Some people just shouldn't go into customer service. Maybe some of the nightmarish servers in the stories below were just having a bad day—but that doesn't excuse offering the worst. Service. EVER!
1. Should've Gone With A White
I had a waiter spill a $100 bottle of vintage—first and last time in my life I ever paid that much for a bottle—all over my fancy dinner. He refused to replace it, also. I didn't tip—and his reaction was absolutely deranged. He literally chased me out of the restaurant and physically threatened me for his tip. He had to be restrained by the manager.
2. Lean and Mean
I was out to dinner with my family. We sit down, order our drinks, and so far everything is going nicely. The waitress comes and we order. When it gets to my mom, she orders what she wants, and the waitress responds with, "If you're on a diet, you don't want that." My mom had said nothing whatsoever about being on a diet.
She is slightly overweight, and I mean very slightly. She is self-conscious about it and it's difficult to even get her to come out to eat with us. My mom simply said, "I'm not on a diet" with a cold stare. The waitress turned red in the face and walked off to place our orders. At least she had the decency to be ashamed of herself.
3. A Double-Edged Knife
I went to a steak house in San Francisco. Ordered steak. Got a butter knife. Called the waitress over and asked for a steak knife. She returns with a new butter knife, only with a wooden handle. I say, "Sorry, what I'm looking for is a steak knife, something that cuts meat." She insists, "That will cut meat!" It only got weirder from there.
I run the knife over my hand a few times while saying, "No, no, you don't understand, I'm eating meat and this doesn't cut meat." She says, "That's a steak knife, though!" I say, "I'm not sure what to tell you. I want a knife that can penetrate and slice meat." Well, that must have really set her off, because then it took another turn.
She says, "Are you threatening me?" Strangest of all, I had already handed her the "steak knife," so at that point I was sitting there with my girlfriend empty-handed. I say, “What?" She says, "You're very aggressive and asking me for a knife to stab and cut with!" I give her the “what the heck” look. My girlfriend laughs.
I say, "Uh, no, you're not a steak so you have nothing to worry about. Look, just give me what you have and I'll deal with it." She says, "I don't think it's safe to give you any knife. I'm sorry," and walks off, leaving me knifeless. At a steak house.
4. The Justice System
I was working the window at Mcdonald’s late at night. This guy orders and pulls up. When I walked up to the window, I didn't see that the jerk had trash in his lap. I open the window to take his card/cash, and he throws the bag of trash at me. I take a step back, bothered that I just got trash thrown at me, and I watch his car speed off.
I'm angry, but there's nothing I can do. But Karma came for him INSTANTLY. A couple seconds later, I hear a small “bang” of metal on metal. I walk to the lobby and look out the windows. The idiot had just slammed into a officer’s cruiser. The guy was about to loop around and use the drive thru himself. Of course, I also went to tell the officer what just happened inside.
5. Can I Change…Your Mind?
I was at a department store buying some jeans. I asked the store attendant if I could try on a pair. He said sure and led me to the men’s changing rooms. I went into the cubicle and dropped my pants. The store attendant knocked on the door. I unlocked it and opened it a crack. This is where things got really weird. He asked if he could come in.
I said "No, why would you want to?" He replied "Because I think you’re cute." He then proceeded to forcefully open the door and about 30 seconds of me and him pulling and pushing on the door ensued. I was starting to get a bit frantic, so I yelled out for assistance. He immediately stopped pushing on the door and disappeared.
I put my pants on and got out of there. I was shaking. I got home and called the department store and told them what had happened. I found out later that they fired him on the spot.
6. Too Little, Too Late
My wife was very sick and in the hospital. One of those things where you spend days in the hospital just waiting for her to get better. I would stay with her after work until the hospital shooed me out a couple of hours after the end of visiting hours. Then I'd realize I'm tired and famished, and stop to grab a bite at the local burger place, then go home.
Tonight was going to be different though. It was 9:30, and I wanted dinner. Denny's it was! I had no CLUE what I was in for. I ordered the chicken fried steak with side veggies from the menu, got a soda, and started reading a book as I waited for my order. The book was really good. 40 minutes later, I realized I didn't have my food. I called the waitress and asked how long it takes the chef to cook dinner, and she went to check.
She returned with my food, a very cold chicken sandwich with fries. What the heck? Okay, apparently it's someone else's dinner. So I complained. She went back to the kitchen. A few minutes later, I see her walking out the door and saying "Goodnight" to the other servers. Another waitress comes to my table and asks me if I'm ready to give my order now.
I've rarely been this mad in a restaurant. I was quietly furious, and asked what the heck happened to my chicken fried steak? The new waitress didn't know, so we got the manager over. Apparently, there had been a shift change. New waitress, new cook. Me left between the cracks. So I told them, "Fine, I'll take my chicken fried steak dinner, on the house." Then came the cherry on top.
"I'm sorry sir," said the manager. "It's after 10pm, and we don't serve some dinner items after 10." "It was on the menu!" "Yes, it is on our regular dinner menu, after 10PM we use the ‘late night' menu." "I ordered my chicken fried steak BEFORE 10, so I expect that for dinner!" "I'm sorry sir, but our day chef is gone. Our night chef isn't familiar with that item."
That was it. I made a scene. I blew up and yelled at the manager. Then I left.
7. Here’s a Tip: Back off
One night in the middle of a night out, my friend came up to me, clearly in a tizzy, and told our group that we were going to get shots at the bar. For some reason, my angry friend made it clear we could only ask one particular bartender for the drinks. Once we got them, my friend left a really insulting tip. I wondered what was going on—but I didn’t have to wait long to find out.
The bartender came up and made a huge scene about how a $1 tip was a jerk move and he was going to remember our faces and none of us would ever be served again. So finally, I asked my friend to explain himself once the guy walked off. Well, turns out the server had just been to the restroom and had asked my friend’s girlfriend if she wanted to help him "take a pee." Revenge is sweet.
8. Undercover Boss
I started out in the real estate industry, doing deals here and there until I had enough savings to buy my first restaurant. The restaurant was well-established in the Seattle area and I do still own it along with a couple others now. I try to treat my employees with as much respect as I can and I do try to keep the pay high enough so that employees can actually afford to eat in my restaurants, as they are somewhat expensive and higher-end.
Now, keep in mind that I am a relatively absentee owner now because the restaurants are owned by a corporation that I head, so I have no idea who a lot of the employees are. I know most of the managers, but the turnover rate for the servers is relatively high as most are college students. Needless to say, I don't get to know them very well. That gave me a devious idea.
One day, I decided to do some undercover management where I go through and judge the service and the quality of how the servers help the customers and the clientele. I took my wife in to one of the restaurants so we could grab some dinner and observe the employees and management. Well, the service was awful and I was sorely disappointed.
Toward the end of the dinner, I got the bill and paid it, but didn't tip very much, thinking that would get the message across. Instead of the server getting the message, he followed me out to the parking lot. He confronted me, telling me I was a jerk, calling me other names, and saying that the awful owner of the restaurant doesn't pay him much.
Laughing internally, I knew exactly what to do. I apologized and asked, "How much does he pay you? It must be pretty bad." Wages for a server at this restaurant are roughly 15 dollars an hour plus tips. Again, I try to pay enough so that the servers can actually afford to eat in my restaurants. He told me he was only getting paid minimum wage. His entire story was untrue but I entertained it.
The next day, I called the manager to set up a meeting with the server in question. The manager knew who I was, but wasn't working the night prior when I had dinner there. I showed up to the meeting and walked into the room where he and the manager were assembled. Keep in mind, I told the manager to not tell the server who I was.
I walked into the room and saw the server’s face fill with contempt and anger. The server immediately said, "This guy again?" Then he looked at me and said, "What do you want, to rip me off again? I already know you can't tip." I laughed, and the manager asked the server if he knew who I was. The server said, "Yeah, one of my customers from last night who treated me badly.”
Now, I was a little hard on him the night prior because I wanted to see how he would handle different situations. I laughed at his last response and told him he was fired. He asked me, "Who the heck do you think you are, you can't fire me." I calmly explained that I was actually the owner and what he did was in terrible form and he is not fit to be a server in the restaurant.
I saw the blood drain out of his face after it sank in that I was the owner, and he started tearing up and apologizing, explaining that he was under a lot of stress with his wife and daughter and he was suffering from PTSD from his time in Iraq. Come to find out, these were all total lies too. This jerk didn't even have a daughter.
9. There’s No Such Thing as Bad Pizza…Right?
Maybe ten years back, a new Mountain Mike's Pizzeria opened in my town. Since it's a really small town, my family got excited for a new restaurant, so we went in just a few days after they opened. The four of us sat down and were helped right away. Ordered a large pepperoni pizza and drinks, pretty simple. Our drinks come in a timely fashion. Our pizza did not.
We're generally all pretty patient and understanding, so we waited for an hour before we snagged a server to ask about our pizza. There were very few people in the restaurant, and most of the servers were sort of milling around, sweeping and wiping clean tables and other busy work. The guy apologized for the wait and said he'd go check on it for us.
He came back out and said they were very sorry, but it would be another 30 minutes on the pizza. No explanation, but we figured maybe they'd forgotten to put it in. We gave them the benefit of the doubt since they'd just opened. We waited another 45 minutes and no pizza came. Called a server again. He told us he was very sorry and he would go check on that for us.
He came back out with a black disc that wasn't even recognizable as a pizza. It was a giant charcoal brick. Parts of it were actually smoking. He put it on the table and told us to enjoy our pizza, and that they were sorry again about the wait, but that they forgot it in the oven. The very first time we ordered it. We were all stunned.
So my dad finally had enough and very politely told the guy thanks but no thanks, we wouldn't be eating this pizza and we would probably not be returning unless we heard that their service had improved. We stood up to leave....and the nightmare really began. The guy bolted for the back room. Out came the manager. He asked us what the problem was.
My dad told him that we waited nearly two hours to be served a pizza that had been in the oven for just as long. He showed it to the manager. It was literally inedible. The manager shrugged and said, "I don't see anything wrong here, sir, except that you're trying to leave without paying for your meal." The manager then ordered employees to stand at every exit to ensure that we couldn't leave.
My dad still refused to pay and suggested that the manager let us leave or he would call the authorities. So the manager actually called them, saying there was an indignant customer in the restaurant. The officers showed up and asked what the problem is. After hearing both sides, the officers scoffed at the manager, walked us out of the restaurant, and we've never eaten there since.
Wikimedia Commons, Kevin Payravi
10. A Game of Chicken
At Buffalo Wild Wings, I had a waitress forget my order twice. I was with a party of eight people, and everyone finished before I got my food. When the manager came back for a third time and asked what I ordered, I’d had enough. I stood up and said, “Nothing, and nothing ever again” and my wife and I left. They ended up comping the entire table, but the waitress said, “Way to be a jerk” as my friends were leaving.
11. Run-Away Customers
My family and I went to a sushi restaurant for my cousin's birthday. The service wasn't really that good. They gave us the wrong drinks and they forgot stuff that we asked for as soon as they walked away, so we gave the waitress like a $2 tip instead of the usual $5. As we're walking in the parking lot back to our car, the waitress runs after us and tells us that we didn't tip 15%!
She's literally chasing after us. My uncle gives us this “ummm” look, but then he pulled the best move ever. He pretends that he is going to follow her back into the restaurant to pay. Then as soon as she goes through the door, my uncle starts sprinting to the car, and we all run and jump inside and drive away. When I looked through the back window, I could see the waitress and her manager running after us, but they couldn't catch up.
12. I Wear Your Sunglasses at Night
My parents and I decided to try a new, trendy pizza place right around the corner from my apartment one night last month. We decide to sit outside because the weather was nice and they had a big patio and a side deck. Everyone working at this place had an attitude, from the hostess who seated us to the waitress taking our orders.
