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It was a really busy Sunday afternoon, Sunday’s are always our busiest
day of the week because it’s when big families come out for a
traditional Sunday roast.
At around 1pm (our rush is from 1-3) a mother and her daughter enter
the restaurant and the host tells me she has seated them in my
section. As I approach their table to take their drinks order they
immediately look me up and down, and I can already tell that both them
and the sticks up their asses are going to drive me insane. They ask
me for clean menus because theirs are sticky (already annoying) and
they order a large bottle of sparkling water. When I come back with
their drinks and to take their food order they question me on
basically every single item on the menu ‘are the nuts on the veal
special salted’ of course I did not know the answer to this, so when I
replied ‘I’m not sure, let me quickly run into the kitchen and ask the
chef for you’ she gave me a look like I’d just slapped her in the face
and said ‘well, you are the waitress, it’s your job to know what’s on
the menu’ ‘I apologized and quickly ran into the kitchen before I did
slap her in the face. When I returned and informed her that the nuts
were salted, she grimaced and asked ‘do you have anything gluten free’
and then it was ‘are the peppers in the salad green or red’ who
fu**ing cares!? And when they finally decide to order 2 salads they
ask for no cheese, no dressing and no croutons. So, they basically
ordered two bowls of lettuce. As it is the busiest day of the week, I
inform them the food will be about 30 minutes because we have a lot of
orders in at the moment, they both look unimpressed but don’t voice
their opinions, so I take that as my cue to quickly escape before they
get the chance. When their food arrives the mother turns to me with a
look so patronizing it makes me want to rip her eyelids off. ‘Excuse
me, but you told us the food would be 30 minutes, we’ve been waiting
35, I think this is very unacceptable’. I apologize for the wait and
ask them if there is anything else I can do for them, they say no and
turn to pick at their ‘meals’. By this point, I was completely
slammed, all my tables were taken and I was rushed off my feet trying
to get round to everybody, when my manager calls me over. ‘I just had
a phone call from one of your tables, they said that they have been
waiting 10 minutes for someone to take their plates away and that they
want to order desserts’ I knew straight away who it was. I was in
complete shock, I mean for one, they wanted dessert after they had
eaten a lettuce leaf for their lunch, but for someone to actually ring
the restaurant to complain to the manager, while they are still
eating. I mean, come on, it’s outrageous! And they could see how busy
I was, but nevertheless I strode over, a big smile plastered on my
face, ready to take their dessert order, I picked up their empty bowls
and apologized for taking ‘so long’ to get round to them, and asked
them what desserts they would like. They asked me what the crumble
was, and I replied ‘It’s pear and cherry filling with a chocolate
topping’ the mother looked at me like I was batsh*t crazy and said
‘chocolate topping?’ and I said ‘yes’ trying hard not to rip her hair
out. ‘But I don’t understand, crumble is meant to have a crumble
topping, chocolate is not a topping for a crumble’, treating me as
though I was the stupidest person she had ever encountered, so I
smiled sweetly and did the exact same thing back ‘well ma’am, this is
a crumble topping, it’s just chocolate flavored, it’s a chocolate
crumble topping, do you understand now?’ the fake smile, starting to
hurt my cheeks. She replied ‘well, not really, can I please have the
crumble with a regular topping, thank you.’ I gritted my teeth, having
had quite enough of her bitchy, snooty attitude. ‘I’m sorry ma’am, but
the crumbles were made this morning with the chocolate topping, it’s
the only topping we have, would you like another dessert instead?’ She
stared me up and down and her daughter cut in ‘did your manager send
you over?’ ‘yes’ i replied. ‘Because you know we’ve been waiting 20
minutes for someone to take our dessert order, it’s not the service we
expect’ I turned and looked her straight in the eye. ‘I’m very sorry
that you feel that way, but as you may have noticed, I have been
extremely busy, and have been trying to get to everyone in turn, I can
only do one thing at a time, and my manager informed me you were
waiting for 10 minutes, not 20. Which is the usual amount of time
people like to wait after they have finished their food before they
order desserts, so I am just trying to do my job, the way I have been
trained to do it.’ The daughter went bright red and looked to her
mother for support, who was clearly infuriated, but as I was right and
I had not said it with an ounce of rudeness, there was not much she
could do. She asked for the manager and I smiled and sweetly replied
‘of course’. After they had left my manager walked up to me and said
‘well that woman was a fu**ing nightmare, thank you for not screaming
at her, because I think I would have’ What can you do? The customer is
always right. Well, actually the customer is usually just an as*hole!
- I Hate Pretentious People
