There are a large number of adolescents who, to earn a little extra money before the school year, get summer jobs. A common job for teens to pick up is being a waiter or waitress. Now every job has its ups and downs, but there are some universal downs that waiters/waitresses have to experience.
These are just a few of many types of people who come through our restaurants terrorizing everything as they go; whether you were a waitress years ago or are still one, you can relate to these “face-palm” type of people.
1. People who ask, “What's good?” and end up getting the opposite of what you say
Hey, you’ve never been here before? That’s fine, but if you ask me what my favorite thing on the menu is and you get the complete opposite? It stings a little bit, not going to lie.
2. People who ask about the appetizers and after you say your whole spiel, they ask you to repeat it
Chances are you aren’t the first person to ask what the lengthy list of appetizers are so typically we know them by heart, and we can recite them pretty much on command. Just because we can say them on command does not mean we want to or enjoy doing so. Listen carefully the first time we say them because telling you four times that we have broccoli bites isn’t fun for us either.
3. People who change their order approximately 848 times
Okay, I get it, choosing what you want to eat is a hard decision. Please, please leave the waiter or waitress out of your indecisiveness. We just want to do our jobs and serve you your food in a timely, satisfactory manner. What we do not want to do is furiously write the 14 totally different orders you come up with.
4. People whose orders are so particular they're basically creating a new item on the menu
No tomatoes on your burger? That’s fine! However, ordering a gluten free, no lettuce, no tomato, low carb, low fat, grade-A beef burger with a whole wheat toasted sesame bun is not something we are partial to accommodate to.
5. People who ask you to split the check with every one of their 12-person party after you hand them the bill
It takes a while to calculate the bill and double check the math. If you work at a smaller food establishment like I did, you did everything by hand with a little calculator. On top of calculating the bill, you also had to wait on the other tables, refill drinks, and serve food. The last thing I want to do is give you your bill and have you hand it back to me asking to split it into 12 separate checks.
6. People who hide the tip in weird places on the table
You are not cute, clever or funny if you throw the loose change portion of your tip into your empty glass or hide it under a pile of napkins. It is exhausting playing hide and seek with the money that we earned. Not only that, but it is really quite rude to the waiter/waitress who already did everything plus served you to the best of their ability.
7. People who say “strike one” when something doesn't go their way at the restaurant
Believe it or not, yes, people have done this. I am truly sorry we do not have a certain brand of iced tea, but this is not baseball. You are not the umpire, therefore, you may not tell me how many strikes I have when something doesn’t go your way.
8. People who speak so fast it is basically another language
That notepad you see us holding is, in fact, a notepad. We are only humans and we cannot write as fast as you are talking. This is especially true when you make modifications on parts of your order you already said because then we have to go back and fix what we wrote down previously.
9. PEOPLE WHO DON’T TIP
People, tips are the main form of income for waiters/waitresses. We get paid, if we’re lucky, three dollars per hour. Our main job is to serve you so even if you have a “terrible” waitress, try to put yourself in our shoes and think about how much we have to juggle. Chances are that he/she is not in a bad mood because they want to ruin your dinner, more than likely they are trying to remember to give the check to table 15, and serve the food to table three. That doesn’t mean there aren’t bad waitresses out there but there is really no excuse for not tipping anything.
These sorts of people are, unfortunately, common in the restaurant scene. Believe it or not, a few people have tallied “strikes" when things didn’t go their way in the restaurant, and even though I never “struck out” that does not mean it didn’t get under my skin enough to remember it months later. It is not hard to be a good restaurant guest, just order something we actually serve and leave the customary 15% tip. You will probably get service with a smile and never hear a complaint from us!
P.S. If you felt like you were being called out at any point in this article, you should probably correct your restaurant etiquette immediately before returning to any more food establishments.