They made us feel like a huge inconvenience, but we were hungry and had heard the pizza was good, so we tried to look past that. As soon as we are seated on the patio, the girl offers to lower the shades because the sun was setting and was directly in our line of sight. We say that would be great, and a guy comes out and lowers the blinds for us. We order our drinks and look over the menu.
Not even five minutes later, a young guy comes to our table, incredibly peeved that the blinds were lowered. In a very condescending manner, he tells us that he's going to have to raise the blinds because they trap heat in the patio, ultimately raising the patio temperature about 20 degrees. My dad politely tells him that the sun is in our eyes and that they really shouldn't offer to lower the shades if it's going to cause a problem. The guy snaps.
He is incredibly disrespectful toward my father and goes on a rant, assuring us that the sun would set and even going as far as to take his sunglasses off of his head and offer them to my dad. He's young, maybe 25, and treating us like we're imbeciles, saying that our request to lower the shades would make the other customers less comfortable.
Whatever, they raise the blinds and we question whether or not we'll stay to order food. We stay. Our drinks arrive and we take a few more minutes to look over the menu. The waitress is nowhere to be found. We sit there in awkward silence trying to get past what had just happened. Meanwhile, other tables are seated and the hostess offers to lower the shades for each table.
We finish our drinks and the waitress still hasn't returned to take our order. We contemplate leaving, but she finally shows and we order. The food came out cold, but one of the managers was walking around asking how everything was. We told him about the sunglasses jerk and he was furious. I haven't seen the guy working there since.
13. A Lot on Their Plate
At a Swiss Chalet, six of us at a table. Five plates come out. We wait a couple minutes for the sixth plate. We then inform our waitress that we didn't receive our sixth plate. She responds with "Yes, you did." After a bit of a back-and-forth, she accuses us of hiding the last plate somewhere. I felt like I was going insane!
14. Man on a Commission
My wife and I needed some furniture for our new house, so we went couch shopping a couple of months ago. Now that we are in our 30s, we are looking for pieces that are a little better quality and will last longer, so we went to a “nicer” store. Before our visit, she had gone in with her folks to scout the place out and had been helped by a very nice salesman.
This time when we walked in, that salesperson was not around and we were approached by someone very pushy and quite unfriendly. We politely told him we did not need any help as we were just looking. As we made our way around the store, it was clear that this new rep was keeping a close eye out. He came over to offer his assistance once again, at which point I told him that we would not be needing his help today and continued shopping. That wasn't the last we saw of him.
After about 30 minutes, the wife and I had narrowed our search to a particular couch. As I was testing it out, my wife happened to see the salesman who had helped her and her folks. She walked across the store where he was just finishing with a customer and asked if he could help us. He recognized my wife and told her he would be over there in 1 minute to give us a hand.
All of a sudden, out of nowhere, the second salesperson comes up to my wife and yells, “What do you think you’re doing??” My wife was surprised, so she asked him what he meant. He said, “You are supposed to be my customers. I haven’t taken any other customers since you walked in, so how dare you talk to another rep.”
Well at this point, I got up from the couch and walked over, asking who the heck he thinks he’s talking to. He began arguing and telling me that I was supposed to be his commission and that I was cheating him out of money. At this point, I just about lost it and thankfully the nice salesperson came, took me by the arm, and defused the situation.
Needless to say, the manager and I had a nice long chat. The rest of the staff could not believe what he said to us and we could see them arguing with him at the other end of the store. I think he was just a bad salesperson who saw everyone else get sales, and that was the day he snapped.
15. What a Racket
I had booked a hotel room. When I get there, it turns out it was filled up, but they were getting another room ready and it would be an hour. I go to the bar, where three other parties have the exact same story as me, with some waiting as long as 3 hours. So that seems a bit sketchy, but what can I do. I buy a drink and hand the girl a $20.
She never comes back, so I eventually go, "Umm...I didn't get any change." She said that there wasn't any, and when I said I paid with a $20, she called security to tell me I had to leave. On my way out, one of the guys at the bar said I was the second guy that had happened to tonight. The next day I e-mailed the manager, who said he would look into it and wanted me to call him.
Sure enough, every time I called him he "wasn't available" and I had "to leave a message."
16. Half Pint, All Idiot
I was with a male friend (I'm a lady) at a cafe in Berlin, and the waiter takes our order of two pints with a bit of attitude, but nothing too unmanageable, this is Europe after all. He comes back out a bit later with two drinks, but something was clearly wrong. One was in a normal glass, but the other in a teeny tiny glass, which he puts in front of me.
We ask him about this, as we had just said two drinks and not specified sizes. He says, "Well, the small one is for you because you are a woman, and that is polite." I give him my very best “what the heck” face, and say, "But I didn't want a small drink." He looks at me and just walks off, leaving me with my tiny tiny glass.
My friend is all "screw this," and takes my small drink inside to the girl behind the counter, tells her that the waiter gave us attitude and then a lesson in sexism, and she tells my friend, "Yeah, that waiter's a total idiot." On the up side, it was super fun eyeballing him while we drank our drinks, and we only got charged the price of a small.
17. Service With a Snarl
There's a Subway that recently opened right across the street from my house. I started eating $5 foot-longs every day. It was glorious. Not only was it extremely convenient, but the service was better than any Subway I had ever been to, by far. Fast, the sandwiches were made great, and the girls were talkative and flirty.
There was one HUGE downside though. The guy who worked most nights was a short, surly dude who was always being a jerk or trying to intimidate you, which was pretty easy due to his bulk and full sleeve tattoos. Every time I'd go in there, I'd say, "Hey, how’s it going?" and he would answer with a grunt or just ask "What sandwich do you want?"
I'd get through my order as he threw meat and veggies around all willy nilly, creating the most disheveled, sad-looking sandwiches I've ever seen. After going there a few times with this experience, me and a friend of mine go in one night. I go through the same routine. Then my friend asks a question about the gluten-free sandwiches. Big mistake.
Dude drops his mop to the ground (he had started mopping) and says "Are you serious? CAN'T YOU SEE THE PICTURE?!" and gestures toward a picture of a gluten-free sandwich. My friend is shocked and says something like, "You know what, screw you man, you're a jerk" and storms out. I say, "Wow great customer service man."
He answers, "What?! You asked a question and I answered it!" He was doing the "come at me bro" stance and had a fury in his eyes, as if I had just insulted his entire immediate and extended family.
18. No Manners, No Problem
This past weekend, I went to a restaurant for dinner with my girlfriend and her friends for her birthday. We had about 10 people and had about five different tabs, which all included an 18% minimum tip. The service was terrible. The server was incredibly rude and would always respond with some kind of sarcasm when we asked questions about the menu.
He took the wrong drink orders twice and blamed us for getting them wrong. Brought all the appetizers and entrees at the same time and got upset when we said we didn’t want the appetizers anymore. To top it all off, my friend paid in cash and when the server brought back the change, there was no receipt in the slightest.
My friend was expecting to see 5 bucks and some change back. When the server came back, there was only 4 bucks and change there. She asked him to see the receipt to see if she had miscalculated. Instead of saying something along the lines of "I’ll go check," the dude got irritated and said that he threw away the receipt.
He then reached for his wallet and said, "How about I just give you a dollar if you want it that badly.” That peeved us all off, so we didn’t leave any extra tip. I wrote down "NOPE!" on my receipt in the additional tip line. But that was just the beginning. When I went to use the men's room before leaving, he tapped my shoulder as I was washing my hands.
He goes, “You think you’re pretty funny with that tip, don’t you? Why don’t we step outside so I can show you how funny I can be?” I’m like, what the heck? Called the manager over and told him her server wanted to fight me because I didn’t tip him. Explained the whole situation to her while the dude was just eyeing me the whole time.
Other servers had to calm him down because he kept trying to interrupt me when I was talking to the manager. I declined all their gift cards. I don’t want to come back to a place where the staff is going to shank me.
19. You Made Your Bed, Now You Can’t Lay in It
Last weekend, I went to the beach with my friend. We had booked a hotel room with TWO queen beds. For whatever reason, there was an administrative error and the hotel had forgotten to reserve our room. We get there, and there are no rooms with 2 beds left. The front desk agent was very apologetic and offered us an extra room at no charge…until it all went wrong.
Suddenly, the owner of the place moseyed on in and instead said "NO, if you want 2 rooms, you're going to pay for 2 rooms" and asked us why we couldn't just sleep together in a king bed, which is not really his business and if we WANTED TO SHARE A BED we would've booked a room with one bed instead of specifically booking a room with two.
If we had known they were out of rooms, we would've gone somewhere else. At that point, he insisted on us staying in one room with a cot, which I said was ridiculous because one of us is sleeping on a cot, and it's not something we agreed to pay for. Eventually, after 2 hours of arguing, he left and the original clerk let us have 2 rooms.
20. We’ve Got Beef
I had a weird one a few years ago. Me, my wife, and a couple of her brothers went out for coffee one evening. I had just gotten off work and hadn't eaten, so I took a look at the menu and ordered beef frajolaki while my wife ordered a turtle cheesecake with her coffee. About 5-10 minutes after the waitress had taken our orders, another group of people sat down in the booth behind us.
The same waitress came up, chatted with them and grabbed their orders. After about 20 minutes, out comes the cheesecake that my wife ordered. This is when the problems started...It was a cappuccino cheesecake. My wife called the waitress back and told her about it, and the waitress apologized and offered to bring her the proper one out, but my wife liked it well enough. If only there weren't more.
Another 15-20 minutes go by, and I'm still waiting for my meal, getting a little cheesed off by this point, when I spot the waitress coming our way, plates in hand. Wait, plates? I was the only one who ordered! She walks by us and to the booth behind us and distributes the food. Now I'm getting really ticked.
I hear the table behind me discussing their meals, and one of them asks another what he's eating, to which he replies, "I don't know, but it's really good!" Well, I thought, how the heck do you not know what you ordered? Another 10 minutes go by, and I'm about ready to leave, when out comes the waitress, plate in hand.
She sets it in front of me and asks if there's anything else I need. I look at the plate and back to her and say, "Uh, this isn't what I ordered. I ordered a beef frajolaki. This is a beef dip." She looks at the plate, then quickly looks at the booth behind us. Yup, mystery guy who couldn't remember what he ordered? He was chowing down on my food. But that wasn’t even the end of the story.
Mistakes happen, and I'm pretty mellow, but then she said, "Well, can't you just eat this instead?” super indignantly. At that point, I asked for the check and got up and went outside to wait for my wife before I totally lost it. To top it off, she even tried to charge me for the beef dip. Can’t say I ever went back there again.
21. Zero Tolerance Policy
I went to McDonald’s a few years ago in Alberta. I went with a friend of mine, and we just both happened to be gay. In a laughing sort of situation, he said that we should pretend to be dating. I asked if he was crazy and he said, "Well, it'll be funny to see the reactions." So he held my hand and put his head on my shoulder.
We shuffled up and I ordered my food and also said, "And my fiancé here will have a (insert insanely fattening meal here)." My friend, Jake, put this massive dopey grin on his face and reached up and kissed me. Me, being fairly good at improv, kissed back. The server, who before this had already seemed ill at ease, refused to serve us.
He stood there with a defiant look on his face, refusing to fill our order. When I asked what was wrong, he looked at me and said, "I'm not letting some filth get the right to eat here." I, taken aback, immediately responded by telling him to go get his manager. He refused. I asked again. He refused. Jake decided it was time to drop the charade and tried to explain that it was a joke.
The server said "No, you're both filthy. I watched you kiss.” We stood there for a few minutes, trying to argue sense into this moron, and then we saw a flash of a manager’s shirt outside. I told Jake to go get him. Jake runs out, gets the manager, and hauls him back in. The manager is standing there on the floor with me and Jake and I'm trying to explain.
