It can be really annoying when customers think they know more than employees.

Imagine working at a restaurant, and instead of looking at the menu, a customer demands an order that is pretty unusual.

Would you give the customer exactly what she ordered, or would you try to clarify since surely the customer means something else?

In today’s story, a server at a restaurant is in this situation, and even though she tries to clarify what the customer wants, the customer doesn’t understand the problem until her food is on the table.

Let’s see what happened.

You want an omelette with nothing inside? Okay

So my first job was a server at a very popular 24 hour breakfast diner/chain.

We had lots of colorful customers.

One morning, I’m serving a woman sitting by herself. I ask her what I can get her, and she says she’d like an omelette.

We have a list of pre-built omelettes, or you can build your own, so I ask her how she’d like her omelette.

She wants to make sure she understands the customer’s order.

“Just a regular omelette, please” she tells me.

“Okay, so you don’t want one of the signature omelettes, what would you like inside of yours?” I ask

“Nothing, just a regular omelette.” She replies with a huff

I pause for a second because this order does occur, but not often.

Some people like their eggs scrambled and cooked, then rolled up. “So you’d like an omelette with nothing inside?”

The customer makes her order very clear.

“YES! A plain omelette!” She snaps, now irritated that I’ve questioned her several times.

So I enter the order, a 5-egg omelette with no fillings and no toppings.

A few minutes later it comes out, and she is appalled. “What is THIS?!”

Your plain omelette, I reply…

The customer seems to think she knows the definition of an omelette.

“But where is the cheese, or the ham or the onions?!”.

She is irate.

“Ma’am, you ordered an omelette with nothing inside…”

She gets arrogant and says “An omelette is eggs rolled up with ham, cheese, and onions! Everything else is extra! You should know this, working at a breakfast place!”

Here’s what an omelette actually is…

I look at her deadpan and inform her “actually, ma’am, omelette is French for scrambled eggs that are fried and rolled or folded; everything else is extra”

I’m busy so I walk off and help other colorful customers, meanwhile she flags down a manager to complain, who confirms what I told her and points out that in the menu there is, very specifically, a ham cheese and onion omelette with a large picture in the middle of the page.

Then tells her she has to re-order her meal and wait a second time.

She didn’t leave a tip.

Wow! That customer was ridiculous!

She really should’ve look at the menu.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

When this person orders something “plain,” they really mean it.

This person is reminded of a TV show.

Another person has a good point.

This person learned something.

This person knows that a plain omelette does not include the ingredients the customer thought.

I think the customer meant to order a Denver omelette.

Oops.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a customer who insists that their credit card works, and finds out that isn’t the case.