Customer service is a tough industry. You have to be polite, friendly, and eager to please. It's not for everybody, which becomes only too clear as soon as things start to go wrong. We asked people from around the world to share their worst customer service experiences. Bad waiters, rude managers, seedy retail workers, and grumpy hotel owners - these establishments are getting zero stars out of five.
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30. Stay wholesome.
I was at an awesome bbq place in Fort Worth with a bunch of friends. Our server was a bit goofy. He was funny, really nice, but kind of distant. He just seemed like he didn't seem suited to waiting tables. He got our drinks and orders wrong, but it was hard to be upset. As a customer service experience, it was more weird than bad. He had a huge red beard, and I said, "Dude, your beard is awesome!" He then said, "Thanks! My neighbor has one just like it. Some people think he's my dad, but he's not my dad. I've met my dad." Then he just walked away without saying anything.
Photo by Bruno Cervera from Pexels
29. Pay it forward.
I used to be a hostess in a Pizzeria chain that based out of Chicago. I came to work in one in NY and I'll never forget this family of 8 gave me - THE HOSTESS - a $25 tip on a $50 bill all because they hated their waitress and I was the one that kept refilling their drinks. Waitress was beyond mad, but manager said to her "Should have been paying more attention. The tips is hers."
Best day ever.
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28. It's called the hospitality industry.
Last weekend I went to the beach with my friend. We had booked a hotel room with TWO queen beds. For whatever reason, there was an administrative error and the hotel had forgotten to reserve our room. We get there are and there are no rooms with 2 beds left. The front desk agent was very apologetic and offered us an extra room at no charge (because duh, they messed up) until the owner of the place moseyed on in and instead said "NO, if you want 2 rooms, you're going to pay for 2 rooms" and asked us why we couldn't just sleep together in a king bed, which is not really his business and if we WANTED TO SHARE A BED we would've booked a room with one bed instead of specifically booking a room with two. If we had known they were out of rooms, we would've gone somewhere else. At that point he insisted on us staying in one room with a cot, which I said was no good because one of us is sleeping on a cot, and it's not something we agreed to pay for. Eventually, after 2 hours of arguing, he left and his son (who is the part owner and the one who suggested giving us 2 rooms for the cost of one in the first place) let us have 2 rooms.
His dad is clearly in the wrong business.
27. Knows how to push buttons.
Last year I was going through the self checkout at Kroger late one night. There were a few other people at said self checkout, but it was far from busy. I attempted to scan an item that was on clearance, and it brings up the "wait for attendant" message. I see the kid working the section talking to another coworker about 20 feet away. The hand modules they use have an ignore function, so they don't have to come over every time someone doesn't know how to use the machines (95% of the time). Dude hits the ignore button. I know it wasn't gonna scan without his approval, so I hit the "call attendant" button. He presses ignore again. This happens 8 times. When I finally went over to ask him for help, he bolted to the back before I could catch him. I wasn't mad, just annoyed. So I left the self check to go get in a regular line. Just so happened that a manager was walking by and asked if I was having issues, since I was leaving self checkout. I told her what had happened and she was furious.
Never saw that kid at Kroger again.
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26. On a wing and a prayer.
At a Buffalo Wild Wings, I had a waitress forget my order twice. I was with a party of 8 people, everyone finished before I got my food. When the manager came back for a third time, asking what I ordered I stood up and said 'Nothing and nothing ever again' and my wife and I left. They ended up comping the entire table, but the waitress said 'way to be a jerk' as my friends were leaving.
25. So presumptuous.
I was out to dinner with my family. We sit down, order our drinks, and so far everything is going nicely. The waitress comes, and we order. When it gets to my mom, she orders what she wants, and the waitress responds with "If you're on a diet, you don't want that." My mom had said nothing whatsoever about being on a diet. She is slightly overweight, and I mean very slightly. She is self conscious and it's difficult to even get her to come out to eat with us. My mom simply said "I'm not on a diet" with a cold stare. The waitress turned red in the face and walked off to place our orders.