By now we've gathered a small group of people watching, including a couple of other servers. The manager just looks at me up and down and says, "I don't see what the problem is here. You don't deserve rights" and walked away. I was flabbergasted and so upset. Then one of the people in the “audience” comes over to us.
He's dressed in a suit, and he says he's going to sue the place on our behalf if he doesn't serve us. The manager still refuses. The guy in the suit, who turns out to be a lawyer named Andrew, says that the manager needs to provide the owner’s information anyway. We get the phone number of the guy who owns the place. He says he'll be right there and he arrives.
He then proceeds to fire the server and the manager in front of us as well as giving us free coupons and a free meal. Sweet, sweet, justice.
22. Everybody’s Got a Story
Once I went to a place known for it's Cuban sandwiches with my family. We were all really excited, because we like food in my family. So we get our drinks and everything seems fine. We were seated immediately and everyone was really nice. Our waitress brings us our drinks and says she'll be back in a bit to take our food orders.
We're conversing and such, so we don't notice immediately how long it’s taking for our waitress to come back. We wait another 20 minutes just in case. The place is pretty empty, so eventually we ask another server if they know what happened to our server. He says he'll go check, but that he'll take our food orders if we're ready to speed up the process.
About 45 minutes later, my dad is about to explode. It doesn't take that long to make four sandwiches. He's about to go complain when, as if on cue, our waitress comes running and screaming out of the kitchen and goes right on out the front door. Everyone goes completely silent and just watches the door for a couple seconds. Then we found out the dark truth.
It turns out she had a nervous breakdown right about when we ordered our food. She had been just pacing around in the kitchen, slowly becoming unhinged. The manager apologized and we got free sandwiches. The moral of the story, though, is that you never know what is going on with your server. Maybe they're doing a bad job, but they might be on the edge of snapping entirely.
23. Stupidity Drove Her To Do It
I once went to meet up with some friends at an Asian restaurant. I was 23, but unfortunately, I looked like I was 16 or 17, which was semi-awesome. When I got there, the lady told me they didn’t serve underaged kids without adults. I got that often, so all I did was flash her my driver’s license. For some reason, she thought it was fake. What she did next was seriously deranged.
She ended up grabbing it, cutting it up in front of me, and phoning the authorities. When officers showed up, they ran my license. They told the hostess that it was real. I ended up getting a free meal, and the manager asked me if I would like the girl to be fired. I told her no because I don't hold grudges against people's stupidity.
24. This Service Was Crummy
We went to a Buffalo Wild Wings and were seated. We were ignored by three different servers. One came close to us, wiped a crumb off a table, then turned around and walked away. We sat with our menus for 20 minutes, got up, and walked out. The twit at the hostess station chirped, "Thanks! Come again"! We replied, "Thanks! We never got waited on"!
25. He Was Not A Rice Guy
I went to dinner with a friend and her family at one of their favorite restaurants. They are white, and I am East Asian. The waiter came over to take our order, asked everyone what they wanted, then looked at me and said, "Let me guess…rice"? There was a big laugh from him and crickets from everyone else. I never went back to that place again.
26. Tired Of Jive Talkin’
I was a server for a long time. I learned most of what I know about waiting tables from an older guy who took me under his wing when I got my first server job. It was at a really nice, expensive restaurant, and new servers were expected to back waiter for a few weeks before they were trusted enough to take tables themselves.
I was back waitering for this guy when a party of eight came in. There were four couples celebrating something. Cocktails were flowing, and appetizers disappeared. The waiter I was shadowing was making the rounds and taking orders. He had already discussed the night's specials in detail and sold a few $40+ entrees—before he got to “the loud guy”.
This guy had a few drinks in him and, much to the chagrin of his visibly embarrassed wife, had decided to impress everyone with how awesome and knowledgeable he was. So, of course, he asked the server to repeat all the specials, which he did. The dude then started drilling down to specific ingredients, even asking what kind of herbs were in the Béarnaise sauce.
This was at 8 PM on a Friday night. The server I was shadowing and I had three other tables of four already seated. I was doing what I could, but he was trapped at this eight-top. The loud guy kept asking stupid questions and wanted to chat. Finally, the server said, "Sir? I'm sorry, but I have other tables that need my attention. May I take your order"?
The loud guy freaked out, saying how rude he was. The server looked at him and said, "I'm sorry, sir, I didn't realize I was here to entertain you". But that’s not all he did. He then started disco dancing like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. He boogied around the whole table and said to me, "Get this guy's order", before pelvic-thrusting his way back to the kitchen, leaving the eight-top table speechless.
27. He Got Fresh With Me
My wife and I were at a Mexican place a few years back. We had finished our meals, and the waiter came over and said to my wife, "Ma'am, I'm obligated by policy to offer you an after-dinner mint, but please don't think I personally am making any judgment on your obviously pleasant and fragrant breath". He then placed a single mint by her plate, turned to me and said, "Here", and emptied his apron pocket of about a hundred mints straight into my lap.
I've never tipped a rude server so much, but we were laughing for the rest of the evening.
Flickr, Marco Verch Professional
28. She Wasn’t Foolin’
I went to Buddakan in Philadelphia with a group of friends. I was sitting next to a chubby girl. The waitress came and was taking orders. When it was the chubby girl's turn to order, she took her time contemplating and ordered a salad and water. The waitress muttered under her breath— but loud enough where I heard it clearly as did the girl—"Uhh, who are you fooling’”?
The chubby girl’s face turned bright red, and those close by that heard it were all shell-shocked. No one said anything because they didn’t want to embarrass her any further. Needless to say, I never went back.
29. Her Response Had No Leg To Stand On
My grand uncle was a Navy Seabee in his younger days, and before he passed, I took him to a Seabee reunion at the Naval base in our state. On the way home, we stopped at some random joint to get food. My uncle ordered a whole rotisserie chicken. When the waitress brought it to him, he noticed that it was missing a drum stick.
My uncle got the waitress's attention and told her his chicken was missing a leg. Without missing a beat, she said, "You gonna eat it or dance with it"?
30. Amped Up And Ready To Go
When I was about 15 years old, I had spent the summer working in the machine shop my dad worked in. I wanted to buy a new bass guitar and amp, so my dad got the owner to hire me for the summer so I could save the money to buy the stuff. At the end of the summer, I had worked hard, put in extra hours, and made a fair amount of money. My dad also put in some cash since he thought I wouldn't make it through the summer working while my friends all had the summer off.
My dad and I went to the music store in town. He had a few things to do in the same area, so he told me he would be back in about an hour. I walked into the store and made a bee-line for the bass section. I stood and looked at the ones I really liked and asked the salesman if I could try out a few basses and amps. He acted like he didn't hear me and walked away.
I followed him and said, "Excuse me, but can I try some stuff out"? His reply was devastating. He looked at me and said, "Son, this is not a jam space or a free for all for kids". I was crushed and went outside to wait for my dad. He pulled up, got out of the truck, and asked, “Where's your new gear”? I told him what happened, and he was pretty upset as well. We both went back in, and I pointed out the ones I wanted and why I liked them.
I saw the same salesman now staring at us. He walked over and asked, "Anything I can help you two with"? My dad smiled and said, "Yeah, I'm looking for a jam space where kids can have a free for all". The salesman tried to pull his foot out of his mouth but only made himself sound worse. My dad then asked me how much money I set aside to buy the gear.
I told him I had about $1,600 in my savings, not including the cash he gave me earlier. My dad looked at the salesman and said, "You work on commissions, right"? He replied, "Ahhhh yah". My dad looked at me, laughed, and said, "Well I guess it's Kraft Dinner for you tonight", and we left. He drove me an hour and a half into the city that day to make sure I got what I deserved for working hard all summer.
31. You’re Fired!
I was the nightlife coordinator for Caesars Entertainment. As a result, most of the managers and higher-ups knew me. However, unless I was at one of the nightclubs, the employees usually didn’t know who I was. I went to eat at one of the new restaurants with a bachelorette party and decided to wait for them by the bar. I ordered a drink.
About five minutes later, a bartender walked over to me and said I needed to move because I was sitting there with one drink, and she could be getting other customers. This was a sit-down bar, and she had singled me out. I told her, "I'm waiting for some friends", to which she replied, "I don't give a hoot. You're sitting here alone with one drink. I have more important groups I could be waiting on. Move".
I told her, "Tell you what. Get your manager to make me move, and I'll gladly step away". At that point, she grabbed two security guards and the manager, all of who knew me very well. She said, "I told him to get up and move, and he told me he’s not going to unless you tell him". The manager replied, "Probably because he could fire me. That's [the] nightlife coordinator for the four properties". She was stunned. I looked at her and told her, "You're fired".
32. Wigged Out!
I was at dinner with my parents and a group of their friends. The waitress was being extremely rude. She did things like saying to our one overweight friend, "Are you SURE you want two entrees? I'm NOT wrapping it up"! Not only that, but one member of our party was undergoing chemo at the time and was wearing a wig, which wasn’t obvious.
At one point during the meal, the waitress made a snide comment to her. Our friend stopped, put down her utensils, and pulled the wig off of her bald head. She looked directly at the waitress and said, "Don't mess with me. I'm sick", then went back to her meal. It was wonderful.
33. Turning the Other Cheek
Not me but a friend of mine. Went out to dinner with a group of friends, and their waitress was rude, snappy, and all around unpleasant. At the end of the meal, a few people in the group wanted to leave no tip, but my friend said, "No, let's not do that. There is nothing wrong with us; we're wonderful people. She's the one who's got a problem and we're not going to act that way."
Instead, they left her a generous tip along with a note: "Sorry you're having a bad day. Hope things get better." They then sneaked away to watch her reaction from a distance. She read the note, sat down in the booth, and cried. I guess you never do know.
34. Wait A Minute!
I was at a restaurant, and after being seated for 20 minutes and not having a waiter come by, I went over to the serving station. The server was sitting around talking, and it was evident that their conversation wasn't going to end any time soon. I was polite and just asked, "Could I order"? Twenty minutes wasn't an exaggeration either. I was on lunch break with a co-worker, and she was getting pretty ticked off. The server said, "Do you want to wait a minute? God"!
35. Mama Mia, What A Jerk
My brother and I were adopted from Korea, and my parents are straight-up white. When I was eight and my brother was about eleven, we went to an Italian restaurant. The waiter was yelling at us like we couldn't speak English. My dad was a very conservative, laid-back kind of guy. He looked the server in the eye and said, "Racist enough? That's my daughter you're yelling at who reads English at a college level, [and] can speak it and understand it just fine without you yelling in her ear, thanks. You can tone it down". Our meal was free after that.
36. She Neither Inspired Nor Nurtured My Human Spirit
I went to Starbucks and ordered a mocha or something similar. The barista told me that it was a “girly drink”. I went to pick it up, and when I was at the front counter, she was right next to me. She walked all the way to the other side of the counter to set it down instead of just handing it to me. Thinking she was joking, I laughed and said, “Oh, I have to walk all the way over there"? The barista looked at me with a straight face and said, "You look like you could use the exercise". I wasn’t overweight.
37. He Was Hitting On My Honey
It wasn't anything the waiter said, but his actions were loud and clear. My boyfriend, my friend, and I went to a bar and grill that was pretty nice. The waiter came to take our order. He started with my boyfriend and was very friendly with him. When it came around to me, he took my order in a rush. When our food came out, I got mine last. Then, the waiter came around to check on us and specifically asked my boyfriend if the steak was cooked right and if he liked it.
He didn't ask anyone else, just him. When the time came to box up the leftovers, the waiter tossed my box onto my food and helped to box my boyfriend’s food. I even sat there to see if he would do the same for me—not that I expected him to—and he walked away after helping my boyfriend. Everybody just looked at each other, and we started laughing.
