I Was Nice To Every Rude Customer For Years, And They Still Got Free Meals For Complaining About Me
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In life, we’d all love to believe that good things happen to good people. It would be the just way for the world to be, safe in the knowledge that if you live a wholesome life being kind to others, that kind of positive karma will work its way in your direction. But the sad truth is that it’s not always the case that the good will be rewarded for being good, and the bad will be punished for being bad. Because not everything in life is just or fair, and sometimes you might wonder why such awful things are happening to such a good person.
Conversely, for the waitress in this story, the only people who were seemingly rewarded were the awful people she had the misfortune of serving recently. Because in her work life, this waitress made a huge effort to be polite, calm, and welcoming to all people – even those whose behaviour didn’t warrant it. But in the end, she became the victim of a horrible family who wanted nothing more than to complain just enough to get a free meal – and as their server, she got caught in the crossfire.
Read on to find out what happened here.
White trash family lies, schemes to get free stuff, acts like ******** and are comped for it
I work in a chain restaurant, and recently a white trash family comes in and is seated in my section. Mom, grandma, three teenage kids.
I can tell they cannot afford to eat at this particular place (especially since the teenage boy has about $8 out to pay for his own meal), but whatever – maybe their taxes or welfare check came in and they are spending it here. Not really my business.
The grandma has on a Tweety Bird tee shirt to match her 80’s feathered hair. Mom takes the free wine sample with glee, but decides to “be good” and have a Diet Coke.
All three kids must suffer from the same brand of ADD because I have to explain our soup selection (four soups) to each one of them, one after the other.
But this wasn’t the last of the complications.
In this particular restaurant, you have the choice of soup OR salad with your meal. All three teens order soup. The mom orders salad. Grandma decides she will share an entree with one of the girls and will have some of the salad.
I explain to her that if she is not ordering an entree herself, I will have to charge her $3.99 for the salad. She scoffs, moans. Whatever, lady, I don’t make the rules and I agree $3.99 is a bit pricey, but I am also not going to lose my job over it.
So, I go to the kitchen to get their soups, salad and breadsticks. I am not in the kitchen for ten seconds when one of the hosts come in and says, “Is table 33 you?” I said, “Yes, why?” and the host replied, “They said you are taking too long and they want their breadsticks.”
I roll my eyes, but put the basket together for her to take out while I finish assembling the soups and salad. Apparently, it was so important they flagged her down while she was seating another table. I guess that is just how classy fold behave.
Read on to find out what happens when they get their entrees.
Less than two minutes later, I arrive with their soup and salads. I set the salad down and one of the girls goes to put some on her bread plate. I remind her AGAIN that I will have to charge $3.99 and the mother even reminds her that she ordered soup.
The mother says, “We need more breadsticks. They only brought us enough to have one each.” Well, no ****. I go back to the kitchen and get two full baskets to take out to them because I have two other tables that need my attention.
When I return to the table, every teenager has a salad on their bread plates. Even better? THEY HIDE IT FROM ME! I politely put the breadsticks on the table, then go to the computer and enter three charges of $3.99.
It’s important to note that I know this sounds very, very petty, but my work does table audits rather often and if there is anything on the table I have not rang in, I will be fired on the spot.
So of course, this employee has to raise an issue with the table.
So I find my manager, let her know what is happening and tell her to be ready to hear from them when their bill comes because they’re going to be rather mad.
As soon as I am done talking to her, one of my co-workers says, “table 33 is yours, right?” I reply, “Christ on a cracker, what do they want now?” My co-worker replied, “Refills, more salad, more breadsticks and a new waitress.”
The only part of this that mildly surprised me was the breadsticks. They went through two breadsticks apiece in three minutes? I tell her to find our Manager and let her deal with them.
Now, these people are not the only ******** I have had all day. They’re just the worst ******** I’ve had all day. BUT, I had been there for four hours, had a horrible day, was very overwhelmed and about twenty minutes after all of this, the stress caught up to me and I burst into tears in the kitchen. I was humiliated.
Luckily, her managers had some sympathy with her situation.
I ask a different manager if I could have a small break to regain my composure. He said of course, just to let Manager #1 (the one I had already spoken to and who had been taking care of this table since) to know.
I track her down and she tells me just go home. I am not in any trouble, she knows I was just doing what I have been trained to do per company policy, but this table claims I was rude and THREW THINGS AT THEM!!
As it turned out, I ended up still being in the building when they left. Their bill came up to $98 and THEY WERE COMPED FOR THE ENTIRE THING!
I know this is common in the restaurant business, and the one I work for in particular is really big on comping things, but this just infuriated me.
Let’s see how she was feeling about this in the aftermath.
These ******** went to an establishment that was clearly beyond their means, acted like ******** to their server, tried to rip off said establishment, lied about the server who was just doing her job and were rewarded for it with a free meal.
I am well known amongst my supervisors and co-workers for being a friendly and polite person. As much as I want to punch some customers’ teeth in, I am always very nice to them.
I feel that by comping their meal, they were sent a message that I was wrong in following company policy and they were correct in treating me like ****, lying and stealing.
I hope they wrecked their piece of **** car on the way home.
It’s great that this waitress has great managers who were sympathetic about what she’d been dealing with, but wow, it really sucks that the restaurant policy ended up with this table of horrible people getting an entire meal for free.
She’s right, what has that taught them and their kids about how to treat people?
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It’s totally unfair.
Let’s see what folks on Reddit made of this.
This person was shocked that the restaurant comped the meal.
While others thought that the manager made the wrong choice by doing so.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an employee who cleverly shuts down customer arguments about closing time.
Meanwhile, this Redditor was furious that bad people were given free stuff.
It sucks that this family were rewarded for their horrible behaviour – particularly since they were so rude and disrespectful, making false accusations toward the server that were so off the mark that she was really hurt by them. She did her best to serve them politely despite their disgusting attitude, and was more than patient with the kids refusing to listen to the soup options over and over again. But instead of being grateful for her calm and professional service, they decided to lie about her, all in the name of getting the food that they seemingly couldn’t afford for free.
Honestly, it’s a terrible store policy to comp the meals just because the diners have complained. Because now they – and their kids – have learned that if you behave horribly and lie about the great service you’ve received, you’ll be rewarded with free stuff. All this does is encourage them to behave this way again – it’s no wonder their server was disgusted.
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