24. Last bus to the station.
On a return trip on a greyhound from Vegas to SoCal. The bus missed my connecting bus, which happened to be the last bus headed out that night. I called customer service and they basically told me "herp derp, too bad, next bus out of there leaves at 9 tomorrow morning."
So greyhound leaves me stranded in the middle of the night, in a terrible part of town. I had to walk a few miles away until I finally got ahold of a friend who drove out 40 miles to come get me.
23. Bottle service.
Had a waiter spill a $100 bottle of wine (first and last time in my life I ever paid that much for a bottle of wine) all over my dinner. He refused to replace either. After I didn't tip him he literally chased me out of the restaraunt and physically threatened me for his tip. He had to be restrained by the manager.
22. Just gross.
I was at a department store, buying some jeans. I asked the store attendent if I could try on a pair. He said sure and led me to the changing rooms. I went into the cubicle and dropped my pants. The store attendant knocked on the door. I unlocked it and opened it a crack. He asked if he could come in, I said "No, why would you want to?"
He replied "because I think you are cute." He then proceeded to forcefully open the door and about 30 seconds of me and him pulling and pushing on the door ensued. I was starting to get a bit frantic, so I yelled out for assistance. He stopped pushing on the door and disappeared. I put my pants on and got outta there, I was shaking.
I got home and called the department store and told them what had happened. I found out later that they fired him on the spot.
Image by GREGOR from Pixabay
21. Vegetarians optional.
I was at a relatively nice Italian restaurant and ordered a dish without bacon in it cause I don't eat meat (yes I know how dare I not eat bacon). The dish came out everything seemed fine but when I tasted it, I was sure that it had bacon in it. No problem mistake happens all the time. I politely informed the waiter when he returned to check in. He looks at the plate takes out a fork, tastes it and then has the audacity to say;
"Nope, there is definitely no bacon in there."
I have never been more upset with a server in my life. Don't know what happened to him but that meal was free in the end.
20. Did she think that would work?
My family and I went to a sushi restaurant for my cousin's birthday. The service wasn't really that good, they gave us the wrong drinks and they forgot stuff that we asked for as soon as they walked away, so we gave the waitress like a $2 tip instead of the usual $5. As we're walking in the parking lot back to our car, the waitress runs after us and tells us that we didn't tip 15%! She's literally chasing after us. My uncle gives us this look and pretends that he is going to follow her back into the restaurant to pay. Then as soon as she goes through the door, my uncle starts sprinting to the car and we all run and jump inside and drive away. When I looked through the back window, I could see the waitress and her manager running after us but they couldn't catch up. Yeah, never went back there again.
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19. No news in the customer service center.
My husband was in one of the Marine units sent to Haiti to help with the earthquake relief. We had just gotten new phones through Sprint, and after hearing from other wives that they were able to get international calling on their husband's phones, I thought I'd call customer service and see if I do the same for my husband. I must have gotten the most clueless rep ever. After explaining where my husband was and why, she told me that unfortunately his phone couldn't do that, but if he could find a Sprint store in Haiti he could buy an international phone. I stuttered out a "What?" and asked her if she really expected my husband to find a Sprint store in a country that had just been hit by 7.0 earthquake and be able to buy a phone. She didn't see a problem with that and I just hung up on her, speechless. Definitely the worst customer service experience I've ever had.
18. No mercy for minors.
I used to be in a youth organization in the US, called Civil Air Patrol. We're a volunteer auxiliary of the Air Force and we do search and rescue, leadership training, and aerospace education stuff.
A group of several hundred Canadian Air Cadets was visiting my <20 person, northern WI, squadron (for giggles, I guess) and we showed them around Madison, WI (state capitol, malls, cheese stores...). For lunch we went to Ruby Tuesdays (like Applebees, TGI Friday's, Chili's, etc).
I ordered, and the waiter tried to convince me to buy a drink. At the time I was 16, looked 12, and he insisted that I should buy a drink because I was in uniform. I kindly told him that I prefer a coke and had no interest in breaking the drinking laws at a public establishment. From then on out he REFUSED to refill my soda.
We're done eating, the waiter brings our bills. Most of us, excluding family members, were on separate tabs. The waiter does not return my bill for a half-hour. We were sitting there chatting, and the adult chaperons inform us that it's time to leave. I informed my squadron commander that the waiter hasn't brought my change yet.
