Tuesday

It's been awhile...lets jump right in.

Friday, Table 10

A party of four middle aged (45-ish) folks stopped by to have some dinner. First, I offered them drinks...they all ordered something different, but nothing terribly complicated (a bloody mary, a house margarita, an electric lemonade and a peach cooler) as I was walking away I overheard one of the guys say, "We should've made her write that down. You know she's going to fuck them all up." And right then, I knew this was only going to get better.

I made their drinks and got them back to them in a timely fashion and they weren't ready to order yet, so I wandered off and did some other fun waitressy stuff and when I get back to the dining room 80's Hair Guy (think Ted McGinley, Married with Children) from my table is talking to my manager/bartender who is making a new bloody mary for him. I walk over to the table when he gets back and ask if there'd been a problem. (I mean, obviously there had been but I like to know what the problem was and apologize properly if it was my fault or make sure the customer knows why it happened...it makes me feel better) 80's Hair says, "Yeah, in that bloody mary you made the celery was moldy and it was disgusting. But your manager took care of it for me." "O-kay. Sorry about that, I hadn't noticed mold but glad it's all taken care of now. Are you guys ready to order?"
They order and just to prove to them how very cool I am, I write nothing down. I walk away to make their salads and in the two minutes it takes for me to get back, 80's Hair is back at the bar talking to my manager. I drop off the salads and go check with the manager to see what his deal was this time. He said that when he told me about the moldy celery, I called him a liar and pointed out that he was going to have to pay for it anyway. I started to tell the manager that no such conversation had happened and he told me not to worry, he'd seen the celery, he knew the guy was full of it. So, we left it at that.

I bring out their food, everyone seems quite pleased. I'd made no mistakes and couldn't help but smirk at 80's Hair Guy. (I'd since decided he made the first rude comment, considering he'd been the only one starting any trouble.) I come back to check on them, for the second time, about 15 minutes into their meal to suggest dessert and clear plates...and 80's Hair Guy says, "Well, the steak is excellent. Really above par. Far more than I would've expected from this restaurant. But. Oh, nevermind. Wait. I really should tell you. But. No, don't worry about anything. It's all fine." Now, as curious as this is making me I have a new table and I really would just love it if he'd stop blabbering, "Sir, if something is wrong, tell me. I'll do my best to fix it, but I can't do anything if you don't say anything."

"I've picked six hairs out of my mashed potatoes. Everytime I took a bite there was another hair in my mouth. I threw them on the floor so I can't show them to you. Can you bring me new mashed potatoes?" And he hands me a plate with maybe three bites of potatoes left. I get him new potatoes and tell my manager about the six invisible hairs. My manager replied, "Fuck that weirdo. Don't give him no discounts. He's trying to get free shit. He better go to Wendy's and cut off his finger. *maniacal laughter*" Yeah, and the customer's the weirdo.

Anyway. After I dropped off their check, 80's Hair Guy comes up to me and says, "Excuse me, my meal's still on the ticket." "Yes, sir. I talked to my manager and since we replaced the food considering how much you'd already eaten, he felt a discount wasn't warranted. Have a great night."

After they'd left, the manager came over and said that 80's Hair Guy had threatened to call the Health Department for the moldy celery and the hair in his potatoes if his meal and drink weren't removed from the bill.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

So... what happened? Did your manager tell him to suck an egg or what? Don't leave us hanging!!

Anonymous said...

Shmeder:
I hope they're hindu and are forced to be karmically (sp?) bitch slapped by an eight-armed goddess.

Nate:
He didn't actually tell me what he did. He just told me about the guy threatening to call the health department.

I'm guessing he took the food off for him. My manager tries to be thuggish, but really, he caves pretty damned easy.

Dave said...

That's my biggest problem with that place: All your manager did was just encourage that asshat to continue his asshattiness. It's okay to take a stand every once in a while--just as it's okay to tell your employee where he/she was wrong, if the case warrants it. That's why managers are MANAGERS. Handled correctly, in the long run, the company will make better profits and the employees will have confidence in management.

But I've long since said that if corporate America ran its businesses like mom & pop restaurants, everyone would have been sued into famine decades ago... And if it were vice-versa, the requisition forms you'd have needed to fill out for the additional potatoes would have had a similar result.