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).
It all started at an upscale restaurant.
Because, of course, it did.
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.
For most events, the menus, drink choices, and the tip were all previously agreed upon.
Sounds pretty swanky.
“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?
One night he worked an event of 30-40 people with another server.
Already it sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.
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.
But then the bros arrived.
Bro Number 1 and Bro Number 2 were definitely ready to stir the pot.
“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.”
They didn’t even get to the main menu before expressing their true natures.
Somehow, though, it’s not too surprising.
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.
“This is our party, just get me what I ordered and don’t question me again,” one yelled out.
Yikes!
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!”
The waiter handled the situation incredibly well.
But it gets better, don’t worry.
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.”
As the night went on, nothing seemed good enough for the entitled bros.
What an insatiable group of jerks.
“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.
Not to mention some of the diners were moving around like children at a Chuck E. Cheese.
Can’t these dudes give the waiters a break?
“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.
This is where the story gets good.
Thanks to one kind gentleman at the end of the table.
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.”
You get em’, pops!
At least our waiter received some kind of compliment before the night came to a close.
But wait.
There’s more to the story.
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!)
Without hesitation, the server replied.
“No mistake, Sir. That is what was ordered and drank.”
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.
“I apologize,” the waiter went on.
“They told me that this was their party and since I was just a waiter to shut up and do as I was told. So I did. I’m sorry, I took them at their word.”
The older man called the two bros over. Apparently, what he had to say was a bit too graphic for this specific story.
But our waiter describes it as “the singularly greatest [chewing out]” he ever witnessed.
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.
Specifically, he said:
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.
The check rang in at a whopping $3,000.
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.