38. He Wasn’t Dressing Away With It
I was at an expensive, newer restaurant in town celebrating both my mom's birthday and Mother’s Day with the rest of my family on her side. I wasn't too hungry, and nothing on the menu looked too appetizing, so I ordered a Caesar salad. When I finally received it—the last of all the plates to arrive—the lettuce was insanely limp, and the entire salad was slightly warm. The now-warm dressing was lacking in any flavor whatsoever.
We explained this to our waiter, and his reply blew me away. He told me: "We make our own in-house Caesar dressing here; it might not be the Kraft dressing your family is used to". Unfortunately for him, my mom was eight hours fresh from a 20-hour flight, would get a bee in her bonnet about poor service at the best of times, and held a Master's Degree in law from Harvard. That day, he knew regret.
39. I Was Anything But Calm
I used to work at a country club, and I remember on my first day, my boss strictly advised that if you dropped a glass or a plate—anything that could or would shatter—to tell everyone to stay away from the area and stay seated until the mess was cleaned up. A week or so later, I was walking between a few tables and had a couple of glasses of water. I got one of them to the table and greeted an older couple.
When I went for the other, it fell to the floor and shattered. Panicked, I continued to say, "I'm so sorry, please forgive me…wait just one moment, and I'll get this cleaned up"! The older man laughed and said, "It's all good. I'll be right back anyway. Need to hit the men's room"! Right then, I saw my boss staring me down, and in a panic, I yelled, "SIT DOWN AND STAY CALM".
Luckily, he looked at me and burst out laughing. He said, "Alright then. I'll wait. My bladder ain't that bad yet". My boss and all my coworkers thought it was the most hilarious thing they'd seen, but it was pretty rude, and my friends still don’t let me live it down.
40. Actions Speak Louder Than Words
Several years ago, my family went to the local Denny's. There was a black family ahead of us. It was a dad, a mom, and a little girl. They weren’t badly dressed, and although not dressed up, it was clear they weren’t a bad crowd. The restaurant was also almost entirely empty customer-wise. They waited for 25 minutes for someone to seat them. They finally got tired of waiting and left to go to the place across the street.
As soon as they walked out the door, someone came to seat us. We left for the restaurant across the street.
41. Done In By Her Comment
I like my steak medium-rare. I'm not terribly picky about it, but once, the steak I got was pretty much past well-done. It was also completely dry, so I complained. I told the waitress, "Excuse me; I ordered this steak medium-rare. It's pretty close to burnt". I was blown away by her answer. The waitress, who was young and pretty, just gave me this confused look and said, "Well, what do you want me to do? We can't uncook the steak"!
42. She Got My Goat
Sometimes, after a long day in the service industry, you don't even notice that you've become a little bit rude. One day, I had a customer ask me, "Excuse me, sir, what's ‘goat cheese’”? I paused for a moment to see if she was joking, then replied, "Why...it's cheese...made from the milk of a goat. Earthy and a bit tart".
I couldn’t help it, but the way I said it was a bit condescending. I was always very proper and well-spoken at a fine dining table, and it just seemed so snooty. The owner was right behind me. At the end of the shift, she told me that I needed a break from serving tables. She was right.
43. Blue Jean Baby
I was meeting a very prominent and highly respected public figure at a nightclub. He had told my group that the dress code was casual, so we were mostly wearing jeans with dress or polo shirts. When we got there, the host looked us up and down as though we were the dirt off his shoe and said—in the poshest, most stuck-up tone I had ever heard—"I believe you'll have trouble finding a table here wearing....dungarees", and he started to walk away. But the story didn’t end there.
Then, we told him who we were there to meet, and the guy nearly pooped himself.
44. Here’s A Tip—You’re Rude!
My mother and father met while working as a waiter and waitress in NYC back in the 1940s. Forty years later, in the 80s, they were out to dinner with a bunch of friends. The waiter was rude and/or inept, and the food was cold. The evening was only saved by good friends and good conversation. My dad was in charge of the check.
He collected money from everyone and figured on a 12–13% tip, as he thought the waiter might have been having a bad night and the cold food was not his fault. My dad left the money with the check, and they all left. The waiter chased my dad out to the parking lot. He held out the tip he was given and said, "Do you really think this is fair, or do you not get out often and don't know how to tip"?
My dad looked at the waiter and said, "Well, I was a waiter for many years, and yeah, I know how to tip. I gave you the benefit of the doubt, figuring you were just having a bad night. But you're right, this amount is not right". My dad took a $10 bill from the waiter’s hand and continued, "Now it's right". Then, he got into his car and left.
45. Too Hot To Handle
I was at a Thai place. The waiter told me I couldn't handle a dish because it was too spicy for a white person. I ordered it anyway, and it was apparent he asked the kitchen to make a mild version. When I asked why he did that, he repeated that I was too white. I had tried getting that dish full strength, but every time I try to do so, they either refuse or secretly make it mild, and I know it should be spicier because my friend worked there.
46. No Dessert For You!
My then-boyfriend—now husband—was looking for a place to take his parents for their 50th birthdays. We had been to this one place before and loved it. Several other relatives were coming, too, so we made a reservation for 12 people. The trouble started early on when we were seated at a table that was actually several short tables thrown together.
The space was too cramped for our numbers. The tables were pushed so close to the wall—no more than a foot or so away—that the larger men in the family were all forced to sit on the other side of the table, and even the smaller people felt cramped. If the place only had this tightly packed front room in which to seat us, the poor seating would have been understandable.
However, the restaurant also had a back room large enough to accommodate us, as well as an outdoor area suitable for a party of our size. What was merely an uncomfortable situation then became obnoxious. After about 15 minutes, the owner approached us and asked if we could all shift down a little so he could take one of the short tables and give it to someone else.
Since we were already squished and had begun eating the bread, enjoying our drinks, and using the place settings, my boyfriend’s father said politely but firmly, “No”. The owner started arguing with us, even sitting himself down at the table in a chair briefly vacated for a bathroom trip, to persuade us to move. He was getting pretty exercised. Eventually, he stalked away, muttering, “I just thought you could help me out”.
After that, my boyfriend’s aunt left the table to talk to the owner, basically telling him that we were there for a special occasion and would appreciate it if he didn’t speak rudely to the birthday boy. He wasn’t impressed and told her that if she didn’t like it, we could all leave. We probably should have taken his advice. Our poor server tried mightily to salvage the evening, but his boss could be heard muttering things about us under his breath whenever he passed our table.
On several occasions, he started in with members of our party about how we could sit more compactly. Towards the end of the disaster that was dinner, the owner came over one last time and tried to make peace. He soothingly admitted to my boyfriend’s mother that we had all gotten off to a bad start and that he may have been at fault but could not end it like that.
But he wasn’t quite done being a jerk yet. Within 30 seconds of his apology, he followed up with something to the effect of, “But if you had just squeezed a bit tighter like I asked you to, we all would have been much happier”. When it came time for dessert, my boyfriend asked the server if it would be possible for his parents’ desserts to have candles put in them and if the rest of us could order dessert.
The server was midway through taking our dessert orders when the owner pulled him away, shaking his head vigorously. The owner returned to tell us that there were simply too many people waiting for tables and he couldn’t serve us dessert. Furious, we paid and walked out the door. Performing for the group of people waiting to be seated, the owner called after us in a saccharine voice, “Have a wonderful evening”.
My boyfriend’s father replied, “We’ll never have one here again”. The owner said, “Never come back to my restaurant”, and slammed the door behind us.
47. An Unfavorable Night
It was almost the end of the night, and the bar I was at was clearing out. I asked for a glass of water. The bartender nodded, walked down to the other side of the bar, and started taking their drink orders. I stood there, waiting, while he continued to serve other people. I finally got him again and said, "Hey, I am the designated driver and would just like a glass of water".
He replied, "Yeah, I heard you, but you aren't gonna make me any money. You are asking for a favor, and I only do favors for my friends".
48. Bumping Up The Wrong Tree
I had just left the hospital, and some friends picked me up to get a bite to eat. I had a third-degree ACL tear in my knee, so I was limping around wearing this hip-to-ankle leg brace—you couldn't miss it. We grabbed a table, and I was on the outside next to the walkway with my bad leg tucked safely under the table and my good leg "protecting" me on the outer edge.
Our waiter was this curt, unfriendly dude who was basically glaring the whole time. Eventually, when he brought our food—after slamming plates down roughly—he managed to hit my bad knee under the table while reaching to put food down on the far side. I hurt, so I yelled, "Ow", pretty much in his ear since he was leaning in front of me.
The dude didn’t even react. My friend picked up on it and said, "Uh, you just hit her". That’s when he got even ruder. The waiter just walked away. So, my friends decided that the server would get a $1 tip on each person's bill. I am not an advocate of tipping badly, but after having a fairly bad day end with being whacked on my already injured leg, I was okay with it given the circumstances.
My one awesome friend wrote a note on her receipt explaining WHY he was getting a lousy tip. Then we got up and slowly made our way outside. At that point, the waiter chased us down to defend his honor. He seemed outraged and said, "I didn't kick a girl with an ACL injury"! I replied, "Uh, yes, you did. That would be me".
I was exhausted and kind of shocked that it was even a question. My friends stepped in to relate the story of how I even yelled, and he was totally oblivious. He said, "Well then, I'm sorry". But there was just something weird about his apology. He sure as heck didn't sound sorry. He turned angrily and went back into the restaurant. As he went in, another couple was leaving, and they overheard everything.
Looking at my leg, the woman said, "He kicked you?! I passed by him inside earlier, and he elbowed me and didn't say a word"!
49. She Was Out Of Her Noodle
I hadn't eaten in 36 hours, and being a teenager, I was so hungry I might have eaten my own hand. So, I went to a little Chinese place in the food court I would always go to and ordered two orange chickens and an order of noodles. The waiter told me, "No, I'm not going to give that to you. Childhood obesity is a serious problem, and I'm not going to help with it". What made it worse was that she was pretty overweight, and I was skinny.
50. Raw Deal
My evening began with my steak being undercooked. I enjoy a good rare steak as much as the next person, but the inside wasn't cool and red. It was cold and purple. I sent it back twice, and when it came out the third time, it was still undercooked. I told the waitress to forget it. I was done. Everyone else was done eating, and I was filled up on bread at that point.
She kept harassing me, telling me what a fine steak it was and just to tell them how I wanted it cooked. When I told her I wasn’t interested, she got rude. She told me she was cutting me off after only having two drinks. I finally told her to leave me alone as I was done talking to her. She returned five minutes later and said something like, “You’re stuck with me. This is my table”.
I was just trying to ignore her—but then she escalated it even further. A few minutes more, and that's when she said, "Do you want me to get the chef out here? He's 6' 3". I said, "Why, is he going to kick my behind and force the steak down my throat"? At that point, she tried to walk away, but I was beyond mad, so I stood up and said, "Yeah, get his [behind] out here, and I'll shove this raw steak [in it]". She left and didn't come back. The chef didn't come out either.
The manager came over, apologized profusely, and offered to get me a new steak and card for a free meal, but I had no intention of ever going back there to eat. Without a doubt, it was the worst experience I’ve ever had at a restaurant. I always treat wait staff very nicely, and I tip well. I’ve done their job, and I know how much it sometimes sucks, so I can easily forgive a waitress that is in a bad mood or not very friendly. Her reaction, though, to a valid complaint was way over the line.
51. At The Tipping Point
I was from Wisconsin and was on a bus trip with a bunch of Canadians. We were showing them around—our mall, our cheese, etc. We stopped at TGI Friday's for lunch. I ordered an $8 salad and a Coke. My bill, with tax, was about $12. Our table had fewer than eight people, so gratuity wasn't included. I could tell something was weird because the dude wasn't bringing me refills on my Coke, even though we were there for over an hour.
