Imagine going out to eat with your family at a restaurant. Everyone orders, and the food comes out. What would you do if a couple things you ordered weren’t exactly the way you ordered them? For example, if your child didn’t want cheese on their burger but the burger had cheese on it, how would you deal with this? Would you simply ask the server to fix it, or would you get so angry that the owner had handle the situation?

In this story, one server was working at a sports bar when a family came in and placed a large order. She admits to messing up a couple things, but she was shaken by the way the dad talked to her.

I can understand why she didn’t work there very long. It doesn’t seem like she’s very good at her job or able to handle unreasonable customers very well, but that’s not the heart of the story.

Keep reading to find out exactly why the dad in this family got so upset and how the story played out.

Dad tells me not to address his son as “dude” or he’ll walk

For a short while in high school, I worked at a local sports bar. Wasn’t my best job, owner of the place was a jerk, but I made good cash cause it was a Mom and Pop kinda place, and usually I was the only server working.

I was coming close to the end of an 8 hour shift when a family of around 8 or 9 walks in.

The place was empty so I was excited, usually this many people means a bit of alcohol and quite a bit of food, meaning a hefty tip for me.

He took their order, but there was one request that stood out.

So I take all their drink orders, get that out to ’em, and ask what they want for the mains.

The three kids all want burgers of different varieties, except the youngest wanted a full blown burger instead of the regular kids one.

Now, the adult burger comes with the standard lettuce, onion, and tomato and I tell his dad that, but dad just waves me off like I rang his doorbell asking if he wanted to accept Jesus.

So I go all the way around the table, which was 2.5 notepad pages worth of food and modifiers (cha-ching) before I go and ring everything in.

The food was finally ready.

Fast Forward about thirty minutes to when the food is coming out. I’ve got two trays of the stuff, and it’s lined up and down my arms.

So I pass out fish, wings, carrots and celery, the burgers, and a few drink refills to boot.

As I’m doing that, I notice the smallest kid lifting his bun in disgust, you know the look. So, I said “Hey dude, is everything good with your burger?”

And he looks at me to start talking when his father stops him and says “What’d you just call my son?”.

This dad seems a bit much.

Totally caught me off guard, so I ask him to repeat himself.

He says “Don’t call my son ‘dude’ ever again. His name is (some name that I can’t remember because I was so baffled) and if you ever call him anything else then we’re walking out right now.”.

Obviously, I was shocked.

It took me a few seconds to really register what he said, but I threw on the standard faked smile and said “Of course sir, my apologies. I’ll get his burger fixed right away.” So I rush it back to the owner, who was working on the line.

Owner says he’ll fix it but gives me a glare.

Yikes! The dad really overreacted again!

The day had been slow but I wasn’t on my A-Game the whole day so my boss had to fix 2-3 orders before this, and wasn’t happy about the new kids burger. So I head back to the table to see if I jacked anything else up, and sure enough I did.

Another kid burger had cheese on it when it wasn’t supposed to. So I tell her “I’ll get this fixed for you. My boss is a bit ticked off right now so it may take a minute, but I’ll deal with it.”

She smiles at that, but her dad didn’t.

Oh no, Mr. No-Jokes-Allowed busted right in and practically yelled “I don’t care how your boss is feeling just fix the freaking thing!”.

The boss’s wife helped out.

I should add that this was in front of (who I later found out to be) his mother.

So, I rush that back too, explain it to my boss kinda shaken. Luckily, my boss’s angel of a wife was there to save my clumsy self and said “I’ll go out and talk to them dear. Don’t you worry.”

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One lecture from my boss later and I head back out with the two fixed burgers, and I comp them off the check. No further complaints from them, but they never actually spoke to me again. I swung by a few more times to see if they need refills only to be blatantly ignored.

Left a 10 dollar tip for a 140 dollar order, so I wasn’t exactly swooning but 10 bucks was a pretty good tip. Never saw them again, and I quit the job two weeks later after the verbal harassment from my boss became too much.

So many thoughts about this. First, OP doesn’t sound like a very good server. Second, the dad sounds crazy.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a mom who is irate after she gave a group leader money for her daughter’s lunch, only to have him pocket the cash and ask all of the kids to pay their own way.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This is funny!

Another person admits to calling everyone dude.

This person has a theory.

It really wasn’t a very good tip.

The dad definitely seemed to be in a mood. I hope he’s not like that all the time. I can understand being annoyed about a restaurant order not being exactly what you ordered, but the “dude” issue is ridiculous. “Dude” seems like a perfectly logical and generic way of addressing someone. Especially at a sports bar, it’s hard to imagine someone being offended by it. It’s not like it was a fancy restaurant.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a person who abandoned their own D&D campaign when their friends stopped paying attention.