My grandma used to say that you can tell a lot about a person by the way they treat their server. And in all honesty, this is probably true. I can’t count how many times I’ve gone out to dinner only to witness an entitled customer who treats the restaurant employees horribly. I also waited tables at IHOP while I was in undergrad, so I’m pretty experienced when it comes to customer-created crapfests. Even so, I’ve yet to come across the kind of rudeness one waiter had to deal with.
In a recent post on Reddit, a restaurant worker posted a tale of two bros, one heroic older gentleman, and a sweet plate of revenge. Unlike most service industry stories, however, this one ends on a happy note (of about $3,000).
Reddit user Exs_in_Texas shared his experience in the Malicious Compliance Subreddit. (Side note: You’ll probably want to pop some popcorn for this one.) He begins his story by telling us that he used to wait tables at a fancy restaurant that was a popular venue for office and holiday parties.
“All of it was in the contract the host signed pre-event,” Exs_in_Texas wrote. “Usually the host would make themselves known fairly early on so you would know who to talk to if there was an issue and who to give the check to at the end of the night.” Easy enough, right?
First of all, that’s a lot of people. It doesn’t matter how great the server is in cases like that. The party, according to the Reddit post, came in as groups of five or six people at a time. No big deal, right? The Redditor, Exs_in_Texas, was able to take drink orders without feeling rushed.
“Me and my bro are going to start with a round of Johnnie Walker Blue, and these ladies are going to have (expensive red wine),” Bro No. 1 said to the waiter. Then Bro No. 2 turned to the women and said, “Once you have Johnnie Blue, you just can’t drink anything else. It changes you, bro.”
Unbeknownst to the bros, Johnnie Walker Blue wasn’t on the list of pre-approved drinks. The waiter politely asked the dudes if they’d like to put their drinks on a separate tab. But that didn’t stop them from making a scene.
As if that wasn’t rude enough, the other bro had the audacity to ask our poor waiter friend, “Who do you think you are?” He followed the cliche line with a rather disgusting remark: “You’re just some waiter, we have MBAs. Just get us our drinks!”
Following the completely unnecessary outburst, the waiter did as he was asked. Each guy got there beloved Johnnie Walker Blue, which is three to four times the cost of Johnny Walker Black. In fact, the waiter noted, “One round of drinks for these people is over $100.”
“The whole night goes exactly as we thought,” Exs_in_Texas noted. “Nothing was good enough, the appetizers were crap, the food was horrible, not enough bread, too many bread plates, drinks were taking too long, why do some people have food and others don’t…” But with a group that large, some delay is inevitable.
“To make it worse, Chads and co. are all over the place, moving seats and making others move so they can talk to who they want,” the waiter continued. And to make things worse, everything was coordinated by seat number. Fortunately, some people at the table were pretty normal and polite.
An older gentleman (who may be the rude guys’ boss or father) sitting at the other end of the table apologized for the boys’ behavior. He said, “They might have fancy degrees and good jobs, but you can’t teach class.”
At least our waiter received some kind of compliment before the night came to a close.
One bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue and two stressed out waiters later, the older man requested the check. When he saw the amount, though, he asked the server if there’d been some kind of mistake as Johnnie Walker Blue wasn’t on the pre-approved list of drinks. (The tab was $600 for the bottle alone!)
Politely, the gentleman asked our trooper of a server why he brought out drinks that weren’t on the pre-approved menu. But this waiter wasn’t going down without a fight. He told the man the unfiltered truth without mincing words at all.
The older man called the two bros over. Apparently, what he had to say was a bit too graphic for this specific story.
Following the bros’ public beratement, the elderly gentleman told the waiter that the bros would be taking care of the bill and to raise the gratuity up to 25 percent.
Apparently I thought this was my party. Guess I was wrong. This is their party and they will be taking care of the check. Oh, and up the gratuity to 25 percent. You earned it.
So what’s the moral here? Be nice to your servers. They’re hard-working people who deserve respect, too. Otherwise, get ready to pay the price.
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