After eating, I got my check and paid with a $20 bill. Everyone else got their bills back with their change and left to get on the bus. I waited around because my bill didn’t come back with any. I waited for half an hour until my squadron commander came in to see why I was still sitting at the table by myself. I told him the waiter hadn't brought me any change.
My squadron commander went to talk to the waiter and who finally returned with my change. I didn't leave a tip. I'm not sure why he treated me that way.
52. Hidden Figures
My wife and I went to a fairly nice restaurant with friends, but we only brought cash. We were calculating a very generous estimate of the total as we were ordering to ensure we would be able to cover it. When we got the bill, it was significantly higher than we had estimated. It was still within our cash budget, but just barely.
It turned out that they had recently increased the price on almost everything on the menu but failed to have new menus printed. That would have been nice to know before we placed our orders rather than when the bill was on the table. We gave the waitress all the cash we brought with us, which unfortunately left her an embarrassingly minor tip.
As we were getting ready to leave, the waitress came up and called me every possible insult within the reasonable vicinity of "cheap", "fake", and "loser" due to the tip. She was ranting at me for a good five minutes in front of our friends and other patrons, and, fortunately for us, the manager. I felt bad about the tip before she had said anything.
However, once she did, I kindly pointed out that her tip would also have been the entirety of the $40 in price increases that she had failed to mention. The manager then walked up and fired her on the spot. His apology to us was that the next meal for us and the rest of our group would be on him, with no limit. Needless to say, none of us have gone back there since then.
53. We Didn’t See Eye To Eye
I took a good friend of mine out on a dinner date in an attempt to cheer her up. She had lost her eye and had just gotten out of the hospital. She was really depressed over everything, and her depth perception was so far gone that you'd think she was tipsy or not trying. We got to the place, and she instantly noticed almost every waiter staring at her.
She was clinging to my arm, trying to dodge the stares. We got our seats, and our waiter came, took our order, brought us our stuff, and went about his duty. About halfway through the meal, my friend accidentally knocked her drink over. Our waiter walked up and said something so terrible, my blood ran cold. He told her, "Try to be more careful, cyclops". I was furious, but before I could breathe a word, she got right in the waiter's face and exclaimed, "I would hit you for that, but I'd probably miss", and stormed out.
I walked out afterward, didn't pay, and never went there again. I then took her to the place down the street, kindly told the manager about her condition and what had happened at the last place, and we were treated like kings. We got our meals half off—but I paid in full—and told our waiter that everything after the half-off price was his tip.
54. Double The Trouble
I was out to lunch with a new boss at a company I just got hired for. The waitress asked if we wanted two bills or just one. My boss said one. She came back five minutes later, cleared the table, and asked us again if we wanted two bills or one. My boss said, "We said we'd just like it all on mine". She left and came back with two bills.
She was an excellent server, just a little frazzled with the lunch rush. My boss, however, was a jerk. He looked at her with an "I'm going to mess with you" look on his face and said, "Didn't we ask for one"? She said she thought two. He replied, "No, we said one. Now, how much should I tip you"? She shyly started feeling the heat and shrugged out, "Whatever you like".
My boss PRESSED her for an answer and said, "Tell me what to put; you decide what I should give you. It's up to you". She kept shying away and said what most people tip and how she can't choose. He finally said, "Tell me a number, and whatever you say, I will give it to you". She said, "So I could tell you 100 dollars"?
He looked at her like she was an idiot and said, "Yes, but tell me, did you earn a $100 tip with this service today? If you feel you deserve $100 and this was a $100 service, then yes, I'll give you $100 if you believe you earned it". This went on until he smiled and said, “It’s fine, you can go". I'm sure he didn’t tip her anything. It was the most uncomfortable moment at a restaurant ever.
55. All Bets Were Off
The worst for me happened at a Burger Bar in Vegas. We had terrible service all night. After the waitress brought our food, we never saw her again. We didn't get drink refills, we didn't get the side of ketchup my friend asked for, and for a full 25 minutes after we had finished eating, we still had not received the bill.
I finally flagged down a passing waiter and explained that we were waiting for the bill so we could leave. I told him we had been waiting for a long time with no sign of the waitress. He let out a disapproving noise and simply said, "I'm not your waiter", then walked off.
56. The Night Was A Wash
I was at a restaurant, and our waitress hadn't come around to refill our drinks since we got there. Someone else brought us our food, and I couldn’t eat unless I had something to wash it down with. Our server kept walking by our table and didn't acknowledge me when I politely tried to get her attention. She was also waiting on the table diagonal from us and kept helping them every couple of minutes and playing with their baby.
So, when she walked by again, I was aggravated. My food was getting cold, and I was thirsty. So I finally got her attention. She acknowledged me—but my ordeal wasn’t over yet. I said, “Yeah can I get..." before she interrupted me. She then said, “You know what, one minute". She even put her finger in my face. The next thing I knew, she was refilling drinks to the table with the baby and carrying on a conversation. I found someone else to get me my drinks, and that's the first time I never left a tip.
57. Meet The Chef
When I was 23, I landed my first position as an executive chef. I was recruited as part of a team to turn around a failing sports bar and restaurant in a busy college town. I decided to go check the place out the night after I got hired. None of the staff had met me yet as I was recruited via a phone call. So, I walked into this place with a pretty female friend of mine and waited almost 20 minutes to be seated when the place was about half empty.
I was pleasantly greeted by a grumpy, overworked, and under-experienced server. She said, "Heeyyyy, I’m Lisa. You want anything to drink"? I thought to myself, "This is gonna be good". I jokingly told her, "Ohh yes, one glass of Louis XIII, please". She replied, "Ummmm, excuse me? I'm pretty sure we don't have that". I laughed and said, “It’s okay, I’m only kidding. Two mojitos, please". I heard her curse at me and call me a name under her breath as she walked away.
When she returned with our drinks, I inquired as to whom she was referring with her previous statement. She said, "How DARE you?! Who do you think you are?! Where do you get off"?! I told her, "Miss, please, I'm not here to make trouble, but that was very rude and inhospitable". She cursed at me and my date, saying she didn’t care and that I wasn’t her boss.
At that point, I put on my mental demon face and asked for the owner by name. She swallowed the near-instant fear in her throat, stormed off to the back, and promptly returned with him. He began, "Hello, sir, what seems to be the problem"? I told him, "No problem at all! I just wanted to take a minute to formally introduce myself before I begin work tomorrow"!
I thanked him for his time and hospitality and told him that I could not wait to start work and asked him to please make sure that all his staff would be present in the morning, particularly this gem of a server. He smiled and thanked me and told me he looked forward to working with me. I glanced at my now exceedingly nervous server and winked.
58. No Winner At This Chicken Dinner
I ate at a family diner one day. After waiting nearly 30 minutes for my meal to come out, I made a disturbing discovery. I noticed that the middle of my chicken was still raw. I politely asked the waitress to send it back because I didn't want to get sick. She stormed off and yelled at the chef that I "didn't think the meal was good enough and refused to eat it".
She then came back and said the chef couldn't cook it anymore without burning the outside portion. They refused to cook me a new piece and didn't even take it off my bill. Needless to say, the health department received a complaint.
59. Say Cheese Please
I was at this place and had ordered a plain hamburger sub. Instead, I received a cheeseburger sub, so I said, "I ordered a plain hamburger". The server told me, "No, you didn't. You ordered a cheeseburger sub". I replied, "I assure you, I've been lactose intolerant my whole life. I'd never order a cheeseburger sub even as an accident". He said he could take care of it for me and took the sub—right in front of me—and started scraping off the cheese with a butter knife.
60. Roll With It
I was eating inside for the first time at my usual sushi take-out place. When my order came up—ten minutes after my sister's meal—it was totally wrong. I asked the waitress what she had given me because I couldn't even recognize the roll. She told me the name and left. I looked it up on the menu, and it was $12.95! The roll I ordered was $5.00.
I called her over and told her she had given me the wrong roll. She said, "It's already been made". When I looked at her in disbelief and asked her to take it back as I hadn't touched it at all, she walked away. She avoided our table while we sat absolutely fuming at the ridiculousness of it all—and then it got worse. When I finally flagged her down again and more forcibly asked her to take it away, she said, "It's your fault", and walked away again.
The sushi chef saw that I was upset, and he started to talk to our waitress in Japanese. She pointed at me and started yelling. It was not pretty. Finally, I blew a gasket and demanded that she take the roll away and that we'd like our bill to pay for the sushi that we actually ordered. As we went up to the counter to pay—right by the sushi chef's area—he handed over the roll I actually ordered.
He was very polite, and I told him that if he'd kindly put it in a take-out box, I'd happily pay for it. I looked the waitress in the eye and said, "I'll pay for the two rolls that I ordered and nothing more". She handed over the bill and tried to charge me for the $12.95 roll. I lost it, and so did my sister. We RAGED at her. It was incredibly awkward for everyone around us, so when we went to walk out the door, the entire store was staring at us.
61. Go Suck An Egg!
A few days after my mother had gotten out of surgery, we went to this new breakfast place. The waitress came over. Since my mom was on a restricted diet and could only eat soft, mild foods, she asked for just two poached eggs. The waitress said, "That's boring, you don't want that. I'll make you my special scrambled eggs. Everyone loves them", and proceeded to walk back to the kitchen.
She came back a half hour later with these runny, scrambled eggs with cheese covered in spices and spinach and God knows what else. My mom took one look at them and politely asked the waitress to take them back. It turned out the waitress was the owner, and she refused to take them back. So, my mom and I refused to pay and started to walk out.
The owner followed us out, saying that we were crazy for not loving her eggs and yelling that she would sue us for not paying.
62. Put A Cork In It
I've worked in the restaurant business all my life and have worked in just about every position. Therefore, I have a pretty easy time relating to servers and bartenders when I go out. I rarely get bad treatment, but I do get a little bent out of shape when they try to pull some nonsense, and I usually call them on it.
I was once at a nice steakhouse in Nantucket. I ate there pretty frequently and always sat outside at the bar where my friend was the bartender. I have a nice wine collection, so I would bring a bottle with me every time and have it with dinner. Typically, a corkage charge would be added, about $10 or $15, for opening your bottle for you. My friend would never charge me this.
I would give half a glass to my bartender friend and send a glass back to the chef, who was also a good friend. One evening I came in with some friends and sat at my regular table. As usual, I brought a couple of bottles with me. We asked our waitress to bring us some glasses and open our first bottle. She got the glasses, and as she began to open the bottle, the new sommelier came running over and stopped her. I had no idea what I was in for.
She then told us we couldn't bring our own vino, that the restaurant has never done that, and no restaurants allow that because it is unlawful. I told her I had done it for years at this restaurant—and many restaurants—and that a corkage fee was charged. She told me she's never heard of a corkage fee and that it is against the law!
I asked her to bring me a copy of the wine list. She did, and I pointed to the last item on the list. It said, "A corkage fee of $15 will be charged for any patrons bringing their own". She said that it was a mistake and it was against the law. I finally told her that I owned a restaurant down the street and was quite familiar with the drink laws.
At that point, my friend, the chef, came out to our table to say hello. She tried to plead her case to him a bit, but he cut her off, told her to go into the office, and that he would be back there to talk in a minute. He apologized to us. We just laughed about it and had a lovely dinner. From then on out, the new sommelier avoided me like the plague anytime I came in.
63. C’est La Vie
When I was a kid, I was with my mom and her friend taking a day trip to France. We decided to eat at a restaurant. I am English and was taking French in school at the time, so I had some basic French skills. I gave our orders in very broken French. The waitress took our order, and we waited 20 minutes. People had come, sat down, ordered, and received their meals within that time, so we were getting mad.
Thirty minutes later, we mentioned that we hadn’t received our order yet. We finally got our meals 40 minutes in. As we were leaving, I heard the waitress calling us “English pigs”, which was ironic because I have some French blood in my veins, as did my mom, and her friend was Swedish.
