The Customer Is Always Right

Jerk, Karma/Comeuppance, New York, Restaurant, Time, USA | Right | December 12, 2020

I work as a hostess in an upscale restaurant. Most of our customers are on the wealthy side, so they tend to think they can treat others like crap. Most of them aren’t too bad except for this one customer. Without fail, he phones in every Friday at four for a reservation at six, but he always shows up around seven-thirty with his family in tow. We tell him every time that his reservation is long gone, and every time, he kicks up a fight until the manager seats him and his family and messes up our queues.

Finally, to solve the problem, we just start putting his reservation for seven-thirty when he calls and we tell him it’s at six. A new girl has started up with us and it’s her first night dealing with him.

New Girl: “All right, party of six for seven-thirty. If you’ll just come this way, please.”

Customer: “Excuse me, but I made my reservation for six, not seven-thirty. What are you trying to pull here?”

New Girl: “Oh, I’m sorry, but here it says seven-thirty. You’re on time and I can ta—”

Customer: “No! I don’t think you understand! I made my reservation for six and it’s not my fault you’re too stupid to do your job right!”

New Girl: “Okay, sir, since you insist your reservation was at six, and due to you missing it, you will have to wait for an opening, and the next available one is at nine.”

Customer: “Nine! My children are not going to wait until nine to eat! Get me your manager!”

New Girl: “No.”

Customer: “What? How dare you?! I’ve never been treated so disrespectfully!”

New Girl: “I gave you the time you wanted. Your seats were ready, but you demanded that you get a six-pm reservation. Now your family will have to wait because you have to be right. The manager will not fix this for you, and you will need to learn how to behave in the future.”

He proceeded to scream at her until security came and kicked him out. He was back the next week and didn’t say one word the entire time. It turns out the new waitress comes from old money and was doing the job to stay productive and had plenty of experience shutting down entitled brats.

This story is part of our Best Of December 2020 roundup!