Today was an all-around awful day for tips in general, but this was something else.

A guy came in and sat at a table in the bar. Then, a woman showed up. Both got coffees to go and sat around on their computers for a while. I dropped the bill off. The guy paid in cash and the woman thanked him for paying. He was a nice guy. He got up and left a five-dollar bill on the table under the water I had brought for him.

I assumed that was it, so it surprised me to look over and see the women snapping at me. She wanted to order food. Okay. I got her order. The five-dollar bill was still there. I should’ve grabbed it. I put in the food order and finished.

I noticed the woman moving tables. I went to bus the first table and pick up the tip… but it was gone.

She paid with a five and a couple of ones and left me the change, which was less than a dollar.

So, she stole the tip to pay for her food, made me bus two tables, was rude, and camped at the table for one or two hours… and still people wondering why the service industry is struggling.

There’s a customer who is a regular at both of my restaurant’s locations. He comes across as friendly. Honestly, I don’t care if a customer is nice as long as they don’t give me trouble. I have a coworker who likes to make conversation with customers and likes to kiss up to them in order to persuade them to come back again.

This particular coworker was serving the friendly regular his food. He ordered a jumbo soup ($7.70) and a jumbo pepper shrimp ($20.35). In the process of ringing him up, he told me:

Customer: “I can only afford the soup.”

So, I charged him for the soup only. But then, he was kind of charming my coworker.

Customer: “I can get the money at home later and come back to pay.”

Meaning that he would take the shrimp without paying first but would pay later.

In my mind, I was thinking that he should just come back some other time when he could afford it so that we didn’t have to chase him down for the money. But my coworker, who is also kind of my superior, told me to give him the shrimp because she assumed he would pay because she “knows” him.

This was on Friday. On Monday, I got a call from her.

Coworker: “The guy from Friday didn’t pay. You should expect him to show up today to hand over the money. I had to pay out of my own pocket to cover the cost of the shrimp on Friday.”

He never came. It’s been a week and he still has not paid the $20.35 for the jumbo shrimp. I hope my coworker learned that it doesn’t matter what kind of “relationship” you have with a customer; you can always be in a position where they can take advantage of your kindness and use it against you.

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.