64. He Was Rude No Matter How You Slice It
In college, I ordered pizza delivery from a local joint. The guy on the phone asked if I wanted to pay by credit card or cash. I said I'd pay by card. Most of the places there would have a card swipe in the delivery car, so I didn't even give it a second thought when he didn't ask for my card number on the phone. When the delivery guy got to my house, I gave him my card.
He stared at me for a second. What he said next was seriously unforgettable: "Where do you want me to swipe it, my rear"? I was so shocked that I just stood there staring at him. My girlfriend, who was dying for some pizza and didn't want to argue, went and grabbed some cash while I just stood there dumbfounded with the pizza boxes in my hand.
65. Lo Mein Losers
We ordered Chinese food for delivery from a place called Empire. The food was terrible, to begin with, but more notably was their blatant lack of humanity. We ordered for delivery, and we waited for some sixty-five minutes after they told us it would take only 25. They also messed up our order, taking our money for a dish we ordered but never received.
They refused to acknowledge our mistake and claimed the extra money was a tip. When we called the restaurant, the manager claimed it was our problem, even though we asked them to confirm our order, and we had six witnesses. When we tried to negotiate, he swore at us, called us names, and told us to take a hike. They were just terrible people.
66. I Was Left Shaken, Not Stirred
I went to a local bar/restaurant place on a Friday night and ordered a pomegranate martini. The waitress, who came off as very impolite, gave me a strange look but kept to herself. During the night, I accidentally knocked over a male friend's brew. I told him to pick out another one, and I would order it when the waitress came back. She came over, and I asked for the beer my friend wanted.
She joked, saying, "Finally switching to the good stuff"? I told her I was buying it for the guy next to me. She returned, put the drink down in front of him, and while placing a straw in the glass, opened her mouth to say something, but stopped. My friend, thinking she had said something, asked her to repeat it. She said, "I was gonna bring two straws for you, but I figure his [pointing to me] lipstick will just show which side is his".
No one laughed. It was obvious she had gone too far. I try to let stuff like that bounce off me, and I did. The meal concluded, and we left. We went back a week or two later and got the same waitress. She was taking drinks orders and got to me. I was driving that night, so I just asked for water. She "joked" back, saying, "No pomegranate martinis tonight"?
I told her I just wanted water and tried to wave her off. She then proceeded to push me, "Gonna drink like a real man tonight, hmm"? I felt my temper snap, but instead of screaming in this woman’s face, I just shook my head, grabbed my jacket, and walked out. It takes a lot to get to me, especially about my sexuality, but she just struck a nerve. I haven't been back there since.
67. My Irish Eye Were Smiling
I was on holiday with my girl in the Canary Islands. All the restaurants had a greeter outside to hustle for customers. Most were on the charming side of aggressive but would offer free drinks, so people let it slide. One guy asked us to come in for dinner as we were passing by. I said we were only going for a stroll, would think about it, and maybe come back later when we were hungry, which was true.
He asked where we were from. I told him Ireland, and he said a few lines in Gaelic, and we had a chuckle. So, on the way back, he asked us again, and I told him we would keep looking. He grabbed me by the elbow and whispered into my ear, "Pog mo thoin, do you know what that means"? It means kiss my behind in Gaelic. I was going to give him some choice words, but my girl was already dragging me away.
We finally chose a restaurant with a sweet view of the water as the sun was setting, but you could also see the restaurant where this jerk was hawking. I was fuming but didn't want to ruin my girl's night, so I kept quiet. Before the starter had come out, we heard a commotion. We looked down onto the street to see the same greeter jostling a dude in a Gaelic football jersey.
This Irish dude pulled the sweetest dragon punch I had ever seen. The greeter went through a table. It was glorious. The funniest thing about it was that the greeters from the other restaurants started to clap and cheer, as did some of the people from the restaurant it happened outside of.
68. Condescending To The Core
Once, I got not one but many rude—albeit sophisticated—remarks from a waiter. My parents gifted me dinner for two in the most exclusive restaurant in Milan. I met my girlfriend directly there. I came straight out of the university, attired in the most popular way—backpack, sneakers, etc., while my girlfriend was waiting for me, all dressed up like Lady D. Just looking at the other guests, it occurred to me relatively quickly that I had committed a major etiquette fail.
Indeed, to express his deep disappointment in my dressing choices, the waiter effectively and productively humiliated me for the whole dinner, but with very aristocratic manners. For example, the gentleman is supposed to taste the vintage before approving it. But when he brought our wine, he said, “I suppose that in this case, it is madame who tastes it isn't it”? He then poured the drink into my girlfriend’s glass.
69. The State of the Union
I'm from New Hampshire. When I was going to college in Florida, I had a gas station cashier refuse to sell me smokes because I showed her my ID and...she didn't believe that New Hampshire was a state.
70. Knows How To Push Buttons
Last year I was going through the self checkout at Kroger late one night. There were a few other people at said self checkout, but it was far from busy. I attempted to scan an item that was on clearance, and it brings up the “wait for attendant” message. I see the kid working the section talking to another coworker about 20 feet away. The hand modules they use have an ignore function, so they don’t have to come over every time someone doesn’t know how to use the machines (95% of the time).
Dude hits the ignore button. I know it wasn’t gonna scan without his approval, so I hit the “call attendant” button. He presses ignore again. This happens 8 times. When I finally went over to ask him for help, he bolted to the back before I could catch him. I wasn’t mad, just annoyed. So I left the self check to go get in a regular line.
Just so happened that a manager was walking by and asked if I was having issues, since I was leaving self checkout. I told her what had happened and she was furious. Never saw that kid at Kroger again.
71. Don’t Tip Off Your Server
So the past weekend we went to a restaurant for dinner with my girlfriend and her friends for her birthday. We had about 10 people and had about 5 different tabs which all included an 18% minimum tip. The service was terrible, the server was incredibly rude and would always response with some kind of sarcasm when we asked questions about the menu.
He took the wrong drink orders twice and blamed us for getting them wrong. Brought all the apps and entrees at the same time and got upset when we said we didn’t want the apps anymore. My friend payed in cash and when he brought back change, there was no receipt. She was expecting to see 5 bucks and some change back. When the server came back there was no receipt and only 4 bucks and change there.
She asked him to see the receipt to see if she had miscalculated cause she expected 5 dollars and then some back. Instead of saying something along the lines of "I’ll go check" or something accommodating like that, the dude got irritated and said that he threw away the receipt and reached for his wallet and said “How about I just give you a dollar if you want it that bad.”
That ticked us all off so we didn’t leave any extra tip. I wrote down “NOPE!” on my receipt in the additional tip line. when I went to use the men’s room before leaving, he tapped my shoulder as I was washing my hands and goes, “You think you’re pretty funny with that tip don’t you? Why don’t we step outside so I can show you how funny I can be?”
I’m like “What?” and called the manager over and told him her server wanted to fight me cause I didn’t tip him. I explained the whole situation to her while the dude was just eyeing me the whole time. Other servers had to calm him down cause he kept trying to interrupt me when I was talking to the manager. I declined all their gift cards because I don’t wanna come back to a place where the staff is gonna shank me.
72. You Never Know
This happened a few years ago to me and my fiancée and our friends. I worked at an Indian restaurant, with one of my lady’s best friends. The owners of the restaurant had just opened a new Mexican place, so we all decided to go. It had been open about a week, so it would have been understandable if the food and service weren’t out of this world, but what we got was amazing. In our group there’s 7 or 8 of us. Next to us is a group of clearly well to do people, maybe 6 or so. Our server has only the two tables. This is what happens next:
Our server gets our drink order, doesn’t bring them for 20 minutes, takes our food order, that doesn’t come for nearly two hours. Meanwhile, the rich people next to us get the best service I’ve ever seen. She was clearly just ignoring us and pegging us as cheap college kids (all of us worked in restaurants). Finally our food comes, and our jaws drop. After that long wait, all the orders are wrong. No one got correct food (one girl didn’t even get her meal until we were about to walk out the door) Oh, also our drinks never got refilled once.
So after a while of this we get a manager, who looks blankly at me and walks away without saying a word. Finally we get someone else to come talk to us. We explain everything to her. Lastly, we drop the owners names, saying we work for him and will be telling him everything that happens. The General Manager’s face goes slate white. After all of this, we just wanna leave.
They gave us half off the entire meal, than the server comes up to us and says, “My bad guys.” That’s all we got in a form of an apology. We left her a tip of about 3 cents. On our way out the hostesses are all smiles and asking us how the meal was. I turned to this girl, who was clearly unaware of what happened, and just go “It was terrible,” and I grabbed a giant handful of peppermints and walked out.
Pixabay
73. Childish Remarks
My wife and I went out to dinner with some friends of ours to a new restaurant we had heard great things about. Boy we were in for a surprise. We sat down, and it turned out the waitress was an old friend of my wife's from high school. They hadn't seen each other since graduation, which was about 15 years at that point. So, the two of them were catching up and asking the usual questions like, "Do you have any kids"?
My wife and I had made a concerted effort not to have kids. We didn't want any. So, when my wife responded with a simple "No", to her question, her friend looked at me with a very confused look on her face and said, "What? Are you shooting blanks or somethin'"? I wanted to smack her.
74. She Got Her Just Desserts
My husband and I went out on a dinner date. The waitress was training a waiter and explained it to us as we were ordering. Everything was fine until we got our food. It was over-seasoned, and we didn't want to finish it, but we tried because we were hungry. Afterward, when we asked for the bill, she asked, "Would you like any desserts"? We said, “No, thank you”.
Then, she turned to her trainee and said, "They never want dessert", with this fake smile because she knew she was being rude. It was the first time I've wanted to talk to a manager because I believe you shouldn't say that to a customer. She could have said that once we left or were out of our hearing range. We never went back.
75. True Brew Jerk
Several years back, my mom went on a tour of the Coors Brewery in Golden, CO. At the end of the tour, they would give you free samples of brew. When asked what she wanted—without even thinking—she made a serious mistake. She asked for a Miller Lite. He gave her a dirty look, filled the glass up halfway with water and halfway with brew, slammed it down, and called her a nasty name.
76. If That Don’t Beat All
I decided I wanted to take my boyfriend out to dinner while he was in town. Everything was fine until the server brought the check. I got out my credit card and handed it over. The server pointed to my boyfriend and said to me, "Does he beat you too"? I guess it is somehow barbarous for a male to allow a female to pay on a date.
77. Going the Extra Mile
A while back, my ex got detained after taking my car without permission. My car was impounded, and it was $250 to get it back. Needless to say, the entire situation made me fairly irritated. I arrived at the place to get my car, and as I walked into the building, my ex's mom called to try and find out more about what was going on and see if I needed help.
I was inside, but I had not addressed any staff whatsoever, and it was obvious that the conversation I was having was with the person on the phone, not anyone in the building. On the phone, I was explaining that I had just gotten there, and I wasn't sure if they had my keys or if I needed to go to the jail and have them released to me.
I'm sure I sounded irritated, because I was. Queue the receptionist jumping all over me, telling me that they know how to do their jobs, and that I'm being rude. I look over at her and explain that I'm sure they do, I'm on the phone, and I'm sorry if she thought I was talking to her. She's having none of it, and gets up and starts screaming in my face.
I tell her she's being inappropriate and absurd, and I want to speak to her supervisor. So she screams for him to "Get out here and handle this stupid girl." He comes out and starts screaming at me to get out if I'm going to treat his staff like this. I tried to explain that I hadn't even addressed her until she started screaming at me.
I also said that I needed to get my car out of their impound lot. He wouldn't listen. Long story short, I was 25 at the time and had to have my mother come help me get my car out of impound because the people who worked there were insane. I'd never experienced anything like that. They did have my keys though...my ex was smart enough to give those up, at least.
