I was serving in the dining room. We had those really long booths that can fit like eight people in them comfortably. I was serving one of those tables, and one guy was sitting at the very end by the wall. I came over and started pre-bussing their table.

Me: *To the guy at the end* “Can you hand me your plate? I can’t reach that far.”

He didn’t move at all or say anything for a second.

Customer: *Smirking* “Oh! Did you want me to hand it to you? You said, ‘can I,’ not, ‘may I’.”

Me: “Well, most people get the hint.”

He looked surprised for a minute, and the others looked at him, and I was like, “Oh, s***, I made them mad.” Then, he started cracking up laughing.

Customer: “I deserved that.”

He handed me the plate.

I’m told I am picky with food, but I don’t think I am. I have some ingredients that I don’t like and they are pretty common in most foods. It’s not a big deal, but it is pretty annoying if somewhere doesn’t list it as a main ingredient.

We are getting breakfast at a nice restaurant and I pick a simple sausage sandwich.

Me: “Oh, no butter, please.”

Waiter: “No butter?”

Me: “No butter on the sandwich.”

Waiter: “I’m not sure we use butter, but I will ask them to remove it.”

We get the food, I check mine and it’s full of butter. Before the waiter can go, I call him back.

Me: “Sorry, but could mine be remade? I asked for no butter.”

Waiter: “Oh, I did ask, but the cook said he only put a tiny amount on.”

I pick up the bread and wring the butter out into a puddle on the plate.

Waiter: “I will get that replaced for you.”

I had a big delivery with a $20 pre-tip already on it! I was super happy. When I got to the guy’s house, the bag ripped in my car and everything fell everywhere. Luckily, everything was salvageable, but some of the containers now had sauce on them and it was just going to be a messy delivery that I would have to give him piece by piece.

Before I even brought him the food, I knocked on the door and told him what happened. Not only was he totally sympathetic to my dilemma, but after I gave him all the food, he invited me in to wash the sauce off my hands, and he handed me a roll of paper towels to clean my car and an extra $20 bill!

I thanked him profusely before I left, and man, that really made my night. There are good people out there. Sometimes they’re few and far between, but when you run into somebody like this, it really restores your faith in humanity.

I’m sitting in a restaurant, having ordered one of the only vegetarian options on the menu, a burger which consists of salad, sauce, a big flat mushroom, and a slice of halloumi cheese. Just as we’re finishing, I overhear the following exchange at the table next to me.

Customer: “I’ll have your vegan burger, please.”

The server looks a bit confused but politely points out what we had already noticed: that the only vegan option on the menu is a curry. This isn’t ideal, so I do feel a bit bad for the customer, but the exchange continues.

Customer: “That’s all right, I’ll just have the vegetarian burger. Just make it vegan for me; I’m sure you can do that.”

Customer’s Partner: “Dear, don’t forget to check about the bun.”

Customer: “Oh, yes, can you see if the bun is vegan?”

The server looks even more confused but promises to go away and find out. I look down at my delicious burger, full of very non-vegan cheese and garlic aioli, but the bun seems to be a seeded one, so perhaps she’ll be all right… I think. A few minutes later, the server comes back. Bad luck: unfortunately, the bun also has milk in. The customer is not happy.

Customer: “Well, look, you can do something for me with that, can’t you? Just give me the patty and some salad or something, no bread? Hmm?”

Server: “But the burger—”

The customer is clearly losing patience and speaks with a sarcastic tone to her voice.

Customer: “Come now. This will have to do. Just talk to your chef and get it sorted for me. I’m sure he’s smart enough to work this out.”

The server hurriedly retreated. There was no patty in the vegetarian burger, something extremely obvious from the menu. I felt sorry for the server and the chef! I was pleased to be able to leave before the customer’s food arrived; I wasn’t looking forward to seeing her reaction to a single mushroom resting on some salad leaves.

I work as a chef in a hotel restaurant. Our kitchen closes at 11:00, meaning that we do not take any new orders after that, even if the chefs are still there for another hour to do clean-up and prep for the next day. This includes room service unless it’s something cold that only needs to be assembled.

The two people working reception at night could not be any more different from each other. [Receptionist #1] is always friendly with everyone, chats with the kitchen staff and servers, and actually comes in earlier to say hello to all of us and check if there’s anything to be discussed. [Receptionist #2] probably doesn’t know a single one of our names and is only friendly and all smiles to guests coming in.

One day at 10:45, we get an intercom call from reception.

Receptionist #1: “I am so sorry to ask this, but we have a VIP guest who’s called to let us know he’ll be checking in late, around 11:15, and asked if he could order some room service ahead of time so he can eat when he gets to his room.”

Me: “Depends on what he wants. If it’s warm, we’d probably have to prepare it and reheat it once he comes in. Otherwise, everything’s available.”

Receptionist #1: “I’ll ask him. I told him I couldn’t guarantee anything yet until I talked to the kitchen. Thank you so much!”

He calls back at 10:55, saying that the guest is completely okay with reheating food — it’d cool down a bit until it gets to his room anyway — and would like to order two of our hot dishes. With five minutes to spare before actual closing, the other chef and I prepare the dishes and arrange them all on room service table settings so that the receptionist only has to pick them up from the microwave station, ready to go. He thanks us profusely again and the guest leaves a very positive review the next day.

Two days later, at 11:20, when we’ve finished all the cooking stations already, [Receptionist #2] calls and starts talking without so much as a hello.

Receptionist #2: “I have an order for room service, late check-in. It should be in your ticket system.”

Me: “Yeah, no, the system is shut off already; no tickets are coming through. The kitchen is closed.”

Receptionist #2: “What?! You made two dishes for [Receptionist #1] this week!”

Me: “Yep. Not only did he contact us before closing time, but he also asked us first if we could do something after closing and made sure not to order things without the kitchen giving him the go-ahead.”

Receptionist #2: “But I promised this guest he’d have his food!”

Me: “Then you get to call him back and explain that that’s not happening and offer him the cold dishes we can still make.”

[Receptionist #2] just hung up on me. Then, he called back fifteen minutes later — we were pretty much done with the entire kitchen by then — and sheepishly asked for one of the cold cuts plates with bread. Apparently, the guest he’d promised the food to worked in the gastro-business, as well, and definitely understood the kitchen’s complaints, because our restaurant manager came in two days later with a private review from him, telling us that we did nothing wrong even while [Receptionist #2] was still complaining to management about it.

Honestly, we could’ve probably found a work-around for [Receptionist #2], as well, and offered at least some of our hot dishes, but it’s all in how you ask.