great considering that, certainly at first.

The other two people who were working were a middle-aged manager and one other hourly employee. The managers at my job will also serve and work the counters; basically, all waitresses have to do double the work, and we still get paid dirt, but that’s another story.

I was running between the dining room and the counters to try to keep up — although we can only serve a maximum of two people at the counters picking up or placing orders at a time. It was to the point where my manager and her friend had bundled up and complained about how cold it was, while I was flushed, with my coat off, covered in sweat. (I cleaned myself up when dealing with the food, of course.)

The manager and her friend were sitting down together, alternating between scrolling on their phones and talking, only getting up to answer the phones when they’d already rung five-plus times and having people wait at the counters to be helped for ten-plus minutes. It was massively irritating, but I didn’t have the time or energy to confront them.

About halfway through my shift, my manager told me that I couldn’t just go in between the dining room and the counter, and if I didn’t pick one or the other she’d withhold my tips for both since I “wasn’t fully invested in either.” Ouch.

[Manager] gave me a choice on paper, but in reality, she made it perfectly clear that I was stuck behind the counter and the new girl, the trainee, was on her own. There was nothing I could really do, so I just stayed at the counter, though that was plenty slammed in and of itself, and I really, really could have used my two coworkers who were screwing around on their phones. I didn’t have time to answer phone calls, pack up orders, check people out, and take to-go orders all at once, and I had one particularly angry woman call me a “lazy b****” for leaving her on hold for about two minutes. (That stuck with me.) While I was doing all this, the new girl was stuck with a packed dining room and no help.

About twenty minutes into it, [Manager] approached me looking both angry and sheepish. Basically, the trainee had messed up and charged the wrong orders to the wrong cards and needed help, though the way [Manager] phrased this was:

Manager: “You know, you don’t have to stay by the counter the whole time. That’s not what I meant.”

I looked over and could see her friend on her phone still, and the manager herself still had AirPods in and a show playing on her own phone screen. I responded in my sweetest, most respectful voice:

Me: “I’m sorry, but as we only get paid $10 an hour, my tips are too vital for me to forfeit them, so I’m going to stay put.”

(For context, the minimum wage is $15.65 where I live.)

[Manager] was floored, and instead of helping either of us herself, she waddled back to her seat and resumed her show.

Of course, I ended up checking in with the trainee and asked if she needed my help and whether the mistake was sorted out. She said that she had things back under control and a lot of the people dining in were headed out, which was great because the counter was still slammed.

This morning, apparently, a customer called in and complained that “the blonde girl [me] and the girl with braids [Trainee] were so busy that they were sweating, while the two other women [manager and her buddy] were sitting on their phones.” I only wish I could’ve seen [Manager]’s face when she heard about the complaint.

I am definitely planning on reporting my manager to the state, but I’m still trying to figure out the best way to do so. I’ve been applying for other jobs but haven’t heard back and I can’t afford to be fired in retaliation. I’m a self-supporting seventeen-year-old who has bills due regardless and is trying really hard to not drop out of school, especially so close to graduation. I’ve been put in touch with social programs and assistance, but they all take a really long time to hear back from.

So far, I haven’t made a report as there’s no way to do a state audit without the name of the employee (me!) being revealed.