78. Special Menu Item
My co-workers and I went to a BBQ place for lunch. It was located in a converted garage and looked very shady. Inside was filthy, with piles of dirty pots on display out front and a 500-pound lady taking orders with a dude who looked like the Grim Reaper preparing the food. This was in an open area, so we could see everything.
As we are watching Reaper get our order together, he stops, bends over, and vomits into a bucket. I guess he dropped his comb or something because he then reaches in and takes something out. We were in shock and just paid and got out of there. In the car driving back, it was silent until somebody asked, "Did that just really happen?!" and we all started laughing incredulously.
79. Not The Way To Get A Tip
At a Mexican food restaurant with a girl I’m getting to know. It wasn’t a date, really, it was just like hanging out and getting to know each other and we decided to go grab a quick bite. Anyways, I’ve kind of gotten into this horrible habit of only paying with my debit card and never having cash on me. As you probably know, a lot of times when you pay using debit/credit over a certain amount (I believe it’s 5 or 10 dollars) places have you sign a receipt that they keep. The receipt the guy at this place handed me had a place to leave a tip.
Since I’ve been to this place a couple of times before, I know how the service works here (you order at the register, go and sit down, they call your number, and then you go up and receive your food) so I didn’t leave a tip. I’ll tip at this place/places like this if I order something specially made or something with extra toppings on it and they don’t charge me but, other than that, I really do not see the need to tip. They aren’t bringing your food to you, they aren’t doing anything out of their way, they aren’t bussing tables, there’s simply no need to tip.
Anyways, I don’t leave a tip and the guy just says “Wow, big spender here.” I look up at him and am like “What?” because at this point, I honestly have no idea what he’s talking about. It didn’t even register in my mind that he could possibly be upset that I didn’t tip, because he’s doing nothing to warrant a tip. He just stands there and takes orders and calls them out; a job that he is paid an appropriate wage to do with no extra effort needed to be put in.
It’d be the same as tipping someone working a register in a grocery store or at a McDonalds. Well, back on topic, the guy ignores me and says to the girl I’m with “Glad you’re dating such a big spender. He can’t even afford to tip. How do you think that’s going to go further down the line in your relationship?” She’s just kind of baffled, I’m just kind of baffled, and at that point I just decided it was best to ignore the dude and go sit down, so I shrug it off with a “Whatever.”
After a bit of an awkward sit, our food comes up, so I go up to get it and decide to just get it to go. We grab our drinks and our burritos and walk out of there while the guy gives me dirty looks and keeps calling me “Big spender”, only to sit down on a bench near the restaurant and find our orders are completely wrong and nothing near what we ordered at all, as well as our drinks only being filled halfway. I’m normally not that picky, and would have just said forget it and eaten it and wrote it off as more trouble than it was worth to fix the order, but I’m here with a girl and didn’t want to look like a pushover.
We take our food into the restaurant, where I explain to the guy that our order is messed up and our drinks are only half full. He says “Oh, complaining about your order and couldn’t even be bothered to tip? Now you’re putting me through all this trouble and can’t be bothered to tip.” and just keeps rambling on with trash like that while a line forms behind us and he finally goes to fill up our drinks. He comes back and says “Woops” before he pretends to trip and sends our drinks flying all over me and the girl I’m with. I demand to speak to his manager and he immediately stops playing his little game.
Basically saying anything to beg us not to talk to his manager and even offers us our money back on the order, but I refuse and keep demanding to talk to his manager until the cook in the back finally hears what’s going on and goes to get him. The manager comes out, the girl I’m with and I both explain what happened, and the kid keeps babbling that it was an accident. The manager takes me and the girl I’m with in back to get us cleaned up and, after that’s done, invites us to watch the CCTV footage of what happened along with the kid who spilled stuff all over us.
The kid clearly trips on nothing and deliberately sends the drinks flying on to us. The manager fires the kid on the spot, explains to us he had only hired him on for the summer since he was a long time friend's son and that the kid had been acting like a total jerk the entire time he was employed, but the manager regrettably turned the other cheek since it was his friends son.
The manager was a really nice guy and paid for our meal as well as gave us a card each that gave us 10 free meals at his restaurant. He even went in the kitchen and cooked our orders himself, gave us them in to go bags, and paid for a cab (we had walked) to take us back to my place so we wouldn’t have to walk home in sticky clothes.
80. Shattered Dreams
A customer came into my store while in his cups. We refused to sell to him and he flipped out. Ended up throwing him out, so he went down the street to another store. Then as he walked back past our store, he yelled some very mean things at us—and immediately tripped, shattering the bottle he just bought on the sidewalk. Glorious.
81. Their Culture Isn’t Backwards, You Are
I was the hot mess in this story. I was in Montreal for a hockey game and wanted to buy a Canadiens jersey. They're a little pricey at the arena, so I was walking around downtown looking at sports memorabilia shops. I found one, walked in, and bought a Canadiens jersey. It was one of the nice lace-up ones, for almost half retail price. So I put it on to wear out of the shop.
Before we hit the door, I ripped the tags off and my dad noticed that the 'NHL' insignia was backward, and said 'LNH.' I got in the clerk's face and said, rather loudly, "You sell fakes! This is a bootleg! This is supposed to say NHL!" The clerk's English wasn't great but he ensured me, "These are the new ones. LNH is the new logo." I replied "Yeah, ok, the NHL changed their name. I believe that."
He wouldn't do a refund, and finally, I left the store feeling defeated. On the walk back to the hotel, I saw another Montreal jersey with the LNH insignia. And another. I pulled my phone out and googled it. It stands for la Ligue Nationale de Hockey. The new Canadiens jerseys had LNH on them to celebrate their French Canadian heritage. I could feel myself burning with shame.
82. When Life Gives You Lemons...
I was buying a used car from a dealer. We agreed on a price over the phone. He offered to have someone come pick me up to test drive it (I was new in the city and had no car). So he and another guy came to pick me up. And of course, he's trying to sell me a new car instead of the one I'm interested in, but I'm not hearing it.
I test drove the car, and it's just what I'm looking for, and the price we agreed on is under book value, so I'm good with everything. Then he draws up the paperwork and my jaw drops. The final cost is nearly two grand more than we agreed on! I'm pretty upset now. We had a clear agreement, and he tried to slip in $2,000 like I wouldn't care.
I say no deal, drop me back off at home. He keeps knocking off a hundred here, a hundred there. Screw that, we had a deal, take me back home. Finally, he says, well if you're not gonna buy the car then you can find your way home. Now I start raising my voice so the other customers hear our conversation.
"YOU MEAN TO TELL ME YOU DRAGGED ME 40 MINUTES AWAY FROM HOME, TRY TO CHARGE ME AN EXTRA TWO GRAND THEN TELL ME I'M STRANDED OUT HERE IF I DON'T PAY?" He's begging me to be quiet, tries cutting more off the price, but I'm not letting this go. I know I look like a complete lunatic, but I don't even care at this point.
I don't respond well to high-pressure sales tactics and they're starting to realize it. Anyway, after making a big scene and giving the salesman a legitimate panic attack, the manager finally agreed to sell me the car at the agreed-upon price. I then negotiated another $500 off of. He wanted me out of that shop. The car is still running great.
83. Someone’s Got Your Back
I spent my last $40 on a car part I needed, but there was something wrong with it and I had to return it. The sales clerk said he can't take it back without a receipt. I paid with a credit card and there's a warranty so I should be in the system. He wouldn't even check and refused to exchange it. That's when I lost it.
I was irate, screaming at him. customers were laughing at how upset I was. He threatened to call the authorities. I told him to go ahead. Then, something amazing happened. Behind this guy’s back, another employee overheard my details, looked up my information, and printed out a copy of my receipt.
Just as this guy is about to tell me for the millionth time that I can't return the part without a receipt, the employee behind him hands it to me, and I handed it back to the manager I was arguing with. I got my new part and was able to make it to work that night. Hope that guy didn't get fired for doing the right thing.
Pexels
84. Alarming Situation
I had ordered some food at around 2 AM. My roommate had to work the next day and was sleeping, so I made a note on the delivery saying, "Please call, do not ring the bell. Thanks!" Our doorbell was a loud buzzer, so I didn't want to wake him. About an hour later, I hear a loud buzz. I was so annoyed because I had asked that they not do that.
I go to the door and it's this guy probably around 20 years old and immediately after he hands me my food, he sticks his hand out and goes, "Tip?" I had money in my pocket that I was going to tip him with but I didn't even get a chance to get it out before he did that. I responded with, "Seriously?"
Then I went to tell him that he was not going to get a tip not only because he rang the bell when I asked him not to (it was printed on the receipt under my address so he should have seen it) but also because of how rudely he demanded a tip. He said, "Whatever" and left, so I called the restaurant and told them they had a bad driver.
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85. Pain in the Butt
When my wife had a C-section after the birth of our child, she was in a severe amount of pain. She had been in labor for about 10 hours before they decided to perform surgery. Afterwards, the nurse kept coming in to check on her pain. My wife responded that she was in absolute agony. Nurse said, "If it was that bad, you'd be in the fetal position in the corner screaming."
Wife responded, "If I could get up and get over there, that's what I'd be doing." They had her set up on a morphine drip with a patient-activated button. My wife kept hitting the button and it didn't help. Fast-forward 14 hours later. Nurse: "OH, your button isn't hooked up to give the requested drip. HAHA!" Witch almost got choked.
86. Missing Money
This happened at my bank. I went in to change my rent money from 20s to 100s, so making a money order would be easier to count. I tell the lady behind the desk what I'm doing, and she happily agrees to help me. In 20s, I counted out $1,000 for her, putting the money down and counting out loud. She then takes the cash, gets the hundreds, and counts back $900 to me.
I tell her there's $100 missing, and she claims I only counted $900 to her. She already put the 20s I gave her in her drawer, so there was no way to see what I counted to her. I argued with her for about 10 minutes until she told me they were about to close and to come back tomorrow.
I was so shocked this lady was so stupid that I just told her to quit her job while she's ahead and walked out. Thankfully I had an extra $100 in birthday money. Never went back to that location.
87. Food Fight
At a chain restaurant one night our waitress was bussing a huge tower of dishes. As she was walking towards me I thought to myself, there is no way she is gonna make it to the kitchen. Sure enough, once I am in splashing range the tower goes down. Half-full glasses of soda hit the floor and send splashes over my sandaled feet, and a full cup of marinara sauce hits the edge of our table and showers me with about a quarter of a cup of marinara sauce in a billion droplets from my hair to my chest. Then the waitress walked away!
The manager comes over. By now the waitress has heard that I am complaining. She comes over and stands behind the manager as the manager and I talk. I explain what happened and that accidents happen and I'm not even mad over the spill, but I'm mad over being treated badly after. The manager is gushing apologies, and our dinner will be free.
Still, I said, this is an area for retraining or something. There needs to be something said to the server, that is not how you treat people. The manager turns around and sees the waitress, and says I'm sure she was coming to apologize right now. Little did she know, things were about to take a nasty turn. The waitress rolls her eyes and says nastily, it was just an accident. No apology.
The manager has a stunned look on her face. The waitress says nothing, gives a smirk, and crosses her arms. I looked between her and the manager, who is now silent and doesn't know what to do with this. It ends in a standoff, of the waitress refusing to simply apologize and me seething. So I thought for a moment and came up with a genius plan.
I said to the manager, so you said our meal tonight will be free? We want to change our order. And we want to keep our same server. No hard feelings, after all, right? So we changed our order for the most expensive entrees we could find, with three appetizers and salads and soup first. Dessert after. Tab was well over a hundred bucks. We lingered for as long as we could stand.
Needless to say, we stiffed that waitress, and I wrote no hard feelings on a napkin covered in marinara sauce at the table. The only time I ever stiffed a server, and it was grand.
