Waiter Rants ...

[vikki]

I love this guy's blog, I really do, but sometimes reading the comments enrages me. For the record, I have never seen anyone spit in someone's food, serve it off the floor, purposely put hair in their food, or otherwise mess with a guest's meal for any reason. There are other ways to take revenge that aren't health hazards. Servers don't mess

Comments

[rosalui]

The best... was at a restaurant when I was about 5. :) The friendly lady gave me crayons and dough to play with.

The worst.... AHAHAHAHA. OMG, I haven't thought of this in years.

I was on vacation with my aunt and cousin in Cape Cod, and our hotel restaurant had a waiter named Alvin. It took him literally half an hour to come with our appetizers. At one point he dropped by with a stack of little plates, telling us, "Here, have these little plates, I don't know if you'll find them useful for something." At another point he gave us a little basket of pine nuts that I'm pretty sure were supposed to be for the salad that never came. It was a long time ago, so I can't remember specifics, but I think he also messed up an order, disappeared for long amounts of time, appeared extremely confused whenever we talked to him, etc.

We laughed about it for like the next five years. >.>;

[rosalui]

Actually, I tell a lie. I just remembered the actual quote, and it was: "Here are some little plates, I don't know if they'll be beneficial to you in any way...." Memory fail. DX

[nerdcore]

Comments and some articles I find about waitstaff (particularly "top ten lists" and the such.) either written by servers themselves or by someone who has NO idea what they're talking about make me so angry I can hardly see straight. Whether it's someone who hasn't worked a day in food service all of their lives or a server who flat out hates their job -- as someone who enjoys being a server, to see an entire occupation get stereotyped in such a negative way seriously makes me want to break things.

So I'm just gonna... watch this post.

[yuushi]

Tell me a story about your best service experience. Then tell me a story about your worst

BEST
Was serving this Christian Teenager Group of some sort--around 14 of them--and they wanted separate checks. My boss poo-pooed that and said they can have one check per table (they had three shoved together) and we'll help them work out the costs of each person if necessary. Already wasn't liking that, because when you push back like that with the customers, that already loses you points with them. Still, I did my best. Joked with them. Brought their food out as soon as it came up. Made sure their water and other drinks were filled when I saw them empty. And they were really nice and respectful too.

Was going to attach gratuity to the 3 checks (even though they were split up they were still a group of "8 or more") but then thought, eh . . . maybe they'll still take care of me anyway.

The total of the bills together was around $120 or so.

They gave me a $50 tip!

WORST
Ughhhhhhhhhh . . . can't pick just one right now! I'll get back to you!

[ficwriter1966]

I think 99% of my experiences run toward the middle of the range. I've had any number of very pleasant, attentive servers, and some who were grumpy and either were having a really bad day or hated their job outright. But for the most part it's fine. And I tend to be forgiving - and a good tipper.

I will say that Friendly's has the most abysmal service on the planet. I've *never* gotten my food in a reasonable amount of time, and once the food's been dropped on the table, the server is no longer anywhere to be found.

[wodhaund]

Best service: Just two nights ago an an Outback. Place was pretty busy, so we waited about 30 minutes to be seated. Kind of surprising for a Tuesday night, but hey, if it's busy it's busy (and that's good for business, so!). My order came out wrong, eh, it happens, it's easy enough to ask for a do-over. Our waitress was so super apologetic about it (she was sweet) and really attentive the whole time (my water never dropped below 3/4 of a glass, hahaha). We ended up leaving her a 25% tip on our bill because it was obvious she was doing her best. She really earned it, I think.

Worst service: Applebees a couple years ago. I ordered a cocktail and when I offered up my license as requested, I got it thrown in my face. The waitress accused me of using a fake ID (which okay fine, I was 24 at the time, so yes, agewise, pretty close, but really?). She was so vicious about it (though she never yelled) that my friends and I got up and left. I haven't been back there since (and believe me, management got to hear exactly why we got up