If you have ever spoken to someone who has worked in customer service, they will likely tell you how terrible customers can be. And, given that we are all customers at some stage or another, we are likely, at times, the aforementioned terrible customers.
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Servers seem to endure the worst of humanity on a daily basis and, worst of all, do it with a smile. Service-industry jobs are among the hardest out there, and the workers are just doing their best.
If you learn anything from this thread, please treat your servers well and, of course, tip them adequately.
1. Do not be this person!
MonkeyInATopHat:
"I had a woman call me back to the table because I didn't place her nachos close enough to her. She asked me to push them closer to her.EDIT: There was nothing wrong with her. She was just overweight, lazy, and ignorant. Here's some extra icing on the cake: she was in a group of five people, and when the bill came, she said she would take care of it (to the cheers of her friends). A $5 tip on a $75 check."
2. WHAT
ezekielragardos:
"I worked as a server at a ritzy country club on Cape Cod, and this woman once brought in a paint chip and told me she wanted her cosmopolitan to be the exact same color as her pink paint chip."
3. Hmmmm
dawnshark:
"I had someone order a warm root beer. As in, stuck in the microwave and heated up. I definitely made a face, but I did it. It really sucks to work somewhere that has bottomless pop and be sticking one in the microwave every 15 minutes."
4. Do not hide tips in SOUP.
[deleted]:
"Ahhh, yes. OG.I worked there for a year. We had three old women come in. Each ordered water....One water from the tap with round ice.One water purified with ice like Sonic.One water from the soda machine, no ice.After being explained about one type of ice and only water from the fountain or bottled, they returned their waters three times before the poor man called them three old bitches and left.This same guy had one old lady come in twice every week, order one chicken gnocchi and water, and whisper to him, "I hid your tip in the soup so the busboy wouldn't take it." Sure enough, 18 or so cents in the soup."
5. EXTRA ONION
Rock_Hound:
"I had a four-top once where one of the gentlemen was ordering and asked for extra onion, making extreme emphasis on EXTRA ONION. So I went to put the order in and had to talk to the chef to make sure he understood EXTRA ONION. When the order came out, I received a side plate of a whole cut onion. I giggled and took the order to the table. I placed the food orders in front of all the other guests and left onion man for last. I set his plate of food and extra onion down; he looked up at me and started laughing. The whole table began laughing. I was like, dafuq? Apparently, wherever they go, no matter what, he always has to ask for MORE onion, and this time my snarky chef nailed it."
6. OMG
Notsocreativeeither:
"The strangest request! When I worked for Starbucks, I helped open the first drive-thru store in the area, so it was a learning process for some customers.A lady ordered in the drive-thru lane an iced venti vanilla latte with 22 Sweet 'N Lows.Me: 22 Sweet 'N Lows, like two two??Customer: sigh yes, 22 Sweet 'N Lows.Me: OK, please pull up.Now, at the drive-thru, we put the extra milk and sugar in the drinks for the customers, while in a café they would add it on their own. So, the person working the bar looked at me like, for real, this lady wants 22 packs of Sweet 'N Low in her latte? That's what she said, so that's what we made her.The lady pulled up and paid for her drink. I handed it over and told her to have a nice day. She stopped and said, "Oh, can I get those Sweet 'N Lows now?" I just looked at her and said that they were already in her drink. Boy, was she pissed!!She wanted us to hand her 22 packs of Sweet 'N Low in the drive-thru so that she could take them home."
7. Salad, pasta, same thing?
dudervoog:
"I once had a guy place his order and then say, "And give me one of those spaghetti appetizers."I had been working there for a couple of months, and we had no pasta dishes whatsoever on the menu. I politely tried to clarify this, but he wasn't having it. He just kept getting more irate. He insisted that he eats here all the time and always gets the spaghetti appetizer.Eventually, he got up from his table, stormed over to another one, and pointed at what he wanted on another diner's table. He was pointing at their coleslaw. And yes, as far as he was concerned, I was still the asshole for not knowing what he was talking about."