88. Coffee Break-Down
I went into a little vegan place in Soho, London, for a coffee. My girlfriend and I were on our way to a movie and had around 45 minutes to spare. I ordered two cappuccinos. There was no-one else waiting, and there were two hipster-looking types behind the counter. They took my order and then spent, and I’m not kidding, 27 minutes walking back and forth, talking, moving things around, washing stuff, but not making coffee.
In the interim, a small line had formed, and they served a couple of those people first, including with food orders. I asked after 15 minutes, just to check they hadn't forgotten me. They said of course not, and continued to lounge about. In the end, I stood up and started yelling at them, asking what they were doing, and why it was so hard to make two simple coffees.
I demanded my money back, as we didn't have time for the coffee anyway, and had to then have a big argument about this while one of them kept saying "but we're making it!" When I turned around after berating them, my jaw dropped. The actor Forest Whittaker was behind me in the line. I felt bad for losing it in front of Ghost Dog.
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89. A Sandwich Stealer?
I ordered a sandwich and a drink from a fast food place in a station - the kind of place you grab your food and eat it immediately. I got my drink and was waiting for my sandwich. I'm not in a hurry, so I don't mind the long wait, I assume they're having to make it from scratch or something. Then I notice someone else got the same type of sandwich as I ordered, so they've forgotten me. It happens, I'm not in a hurry, no problem.
No problem that is, until I ask about it. The woman behind the counter says she's given me my order, then turns away before I can speak. When she comes back, I point out that I don't have a sandwich. She tells me I've put it in my bag, and again turns away as I'm trying to explain that I haven't. At this point, I've become a little annoyed, and I'm hungry... so I do something I'm not proud of.
I become the hot mess customer. I empty my bag across the counter and ensure she checks everything I have to ensure I haven't stolen my £2 burger. I was tempted to make her check through the individual pages of my book to try and find this mystery burger, but chickened out of being that much of a jerk. After that, I finally got my sandwich.
90. Car Calamity
My wife and I are in our early 20s, and so going out and buying our first car from a dealership was a rather big deal. We saved a ton of money and went in knowing our budget. At the third dealership we went to, we immediately saw a car that we both loved. Upon stepping out of our car and being surrounded by the salesmen, we asked to check that car out.
The inside and outside of the car looked great, and they assured us it ran smoothly. I asked for a test drive. They were hesitant about letting us test it out, assuring us that it ran fine. Their hesitance just made me worry more. And it turned out that I was right to be suspicious. It broke down before we left the lot. Twice.
The first time he told us it was some BS issue that they'd fix before we took it. But it sputtered and kept dying. We didn't even take it on the road. You had to slam on the brakes to start slowing down. I lost it. This was going to be my wife's primary car that she has to take on the highway every day, and they want to sell me a car that can barely brake, without letting me test drive it.
I try to be understanding. I work retail, and can usually understand if there's a legitimate issue, or even if an employee is being a bit lazy and just doesn't want to do something. I've been there, and I get it. But these people went too far. They flat out lied and tried to sell us an unsafe car that could put both of our lives at risk.
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91. No Chickening Out
I waited 40 minutes at a KFC. I got there when the place was practically empty. They told me the chicken wasn't ready (in a place that exclusively serves chicken), and that I would have to wait. I decided to wait. Ten minutes is okay, 15 is tolerable. But more than half an hour? At first, I was fine because they were serving a family that had been there before me. I figured that where most of the chicken had gone before my arrival.
But then they served several customers that came in after me, which made me angry. I had two small meal orders. I approach the counter and ask what's going on, and that they hadn't called my number. The cashier apologizes and takes my receipt to the food worker (I watched and heard this), and tells her to make my order right away.
I stay there waiting, thinking she's putting my order together, but then she walks past me and serves two more customers! I became livid and shouted, "Are you kidding me?!" The cashier's jaw dropped, he started yapping at her, she sluggishly started heading back to the food station, but I was done at that point and said, "Just give me my refund so I can get out of here!"
Then it takes the cashier more than five minutes attempting to process the refund, then he asks her to do it, all the while everyone is watching, and more are still getting served. It took every bit a restraint I had not to make a total scene or flip things over.
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92. Vegetarians Optional
I was at a relatively nice Italian restaurant and ordered a dish without bacon in it cause I don’t eat meat (yes I know how dare I not eat bacon). The dish came out everything seemed fine but when I tasted it, I was sure that it had bacon in it. No problem mistake happens all the time. I politely informed the waiter when he returned to check in. He looks at the plate takes out a fork, tastes it and then has the audacity to say; “Nope, there is definitely no bacon in there.”
I have never been more upset with a server in my life. Don’t know what happened to him but that meal was free in the end.
93. So Bad It's Against The Law
I had a cashier at Target ask if I wanted to sign up for their credit card, to which I declined. She then asked to see my ID, which made sense as I was buying beer, and she used it to sign me up for a Target credit card. I was furious, because I don’t see how that isn’t identity theft, and told her I wanted to talk to the manager (only time in my life I’ve uttered that phrase). She got really angry and defensive, started insulting me, and refused to call her manager.
I got another cashier to do it and then the woman flat out lied to her manager about what had happened. It was at that moment I discovered I had no telekinetic abilities because if I had, she surely would have exploded. The manager assured me the woman would be fired and gave me a lot of gift cards to make up for it since I now had to go through the whole process of canceling a credit card.
I went back about a month later to use some of the gift card value, and I saw that same woman still working there. I said something about it to the manager, left, and sold the cards on craigslist. I’ll never shop at Target again.
94. No Mercy For Minors
I used to be in a youth organization in the US, called Civil Air Patrol. We’re a volunteer auxiliary of the Air Force and we do search and rescue, leadership training, and aerospace education stuff. A group of several hundred Canadian Air Cadets was visiting my <20 person, northern WI, squadron and we showed them around Madison, WI. For lunch we went to Ruby Tuesdays. Looking back, this was a BIG mistake.
I ordered, and the waiter tried to convince me to buy a drink. At the time I was 16, looked 12, and he insisted that I should buy a drink because I was in uniform. I kindly told him that I prefer a coke and had no interest in breaking the drinking laws at a public establishment. From then on out he REFUSED to refill my soda.
We’re done eating, the waiter brings our bills. Most of us, excluding family members, were on separate tabs. The waiter does not return my bill for a half-hour. We were sitting there chatting, and the adult chaperons inform us that it’s time to leave. I informed my squadron commander that the waiter hasn’t brought my change yet.
My squadron commander gave him a “talking-to.” I got my change – left no tip. You try to take from me, you get screwed.
95. The Meal Was As Wilted As The Spinach
Was in St. Pete Beach, FL with my parents, sister, wife, grandparents, aunt, uncle, and cousin. So 10 people in all. We sit down at a mostly empty restaurant and order a couple drinks around the table. Waiter comes to take our order, but doesn’t have anything to write with. Okay, some fancy restaurants do that, didn’t expect it here, but whatever.
Dude has to come back three times over the next half hour to ask people what they ordered because he forgot. 45 minutes in, he comes back to say that he forgot to say that they were out of tuna, so four of the orders can’t be made and they need to order something else. Something like an hour and a half after we order, the food comes out. Almost half of the orders are wrong or have the wrong sides.
Mine is supposed to be salmon on a bed of spinach and risotto. I got a piece of salmon that was about 4 normal bites big, an ice cream scoop of risotto, and no spinach in sight. When I asked him about the spinach, he said “it’s under the salmon” which I found hard to believe since it only occupied about 5 square inches. Lifted the salmon, and found about 3 wilted spinach leaves stuck to the bottom of it.
My dad (who was paying) complained to the owner, who simply said “oh, I’m sorry….we’ll try to do better next time”. To which my dad said “You’re going to comp me half the bill or more, and MAYBE there will be a next time.” Dude shrugged and gave my dad the drinks for free, which was only about 15 bucks worth. Needless to say, we never went back.
96. Caught Red-Bearded
I was at an awesome BBQ place in Fort Worth with a bunch of friends. Our server was a bit goofy. He was funny, really nice, but kind of distant. He just seemed like he wasn’t suited to waiting tables. He got our drinks and orders wrong, but it was hard to be upset. The real “what the heck” moment, though, was totally bizarre.
He had a huge red beard, and I said, "Dude, your beard is awesome!" He then said, "Thanks! My neighbor has one just like it. Some people think he's my dad, but he’s not my dad. I've met my dad." Then he just walked away without saying anything. We all just sat there, really dumbfounded. We still joke about that to this day.
97. Bait and Switch
I used to be a hostess in a pizzeria chain, and I worked with the WORST waitress of all time. I'll never forget this family of eight who gave me—THE HOSTESS—a $25 tip on a $50 bill, all because they hated her and I was the one who kept refilling their drinks. The waitress was beyond peeved, but my manager said to her: "Should have been paying more attention…the tip is hers." Best day ever.
98. Give It Your 20%
I'm currently living in Washington, DC. I ate at a fairly nice restaurant and left a 20% tip, as I always do. Suddenly, this server chased me out of the restaurant and asked, "Was there anything wrong with the service tonight?" I told him there wasn't, and that's why I left him 20 dollars on the 100 dollar bill. His response shocked me.
He said that most of the people who eat there are Senators, and it's customary to tip 30% at that particular restaurant. I asked him if he'd rather give me back my 20 and he left in a huff, calling me a cheapskate. Screw that guy.
99. The Pepsi Challenge
I went out to dinner a few months back with some friends at a pretty typical chain restaurant. Me: "I'll have a diet coke please." Waitress: "Oh, we only have Pepsi, is that ok?" Me: "Sure. A diet Pepsi would be fine." I have my soda and a few refills over the course of dinner and then start feeling really, really bad.
Right about here is where I should mention that I'm a type 1 diabetic and, since I always just drink diet coke, don't know the difference in taste between diet and regular pepsi. I checked my blood sugar, which had been perfectly on target before the meal, and my meter just read HIGH, meaning that the value was so high that the meter actually couldn't process it.
What I had eaten for dinner couldn't possibly have put me there, so we flagged down the waitress and I asked, "This isn't diet Pepsi, is it?" She responded by telling me that it wasn't, that the diet Pepsi fountain was out of syrup and she didn't think I'd mind, and besides, I'm plenty skinny and don't need to drink the diet stuff.
I started cursing, pulled out my insulin syringes to dose for the 4 full sugar sodas that I drank, and told her exactly what I was doing. I then told the manager what had happened, and that I wasn't planning on paying for the meal but would instead put the money toward the ER bill that I was about to incur. Even as I’m saying it, I know things are getting worse.
Went to the hospital, where the lab determined that my blood sugar was still in the 700s even after I dosed, and I ended up staying overnight because my glucose level stubbornly refused to come back into range.
100. This Waitress Was Cooked
I was in Kansas City at this too-hip restaurant that consisted of little more than a bar, a stage for the jazz band, and a few tables. I was in from out of town visiting friends from college and was sitting at the bar with them for about an hour, waiting for a table to open up. When one finally did, the waitress came over to get us more drinks and talk about the menu, which was all prix fixe.
All of the items were based around meat, and I was a fairly strict vegetarian. I had reservations about going to the restaurant in the first place. I told the waitress very politely that I was a vegetarian and asked if they could make me anything. If not, I was perfectly happy just to nurse my martini for the rest of the night. About 15 minutes later, one of the chefs came out and sat at the table.
The first words out of her mouth were, "So one of the waitresses came in to tell me that some dorky-looking [f-word] wanted us to make him a vegetarian meal". Well, there was something that the waitress didn’t know. I replied, "And what did you say to her"? The chef said, "Well, first I told her not to call my best friend that name".
Yeah, my best friend from college was one of the chefs, and the waitress unknowingly had talked trash about me to her.
