If you’ve ever worked as a server, you know things can wrong during a busy shift.

One mistake turns into another, tickets start backing up, and before long, you’re running around trying to fix problems that you didn’t even create.

That’s exactly what happened to this server when a family came in for dinner on a busy Friday night.

At first, the table seemed a little demanding, but they were pleasant enough.

Unfortunately, the kitchen kept dropping the ball, and she found herself scrambling to make things right.

Then, just when she thought things couldn’t get any worse, her manager got involved.

Read on to see what happened.

My manager threw me under the bus in front of a table

It’s a busy Friday night. I was sat with a table out on the patio (mom, dad, early-20s daughter) right at the beginning of our busy time.

They immediately ordered 3 espresso martinis (which, unbeknownst to them, are super annoying because the server has to go to a different part of the building to pull the espressos for the bar, and there’s usually a line for the espresso machine… so that kind of put me in rush mode because I knew I was going to be sat again soon).

But anyway, they order the drinks and two appetizers and want to finish the apps before deciding on mains. That’s fine. It buys me some time.

When I come back, they ask for a candle for their table. Ok. I searched and only found an electronic votive, brought it to them, and turned it on. The daughter was like, “Oh, uh, thanks. We kind of wanted a real candle to fight off the bugs…”

She noticed the girl never got her soup.

So while I’m being sat with other tables, I’m also searching around for a real candle. I found one and brought it to them, and they were pleased. For now.

They ordered mains. The daughter got soup that she wanted served before her stir fry. Mom and dad got burgers, hers medium-rare and his medium with no lettuce.

After 15 minutes, I noticed the food runners never took the girl her soup, so I went to find it and was told by the kitchen, “It went out… maybe it went to another table…?” Well, what the ****? No one noticed that they got a soup they didn’t order? I ladled a soup myself and brought it to her because I realized they were almost ready to plate their mains.

Then, the father looked unhappy.

I checked back a few minutes later, and the girl had finished her soup and the parents had their burgers, but the daughter’s main didn’t come out. I went back to the kitchen to ask about the stir fry, and they were like, “Oh, this one?” and handed it to me.

WHAT THE ****? Two food runners were standing there, and the food was under the heat lamp but not being delivered?? So I took her the stir fry after her parents had already started eating.

As I approached the table, I saw dad’s face. He looked unhappy. I asked how everything came out, and he said his burger was undercooked AND had lettuce on it. I looked and YUP, waaaay rare, topped with lettuce. I apologized and told him, “I agree, that is NOT cooked medium. I will have it fixed for you right away.”

I took it to the kitchen and told Chef the situation. He looked and said, “That’s a perfectly cooked medium rare.” I said, “Yes, it is, but the guy wants medium and also asked for no lettuce.”

The chef was pretty rude.

Then he ******* said to me, “Yeah, I saw it said medium, but my mind saw it as medium rare…”

Chef then rolled his eyes and said, “Well, what do you want me to do?”

I told him to either put it back on the grill to cook it more or make another burger, whichever worked best for him. I then high-tailed it out of there because I was getting slammed with tables.

About 15 minutes later, I went back to the kitchen and saw them take his burger off the grill, plate it with a new bun, and I took dad his amended burger for him to eat alone, as his wife and daughter were finished.

At this point, she hoped the new burger was to his liking.

I told him they made him a new burger and I hoped it was cooked to his liking. I told him I appreciated his patience while I tried to make it right for him, and he thanked me.

I finally got to go spend some time on other tables for a bit. After a while, I went back to hopefully clear dad’s plate, except he hadn’t eaten. Once again, he had an extremely rare burger!!

I apologized again and told him that I had thought I made it clear to the kitchen what temperature it should be. He replied, “Well, I think they just torched the same burger to make it hot but didn’t cook it any further.”

I told him that I did see them take it off the grill but apologized again and said I would have it taken care of because that was not anything near medium.

Frustrated, she told the manager what happened.

He was not happy. I told him, “I don’t blame you for being upset. This is unacceptable. I don’t understand how this happened twice.”

Like, I think the second one was actually rarer than the first one.

I found the manager, explained the situation, and he went to the table. By this time, I had 5 other tables requiring attention, so I made my rounds. After a bit, I returned to the table as the manager was walking away. The dad had an incredulous look on his face.

Dad immediately said, “Your manager just threw you under the bus. He said there was a lack of communication on your part with the kitchen, but I don’t believe that. I know you knew what temp I wanted. I think the kitchen dropped the ball TWICE, and the manager is trying to blame you.”

At least the people were nice.

WHAT THE ****?

The dad went on to tell me I did a great job with them and that they appreciated the candle and the friendliness and that I shouldn’t let management treat me that way. I just shrugged and thanked him. I didn’t know what to say.

While at first I thought they were being unnecessarily high-maintenance, they ended up being a very sweet family, tipped on the entire amount (after being comped $25), and told me they would try us again but order something different next time.

Now I feel like I can’t trust my manager. Next time I send him to a table, I will stand there to hear what he has to say.

Geez! That manager sounds like they need some additional training.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a waitress who refused to return a tip after a party returned to the restaurant with a complaint.

Let’s see what the readers over at Reddit think about what happened.

This person thinks the manager was rude.

Many times, this is easier said than done.

It does seem like this is what happened.

There’s a big difference!

The whole thing is frustrating because the server never really had a chance to win.

From the moment things started going wrong, she found herself stuck in the middle of problems she didn’t create. Every time she fixed one issue, another one appeared, and somehow the responsibility kept finding its way back to her.

And that’s what makes the manager’s behavior so disappointing. A good manager should protect employees when they’ve done everything they can. But, he took the easy way out and shifted the blame onto the one person who spent the entire night trying to make things right.

Thankfully, the family saw who was actually putting in the effort and who wasn’t.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an employee who rejects a low contract offer and leaves the company instead.