8. Weird, but kind of cute.
scatterbastard:
"Oh, how I miss my old regular.We are not a fine dining establishment; it's a small family-style Italian restaurant.This lovely gray-haired gentleman would call ahead so that we could put a salad bowl in the freezer for him. After that, I would go to his spot at the bar (or the closest one open to it) and set a large dinner napkin down (that he placed his salad/meal on). I would then place an empty wine glass with a napkin over it (per his request), just in case the dinner napkin didn't specify that the seat was taken.Once he got there, I would go to the back and make his specific salad: very little lettuce, extra mushrooms, extra tomatoes, extra onions, no shredded cabbage, and no cucumber.That would be after I got him two ice-cold beer glasses for his 70/30 sweet/unsweet tea mixture with an extra glass of ice.He would then attempt to engage in a 5-10 minute conversation about our specials for the evening and how he could alter them.The guy came in between three to six nights a week and always tipped fairly. He was the kind of nice old guy who would get you and your wife birthday cards because that stuff was important to him.He then moved 45 minutes away, and we never see him anymore. I miss the hell out of that old man, though."
9. I, too, hate when my food is cooked.
iamusuallyashark:
"A man sent back his plate because his hash browns were too hot. Like, dude, just wait a little bit."
10. Very burnt...
stylinghead:
"Not a waiter, but a cook. I had a lady order her tofu scramble burnt. So I cooked it hard. She sent it back because it wasn't burnt enough. So I cooked it harder. She sent it back again, and the waiter said she really wanted it burnt. So I got a wok super hot, put too much oil in, and proceeded to burn the crap out of it. My chef came by and lost his shit. I explained it to him, and he watched me ruin the thing. It was black and smelled like a tire fire. She ate all of it and said we were the only place to get it right. She came back every weekend for it, and we had to train new cooks how to burn the living hell out of her food for her. I still can't comprehend why she would eat that."
11. ... yikes
I_Dont_Live_Here:
"One couple in particular made the chef rage so hard she just walked out. The wife ordered some meal and made a ton of changes to it. She took the plate, took one bite, and sent it back because she didn't like it. The husband ordered a $60 lobster plate. The lobster tail came with pepper sprinkled on top. The husband sent it back and wanted a whole new one with no pepper on top. Apparently, his wife wanted to try one piece but doesn't like pepper."
12. "Release the dolphins!"
Shanelol:
"As a waiter at a coastal restaurant, we occasionally had dolphins come into the harbor right where people would eat. These two old ladies came in and, before they placed their orders, demanded I release the dolphins for their amusement. It took a good 10 seconds of silence before I realized they were serious. I passed this request on to my manager and then continued to eat free jumbo shrimp."
13. Free spaghetti?
llkylej15:
"A customer asked for spaghetti with a side of more noodles and extra sauce because they were going to share. So, I said, "You'd like one spaghetti and then an additional order of spaghetti?" They told me I wasn't getting it and they just wanted extra noodles and some sauce on the side. I told them we would have to charge for extra noodles, and they ended up not wanting it. They somehow thought free spaghetti was a reasonable request."
14. Do you have a horrible customer story? Tell us in the comments!
15. NOPE
finishrampant:
"It wasn't so much the order that was disturbing, but the post-order request. He asked me to chew up the food and put it back onto his plate. No medical reason. No missing teeth. Not old. Just creepy as hell. He got very upset when I declined."
16. NO
maplebaconchips:
"Had a guy send one of our servers to the kitchen about seven times, which is down the stairs far away from her section, to inquire about the weight of different hamburgers... all of them were the same, yet he insisted she go down and check and would watch to make sure she did.He sent her away to mull it over for a while, and you could see him snickering with his equally douchey-looking two sons. Finally, the guy decided he wanted a 24oz grilled "burger" with nothing else but the patty, no seasoning or anything. Not like some hulking bro trying to get extra protein, just an old asshole who wanted to mess with the poor server. He took a bite, said he didn't like it, and ordered another burger. He tipped a very solid 0% after telling her, "It'd all be worth it!""
