Working in the food service industry is a lot of work, and one of the worst parts of it is having to deal with rude customers.

What would you do if there was a table of people who were mistreating a new coworker, and then you found out that they were employees at a different location?

That is what happened to the waitress in this story, so she got her manager involved who reached out to their boss and got them fired.

You want special treatment? I would love to!

Some time in 2015, I worked my way through nursing school as a waitress in a restaurant. This restaurant did not advertise, they prided themselves on word-of-mouth for their popularity – this is important!

Good workers can be hard to find.

I had been there for several months at this point, and had proved myself reliable and knowledgeable enough to help train new waiters, not technically a “trainer” but could be relied upon to support new workers once the trainers set them loose.

We had one older guy who had just been released, he was a little awkward, little shy, and worried about mistakes – absolutely expected – and he was great to work with.

They are really trying to be helpful it seems.

On the night of our tale he was in the section next to mine, easy to keep an eye on and easy to hop in and prop him up when he hit the weeds. This was his first night with his own complete section, weeds would abound, I was ready.

What he wasn’t ready for was his first demanding round table of about 6 people, 20-somethings with attitude.

Why are some customers like this?

He came to me worried and confused “they want xyz but I don’t think that’s on our menu, right? She says we have the ingredients and just make it, that the other location makes it all the time.”

YES I could have taught him to stand his ground, but nerves and first night with your own section isn’t the time for this to go over well, so I told him ask the back line and see if they were willing, if not I would talk to the table. Cooks were fine with it (basically a wrap if I remember correctly) so no problem. From our end.

This customer is just being difficult.

This was apparently the cue for the Leader of the table to demand something EVERY TIME he came to the table. As soon as he brought the last requested item, she needed something else.

I thought it was possible and had been keeping an eye on him. Seeing his panicked face I gave him a nod and started checking in on his other tables, slotting them into my own table cycles – reasons I’m paired with him!

I would never intentionally antagonize the people preparing my food.

This carried on for their entire meal, incredibly needy and demanding his full attention with zero apology or kindness.

I made sure to catch him in the back to prepare for possibly getting no tip but to calm the panic, and to remind him I would not be touching the tips from his other tables.

You can bet that the ‘leader’ had never worked in food service.

Honestly this poor guy looked like he was about to quit on the spot, this Leader was rude and impatient and gave him no space to breathe.

I was his emotional support animal at this point, but knowing he was at least twice my age made it even worse for him.

Why am I not surprised by this.

The table had come in close to the end of the night and ended up staying past our section’s closing, so they were the last table on our side of the restaurant. (Perks of closing with a new waiter – getting cut early!)

That’s when he came to me asking how to do an employee discount, and they wanted to use more than one on a single ticket, was that okay?

I was confused, wait, employee??

What? What kind of person does this when they are an employee?

That’s when he shared that she had spent the entire meal berating and making fun of him because 1 she was a trainer at our other location and 2 he was the worst waiter she had EVER seen.

No wonder the other location made her special meals, and ZERO surprise he was such a wreck!

No way, they deserve nothing.

On top of that, she was claiming there were multiple birthdays in the group so free cakes all around and she wants the birthday song immediately!

To say I was livid is saying lava is warm, I was ready to throw hands for this poor man! Instead I told him to prep the cakes but don’t go out yet.

She is getting the manager involved.

I would get the boss about employee discount (not needed, we could do it ourselves, but this was SUCH a special case) and I would gather the workers for the birthday song.

Managers there were absolutely amazing, we loved each one and all of them had our backs, VERY rare in restaurants so this almost the best part! I gave the front-end boss a quick run-down of the table’s antics.

Now this sounds like a great boss.

Remember the “word-of-mouth” restaurant mentality? Yeah, boss was NOT having a restaurant employee acting so cruelly, even if she wasn’t his employee!

I asked permission for what I wanted to do, he smiled and gave permission as he grabbed the employee numbers given for the discounts (which that “trainer” would have known could NOT be stacked) and told me he had a boss-to-boss phone call to make.

Let’s do this.

I then ran to EVERY employee I could grab (remember, half the restaurant was closing down so we had several people available, including a dishwasher!) and gave them each the FASTEST explanation of the table and the plan.

And then I told the poor nerve-wracked server that we were ready to drop cakes.

That ‘leader’ really thinks she has the power here.

The crowd that arrived to that 6 person tabletop was honestly the largest we had ever had for a birthday song, and I am pretty confident the largest that restaurant will ever have. We served free cakes in front of every seat, and Leader had the most self-satisfied smirk as we all grinned ecstatically and lined up to sing.

And oh did we SING.

Hopefully they regret demanding this special treatment.

We all sang that birthday song AS LOUD AS POSSIBLE. Please do recall they were the last table in the section, and for your imaginings, I should mention this table was in the corner as well. So while we were SCREAMING the birthday song, it was bouncing back from that corner as well, and it was an EXCRUCIATINGLY long song.

Their smiles dropped immediately, and hands covered their ears as they jumped with the audio onslaught. I know it hurt my ears, and that pain is something that still makes me smile to this day.

This must have been so satisfying.

We all stood there, giant group, happily screaming our restaurant’s special happy birthday song, and it still warms my heart a decade later.

More than that, while we were gathering and planning and destroying eardrums, our boss was making phone calls in the office.

Good, she won’t get away with this behavior.

YES he called her restaurant manager and informed them of her behavior. And no, she didn’t get stacked employee discounts, she didn’t get her discount at all.

I know, because I was there when she was handed the phone from my front-end manager at the Host desk, and when she started to cry, and tried to make her excuses for why she shouldn’t be fired.

Nothing more than she deserved.

But the “general manager” (one step below owner, since this was a small company with very few locations) had already been called, her employee number had been shared, and she was done.

I’m not psychic, she could’ve gone back to her home location and convinced someone to hire her back, anything is possible. But I know how she treated this poor guy, I know how I told the tale to my boss, and I know the quiet rage he so rarely touched when it was RAGE.

I would love to know what he told her manager.

I would have almost given up joining in that screaming song to be able to hear those phone calls.

Almost.

This is such a great story with a very happy ending (well, not for the tyrant who got fired). People need to learn not to mistreat servers or other workers.

Let’s see what the people in the comments have to say about it.

Exactly right.

It was very well done.

He will be a loyal employee.

Yes, they deserved what they got.

This server loved the story.

She really should have known better, but hopefully she has learned her lesson.

If you liked that post, check this one about a guy who got revenge on his condo by making his own Christmas light rules.