Everyone knows serving is a difficult gig — especially in a busy restaurant on a busy holiday.

So when an experienced waiter stepped in to help struggling runners during a packed Valentine’s dinner, his notoriously rude boss snapped at him for doing a job that “wasn’t his.”

But little did this boss know, this was the push this server needed to quit this dead-end job for good!

Keep reading for the full story.

Don’t pick up dirty dishes! Not yo job!!

So this happened a couple of years ago when I was working as a waiter at a fine dining restaurant.

The owner wanted it to be super posh, so we had to do things like wear white gloves when placing our cutlery so as not to get fingerprints on them.

This owner was a particularly rude old man (ROM) who tried to cost-save whenever he could.

So this combination didn’t bode well on one of the busiest nights of the year.

Cue Valentine’s Day.

The ROM had added tables in every corner of his restaurant, so people who had purchased the couples dinner special were basically sitting in each other’s laps and, as you can expect, we received many complaints about this.

The boss hired some additional help, but promptly began to mistreat them.

Because of the amount of customers we had that night, ROM had hired runners for each waiter who would clear the plates for us. I had the largest room as I was the most experienced waiter that night.

Now this ROM managed to get two of these runners crying before even half the night was done because they were too slow, didn’t stack enough plates each run, etc., and these girls were having a really rough night.

Out of the kindness of his heart, this already busy waiter decided to step in to help.

At one point in the night my room became really quiet (everyone had food and I’d just topped up wines and waters), so I picked some plates up to help the girls out.

As I walked into the kitchen, ROM was standing there and saw me coming in with the plates.

His boss started chewing him out.

ROM: Thornadobanan what are you doing?? Don’t pick up plates. That’s not your job!! Go sell more wine to customers!!!

Thornadobanan: Sorry ROM. As you say, boss.

Once again, the boss tried to cut costs and continued barking orders.

As things were slowing down a bit, ROM decided to send the runners home so he didn’t have to pay them more. About 10 minutes later, I was standing in the hallway with ROM while he was counting money.

He could see into my room, and the table closest to us had finished eating.

ROM: Thornadobanan go clear plates. Don’t stand here.

The waiter pushes back, reminding him of his previous orders.

Thornadobanan: Sorry ROM, I can’t do that.

ROM: What is wrong with you?!? I am boss!! Go clear the table!!!

Thornadobanan: Sorry mate, you told me not to.

You guys probably can guess what happened next.

That’s when this boss lost it.

ROM exploded. I have never seen this man go off on someone this much before. His head was turning the color of a fire truck, and I thought he would have a heart attack.

Now the thing was, I also had a full-time job, and I was just doing this for extra money, and I enjoyed chatting to the customers and other staff.

And the waiter had finally had enough.

I proceeded to ask for my pay for the night. I handed him my apron and wine opener (which he forced us to provide a deposit for) and quit on the spot, leaving my room of 30+ customers with no waiter or runner on one of the busiest nights of the year.

ROM had to begrudgingly go clear the plates himself.

Any self-respecting employee probably would have ended up doing the same thing!

What did Reddit think?

Many food service employers appear to be engaged in a race to the bottom.

This commenter loves to see a bad boss finally catch their karma.

This restaurant really ought to be reported for one glaring offense.

When will employers catch on that treating their employees well actually stands to benefit them too?

This server was done putting up with this horrible boss’ disrespect.

If the boss wanted the job done, he’d have to lock in and do it himself!

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.