Waiting tables - last day & story

This weekend was my last weekend at the restaurant I work at. I worked there for a whole year, putting up with unbelievable amounts of shit from people that get off on being waited on, makes them feel superior and treat the servers like lesser beings. Also putting up with nastiness from the owner, who I SWEAR is bipolar and one second will make you feel like pond scum and the next be joking with you about Napolean Dynamite or something. Erratic, mean, petty, has a habit of making servers cry (I can think of 4 or 5 of the 8 of us that have cried in rage or hurt several times in the year I've worked there), then apologizes and gets off on how awesome he is for apologizing. Like his apology makes it okay for him to do that shit again. Anyway, it's been a long year and I'm SO glad to be gone. As are several others - they've lost 5 servers (out of 8) in the past few weeks and are desperate for quality help at the moment. Ah, makes leaving sweeter. They didn't appreciate their employees, and people kept bailing. That's what happens when you treat your employees like dung - there's NO loyalty.

Anyway, the story. It's a fine dining establishment, but it's "mud season" in our town which means far fewer tourists, so the restaurants intice the locals to come out with "two for one" coupons. Which brings out the cheaper clientele, some of whom are just fantastic, don't get me wrong, but also others who are less than desireable.

My very last night I had a table that validated leaving the industry. Table of six comes in, and from the get go, it's a problem table. Grandparents, parents, and two young teens, probably 12 & 14.

Grandpa orders a wedge salad with a side of anchovies, teen #1 orders a caesar with no cheese. Everyone else orders a normal appetizer, including one that always takes 12 minutes to prepare but is SO worth the wait - my favorite thing on the entire menu. Well apparently 12 minutes was too long, even with drinks and bread and good service, because Grandpa kept looking at me and looking at his watch.

(Note: the kitchen is having a hard time reading tickets apparently, nothing is coming out as we've ordered. It's going to be a bad night.) I take out the salads, asking the salad chef again for a side of anchovies; she's busy and it'll be a minute. The caesar looks like it has no cheese, and my ticket is resting on the plate, so I assume it's mine. Pick up the salads, thank the chef, she looks at me and sees what I'm taking, no comment.

At the table: drop the salads and tell the grandpa I'll be back in a minute with his anchovies. Go to a two top and take their drink orders quickly, and as I'm on my way to the kitchen for the anchovies, grandpa AND grandma accost me. Chastizes me in a loud voice for going to another table before getting his anchovies, and that there's some cheese on the kid's salad (apparently the kitchen had realized too late that it was supposed to be cheeseless, and had only sprinkled a bit on and thought it would still be good to go). I apologize and go back to the kitchen, grab the anchovies, pick up a new completely cheeseless salad, and go back to the table. Glowering Grandpa digs into his salad and moans with how good it is. Kid picks at his and doesn't really eat it anyway. I roll my eyes and continue. It's a busy night, and I have several tables needing attention.

After all this, I'm extremely cautious firing the order for the entrees: the kids want substitutions of mashed potatoes or fries, "no green decorations" on the Filet Mignon, not charred, no sauce. The adults have no modifications, so they are easy. Read over the ticket, it's perfect, fire the order. (Incidently, all steaks in the restaurant are cooked on the grill, and only "charred" by request by spraying with water. There should be no problem there.)

Grandpa glowers at me the entire time. It's my last night, so I just giggle at the whole thing. SO tempted to send him to this website, but I like the manager and don't want a scene. Spend the next 15 minutes working in the zone, moving the whole time, while imagining all the things I could say to this man who is SO obviously enjoying feeling superior to his table servant. Oh, and when I clear the salad/app plates, I notice that grandpa hasn't eaten a single anchovy. Awesome.

Entrees are up. I stare in horror. No substitutions are correct, steaks aren't charred but are darkish, and there is sauce on the meat. Fix the substitution error, nothing to be done about the VERY SLIGHT darkenss on the meat, and my bad, in the flustering of arguing with the cooks to fix stuff (can't they read???), I forget to fix that there was still sauce on the steaks.

Take the steaks out and all hell breaks loose. Grandpa and parents sputtering about the sauce, and what kind of restaurant is this, how can this be fine dining (in their jeans and sweatshirts and sloganized tees, right), and why are there fried onions on the steaks when they said no decorations (no GREEN decorations, hello, the onions are white, chuckle chuckle, at least the cooks got that right, no sprigs or sprinkles of green), etc..

I take the plates back into the kitchen, and of course the cooks don't cook up new steaks, they simply remove the sauce, which usually satisfies most tables. Great, I see this not satisfying them. Return to the table, and with the uproar now the manager gets sucked in. Mom and Grandpa yelling about how returning the same piece of meat is unacceptable, they are overly charred, will have the flavor of the sauce, their kids won't eat them, we should have cooked new MEDIUM steaks from scratch (I'm sure they would have loved the wait) making quite a scene. These kids are going to lead spoiled, disappointed lives when they don't always get what they want, in my opinion, with the way their family acts!

Send the plates back to the kitchen. Chef / owner is pissed. He takes two new steaks, and BOILS them to avoid "charring"! The parents and grandparents devour their food while waiting for the kids food. Poor hungry kids snacking on bread. Bring the plates back out, no sauce, no garnishes, just a hideously grey and pale piece of boiled steak with mashed potatoes (or fries for the other kid). Response from the table? Parents: "Oh, that's just PERFECT! Fantastic, that's EXACTLY how we want them." Kids: staring wide eyed in fright. BOILED FILET MIGNON? Are you kidding me?

Rest of the dinner is perfect, the souffle & cake come out right on time. The family groans in ecstacy over the food the entire time, grandpa glowers at me. When it comes time to drop the check, I take it to grandpa. As he's signing the bill, he looks up, meets my gaze, and I just look right at him, raise an eyebrow, and telepathically dare him to stiff me. Can't help myself. Apparently he could tell I meant business, 'cause he left me a tip where I'd expected a big fat zero. 10%, but better than nothing. They are no better than me, but got off on treating me like doo doo (expletive edited for online readership, grin).

And incidently my only two mistakes of the whole crazy busy evening (and pretty much the only mistakes of last couple weeks) were on his table - delivering the cheesy salad and delivering the sauced steaks. Sigh. Why couldn't I have made a mistake on the nice couple in the corner? Or the drunk 4 top that tried to flirt with me the whole time? Or the regulars that request me and for whom I'll have drinks ready before they order?

I danced on the floor when we were closing up - done there! Also told off the owner, in a very balanced way, and got hugged & applauded by my coworkers.

He was going off on how we weren't making an effort on sales, were overwhelemed and making mistakes, etc. So I told him low sales wasn't because we were overwhelmed or not trying, it was because coupon people are usually cheap people and don't order expensive wine or apps or desserts. And told him we weren't overwhelmed with 100 covers - that's 25 people apiece, and we did a fantastic job dealing with the kitchen's mistakes. Wanted to continue and tell him he needs to get the kitchen's act in gear and read tickets, but stopped short. But did tell him I had heaps of other things I wanted to say to him but probably shouldn't. He looked like I'd punched him, but hey, he needs it. He also probably didn't like the dancing and grinning with joy every time someone mentioned that it was my last day. Grin.

So, for more waiting stories, check out
Waiter Rant, I've linked to them before, but just wanted to refresh it. Some of the archived posts almost made me wet my pants laughing! But, while funny, it's also SO ACCURATE. Grin / sigh.