Monday, August 10, 2009

Possibly the most baffling walk-out ever.

One of my last tables tonight was a family of five--the parents and three kids. They seemed nice enough; I got their drink order and came back, but they said they weren't ready to order. So I took care of my other two tables and came back again. They still weren't ready. Again, I wandered around doing other things, came back. They still weren't ready! The dad thrust the littlest boy's Sprite at me and asked "Can we get a root beer?" Then he sort of turned it and looked at it and said "yeah, I don't know" before giving it to me. I think he was implying I screwed up, but I repeated the drink order so I know I didn't.

Well, right after that a couple two tables down who apparently thought they were in a kissing booth instead of a restaurant finally came up for air. When I asked if they wanted dessert, the guy started reading all dramatically, and the woman kept giggling and kissing his cheek and rubbing his neck and stuff. It took five minutes to get them to just tell me which damn dessert they wanted. I went to the kitchen, and rang in their dessert, and attended to one of my other tables. Then I talked to the manager for a couple of minutes before I headed back to my table to see if they'd made up their damn minds.

As I walked up, I saw the woman turn around and say something to the hostess. The hostess (Pothead Teenage Mom), watching me walk right at the table, steps in front of me to tell me they want to talk to me. Thank you, genius! I approached the table with a smile and asked, "Did you find something that sounds good?"

The man cuts me off and asks if I brought that root beer. I immediately apologized and and said I'd be right back (even though in the back of mind I was thinking Do you see it in my hands, moron?). The man stopped me by saying something in the most sarcastic, hateful tone I've heard in a long time: "You know, the little bit of tea I had was just great." I blinked at him, and he continued, "But you all don't seem very on the ball, so we're really not comfortable eating here. We're leaving." And he they all start piling out of the booth toward me.

I could have done the whole "concerned employee" thing. I didn't. I said, "Uh. Okay, have a good night." and walked away. The manager was sitting at the employee table, so I went and told him, "I don't know if you want to go talk to those assholes who are leaving, but apparently they're not comfortable eating here because we're not 'on the ball'."

Everyone at the table had the same response: Huh? Yeah, the manager was eating; but we still had a host, there were still several servers working, the bartender was still there. I forgot their replacement soda, yeah--but that's hardly reason to be so nasty. At least the last people I had walk out I could kinda sorta understand. But to accuse a whole restaurant staff of not "being on the ball" when the customers were the ones who couldn't decide what they wanted for twenty minutes? Ridiculous.

ETA: I forgot to say that they table sitting next to them even thought they were ridiculous! And also said they were glad they left because their children were very loud and hyper.

6 comments:

Alyssa said...

They prob just wanted free drinks. JERKS.

Anonymous said...

I love how it's always the customers' fault for your never ending screwups, you fat moron.

JumpIt said...

I love how people hide behind anonymous posts.

Drinks aren't free, either; I would have given them the tab of just the drinks before they walked out. Everyone forgets things now and then, and a root beer certainly isn't a life or death situation.

The Veteran Server said...

To customers, apparently everything is a life and death situation. I want to make my guests as happy as possible, but the fact that I forgot you wanted two lemons and accidentally brought one during peak dinner hours when I had five other tables- lets not blow that up into epic proportions. Sorry you had one of THOSE tables. Hope the rest of your night was better. God bless!

Aunty Pol said...

OH Goody PG..

Another post by Anon !

Anon: You are a chickenshit.

PG:

Didn't the other staff on the floor see you stop by to check to see if they wanted to order ? You went more than once..surely someone noticed.

Shrug it off sweetie,

AP

purplegirl said...

@Al - That's what I thought at first, but they didn't drink hardly any of them, nor take the kids cups with them. Just weirdos!

@JumpIt - It is pathetic how some people are such pansies, isn't it? :) If I'd had the tab for the drinks in my pocket I probably would have given it to them, but they were out the door before I even finished telling the manager what was going on.

@Veteran Server - You're right about people making mountains out of molehills. Thing is, if they'd said something like "You took too long, we're tired of waiting", this would be a whole different post of me berating myself for being forgetful. What they said was just WEIRD, though! :)

@AP - I didn't get in any trouble; my coworkers had all seen me at the table. Most of them think the people realized they didn't have enough money or something so made up an excuse to leave. I'm really not bothered by it, just confused. :)