A Server Accidentally Overcharges A Customer And Spends The Night Panicking About What Their Manager Will Say The Next Day
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It’s really normal to care about your job. Because of course, even if you don’t totally love what you do, it’s your main source of income and therefore the thing that keeps your home warm and your fridge full. And in this economy, that’s not something to be taken for granted.
So when the server in this story realised that they’d made a mistake with a customer’s bill they were mortified. They went to tell their manager right away, but later that night they’re still super anxious about what this is going to mean for them, their job, their relationship with their manager, the restaurant itself, and the customers.
And while everyone makes mistakes, they’re convinced that this one was particularly awful.
Read on to find out why.
I accidentally overcharged a table
I’ve been a server for a few years.
Today was pretty busy all at once, and I accidentally rung all of one table’s mains under another table.
I gave them the bill without checking it and when I brought them the machine they had also checked the bill and were completely fine. Didn’t say anything.
But then this server realised that something was wrong.
By the time I realized they were already gone and paid.
I told my manager and he wasn’t happy, but said they would try to contact those guys or wait till they called us to sort it out and it would be ok, but I’m so scared.
I’ve never messed up this bad. I won’t find out what we are doing about the situation for a few days when I work next.
I’m so embarrassed.
Honestly, we can all feel that mortification that this server was feeling here.
Because all of us have made a mistake at work and then had to live painstakingly through the night before going back to work to see if any negative consequences awaited us.
And just like (most of) the rest of us, without a doubt this server will go into work the following day and find out that everything is just fine.
Let’s see what folks on Reddit made of this.
This person reassured the server that they’d done the right thing.
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While others said that this was a regular occurrence, and something the manager should be able to deal with easily.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about customer who won’t take no for an answer when it comes to outdated price-matching policies.
Meanwhile this server could definitely relate!
Genuinely, these kinds of situations can feel excruciating at the time. But a few weeks, months, or years later they’re a tiny fragment of the past, maybe even something that felt really serious at the time but that you can laugh about later. And for sure, the server in this story is feeling super anxious about this right now – though they hopefully heeded some of these reassuring comments – but unless their manager is some sort of monster, they’ll go to work the next day and find how little these mistakes matter in the grand scheme of any working day.
Sure, the customer might not be super happy if they realise they overpaid, but also they didn’t notice at the time, so how much attention were they actually paying? If there’s an issue, the manager will be able to make it right – and may have even been able to give them a partial refund already. But as things stand, this was just a mistake – and we’re all human, which means we all make mistakes.
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