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Some nights, it only takes one customer to turn a great shift into a miserable one.

This restaurant server found that out after deciding to work a double shift for the first time in more than six months.

The night started off well enough, even after a large party showed up late for its reservation.

But as the meal went on, though, the red flags started piling up, from arguments over the kids’ ages to a complicated five-way split check.

Then everything took another turn when one customer claimed a chair had collapsed underneath him and demanded the manager’s attention.

Unfortunately, by the time anyone realized what had happened, he was gone without paying and the server was left wondering what else she could’ve done.

Read on to see how it all played out.

Customer faking injury for a dine and dash

I tried doubling for the first time in 6+ months at my AYCE KBBQ last night, and I regret it so bad.

So, I got assigned a 10-top reservation at 7. Pretty cool. Everything is set up right on time. The party is like 20 minutes late, but it’s an unusually slow Saturday, and I didn’t have any other reservations for that table, so we let it slide.

They’re enjoying themselves. I cook a little bit for the kids, but for the large part they’re a relatively needy, loud, rude, but sufficient table.

When it came time to pay the check, things changed.

At the very beginning, we established that they have two 8-year-old kids and a 7-year-old. They ordered lots of seasonal drinks, so automatic gratuity was looking good.

I get ready to give them their checks, and they want it split five ways. I don’t remember which kid was what age, so I ask, and that’s when they realize that our AYCE prices for kids are separated into the 4–7 and 8–12 age ranges.

Suddenly ALL of the kids are seven.

I try explaining to them that I’d rung their ages in hours ago, but they’re not having it, so I grit my teeth and get my manager to help me out. This is like the fifth red flag at this point, but I’m tired, don’t want to cross them, and just want them out.

Then, the last lady told her to go speak with her boyfriend in the lobby.

They were in no rush with putting their cards in their checkbooks, and I had just been sat again, so I decided to just process payments for whoever had put their money in, greet my table, and then come back to them.

Only one of our POS systems accepts cash, so I had to rush there first for one of the payments.

When I’d circled back to them again, I just needed one last check from this lady, who only had herself, her boyfriend, and six (!!!!) seasonal shots that she ordered for the entire party.

She then directs me to her boyfriend, who is sitting in the front lobby by himself, basically guarding the checkbook that his girlfriend said SHE was going to pay with.

Apparently, the chair threw him on the floor and hurt his hip.

He says his chair gave out on him and he suffered a bad hip injury and is currently waiting for the manager (who’d been informed before me), who is currently rolling back the cameras to check what happened.

At this point, I’m stressed out, but I still had multiple tables waiting to put in new orders, so as soon as the manager comes back to talk to him, I rush to my other customers to check in on them. The rest of the party had already left at this point, so it was just him.

Anyways, I check up on my tables and come back, and the manager informs me that he just straight up left without paying. No clue if anyone tried stopping him or not.

Then, the manager revealed the truth.

Doesn’t matter because all of the stress catches up to me, and I start bawling for the next hour.

I’m literally cleaning my grills, sobbing because I was so tired and full of guilt over having my first ever dine and dash, not knowing if I’ll get punished for this or not.

While I’m cleaning, the manager comes up to me and shows me the camera recording of the chair-breaking incident.

He was purposefully leaning all the way back, full-grown-man weight angled against the poor chair, causing it to give out. And he caught himself midair. He didn’t fall.

And him breaking the chair wasn’t even the most shocking part.

And then he proceeded to lie flat down on the floor to pretend that he’d fallen, which was when another server noticed him and helped him up.

Wowwww.

I’m well aware that days like these happen in the serving industry, but I clocked out with $170 for a 14-hour shift.

It’s the second-lowest. On another doubler, I earned $280, and even that was much lower than my expectations.

Geez! Some people will do anything for free stuff.

Let’s check out what the people over at Reddit think about this.

Now, this person knows how to recover from a bad day.

It’s frustrating, but violence is never the answer.

Here’s someone who’s had their fair share of bad days.

Yes, because some managers are the opposite.

Unfortunately, some people are just like that.

No matter how hard a server works, they’re going to find a way to take advantage of the situation if that’s what they came to do.

This server handled the night the best she could, and the good news is that the manager was involved before everything fell apart. That means this wasn’t her burden to carry by herself.

Hopefully the next double shift goes a whole lot better because she definitely deserves it after this.