A Supervisor Laid Cutlery on Uncleaned Tables—and Got a Server Written Up for Yelling at Him to Stop
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Have you ever had someone try to help you, but the “help” actually created more work for you? How would you handle this situation if the person “helping” was your supervisor?
In this story, one server was in this situation, and she responded by telling the supervisor to stop. She realizes her tone was probably too harsh, but she didn’t want him to create more work for her by “helping.”
The supervisor later told the general manager his side of the story, and the server got written up for it.
Now, she’s wondering if she really was in the wrong.
Let’s read the whole story to decide.
I got written up for speaking “wrong” to a supervisor
I work at the airport as a server for the dining room in airline business class lounge.
There are 3 areas to the lounge (the lounge, the dinning room, and the kitchen) and each has 1 manager and 1 supervisor.
In the morning, there are usually 3 of us servers working our small, 16 table dining room. Which isn’t a lot of work.
But they have a lot of work to do.
But it’s just us servers working the dining room. We have to bus, clean, and set our tables in addition to also walking almost half a mile to go the the bar when guests order drinks.
Lately, we’ve been having trouble with staffing as people will come in, work for about a day or two before realizing it’s not for them and leave. So because of this, we also have to step up to host.
Now this wouldn’t be too much of a problem. However, when is this type of job ever easy??
Our dining room opens at 7:30a and at 7:30a, there is always a line of people waiting. Our dining seating fills up quick and it’s adds more stress to have to play host and serve a full section.
The manager and supervisor aren’t helpful at all.
So after some loud complaints, management finally started to help. Or so I thought.
In the morning, there is usually 2 managers (lounge and kitchen) and 1 supervisor overseeing things until the others get in mid day.
1 manager lovely walks her butt around, eyes glued to her phone, and is constantly eating. She hardly ever helps us, yet sits at a table next to the dining room to do work when there are a lot of people in line and our struggle is real.
So that leaves the supervisor to help us with hosting. But he hates it and thinks that it’s beneath him. He too stand at the podium on his phone or will disappear the second no one is in line and then we have to search for him to help.
Helping isn’t even helpful!
It gets worse.
He never pays attention when he does try “help” with setting tables.
He never asks or checks the tables to make sure they are clean before putting the silverware and napkins down, making us have to do more work to get the table clean.
Yesterday was one of those days.
Here’s what happened.
We actually had a call out, so it was just myself and 1 other server.
It was a frustrating day cause of how busy we were and the kitchen was totally effing up everything.
I was doing my best to keep up with my tables and prebus them so they would be easier to clean once it became free.
The table was clearly not clean!
Well, I had a table of 4 that left (parents and 2 kids) and the kids poured salt, pepper, and sugar all over the table along with jelly smears bagel crumbs.
I got all plates and cups from the table but turned around to help another table before I came back to wipe it down.
I started wiping down the table next to mine since it was empty also, aiming for my table next when I felt someone walk behind me.
I looked up and there was the supervisor putting silverware on a dirty table.
She stopped him.
I quickly stood up and walked over to him and said “Stop. Don’t set that table. It hasn’t been cleaned yet.”
He looked at me like he didn’t hear me and I said again “It’s not clean. I need to wipe it down. Don’t set a dirty table please.”
Now I admit, maybe my tone was a bit off putting, but I didn’t raise my voice or speak down to him in anyway. But he felt some kind of way after that cause he just left the silverware on the table and walked away.
I finished cleaning and setting up and went on with the rest of my day.
The manager got involved.
End of my shift comes, and now the general manager is in for the day and he finds me and says we need to speak in the office.
I get there and the supervisor from earlier is sitting there also.
GM basically tells me that I need to learn to respect my superiors and that I should never scream at a supervisor when they “are taking the time to help us” (his words).
Then he hands me a write up to sign.
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OP didn’t defend herself.
I honestly didn’t argue. I just signed to damn paper cause I was the end of my shift and I wanted to go.
I’m still trying to figure out how what I said worthy of a write up.
I know it’s pointless to go back and try to argue about it now, but it’s still bothering me that it happened.
But I’m just going to do some petty revenge and just be petty at work for a couple of days thanks to this.
I’m not sure if it would’ve helped if OP defended herself, but obviously the general manger doesn’t understand what really happened. Yes, her tone was probably too harsh, but clearly the supervisor wasn’t actually helping. She just didn’t want him to create more work for her.
Let’s see how Reddit responded.
This person has a suggestion.
Another person suggests finding another job.
This is a good point.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an employee who thought HR was doing them a favor, only to realize they were really saving the company money.
Another person can relate to this situation.
It might be best to look for another job.
The supervisor is incompetent. The restaurant is understaffed. Everything about working there sounds stressful.
If she can get out, she should.
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