My squadron commander gave him a "talking-to." I got my change - left no tip. You try to steal from me, you get screwed.
Image by bridgesward from Pixabay
17. So bad it's illegal.
I had a cashier at Target ask if I wanted to sign up for their credit card, to which I declined. She then asked to see my ID, which made sense as I was buying beer, and she used it to sign me up for a Target credit card. I was furious, because I don't see how that isn't identity theft, and told her I wanted to talk to the manager (only time in my life I've uttered that phrase). She got really angry and defensive, started insulting me, and refused to call her manager.
I got another cashier to do it and then the woman flat out lied to her manager about what had happened. It was at that moment I discovered I had no telekinetic abilities because if I had, she surely would have exploded. The manager assured me the woman would be fired and gave me a lot of gift cards to make up for it since I now had to go through the whole process of canceling a credit card.
I went back about a month later to use some of the gift card value, and I saw that same woman still working there. I said something about it to the manager, left, and sold the cards on craigslist.
I'll never shop at Target again.
16. Bad service kills.
I went out to dinner a few months back with some friends at a pretty typical chain restaurant.
Me: "I'll have a diet coke please." Waitress: "Oh, we only have pepsi, is that ok?" Me: "Sure. A diet pepsi would be fine."
I have my soda and a few refills over the course of dinner and start feeling really, really bad.
Right about here is where I should mention that I'm a type 1 diabetic and (since I always just drink diet coke) don't know the difference in taste between diet and regular pepsi.
I checked my blood sugar, which had been perfectly on target before the meal, and my meter just read HIGH, meaning that the value was so high that the meter actually couldn't process it. What I had eaten for dinner couldn't possibly have put me there (and I'd dosed with an appropriate amount of insulin to cover for it) so we flagged down the waitress and I asked "This isn't diet pepsi, is it?" She responded by telling me that it wasn't, that the diet pepsi fountain was out of syrup and she didn't think I'd mind, and besides, I'm plenty skinny and don't need to drink the diet stuff.
I started cursing, pulled out my insulin syringes to dose for the 4 full sugar sodas that I drank, and told her exactly what I was doing. I then told the manager what had happened, and that I wasn't planning on paying for the meal but would instead put the money toward the ER bill that I was about to incur. Went to the hospital where the lab determined that my blood sugar was still in the 700s even after I dosed, and I ended up staying overnight because my glucose level stubbornly refused to come back into range.
15. The meal was as wilted as the spinach.
Was in St. Pete Beach, FL with my parents, sister, wife, grandparents, aunt, uncle, and cousin. So 10 people in all. We sit down at a mostly empty restaurant and order a couple drinks around the table. Waiter comes to take our order, but doesn't have anything to write with. Okay, some fancy restaurants do that, didn't expect it here, but whatever.
Dude has to come back three times over the next half hour to ask people what they ordered because he forgot. 45 minutes in, he comes back to say that he forgot to say that they were out of tuna, so four of the orders can't be made and they need to order something else.
Something like an hour and a half after we order, the food comes out. Almost half of the orders are wrong or have the wrong sides. Mine is supposed to be salmon on a bed of spinach and risotto. I got a piece of salmon that was about 4 normal bites big, an ice cream scoop of risotto, and no spinach in site. When I asked him about the spinach, he said "it's under the salmon" which I found hard to believe since it only occupied about 5 square inches. Lifted the salmon, and found about 3 wilted spinach leaves stuck to the bottom of it.
My dad (who was paying) complained to the owner, who simply said "oh, I'm sorry....we'll try to do better next time". To which my dad said "You're going to comp me half the bill or more, and MAYBE there will be a next time." Dude shrugged and gave my dad the drinks for free, which was only about 15 bucks worth.
Needless to say, we never went back.
14. Death of a salesman.
My wife and I needed some furniture for our new house so we went couch shopping a couple of months ago. Now that we are in our 30s, we are looking for pieces that are a little better quality and will last longer so we went to a “nicer” store. Before our visit she had gone in with her folks to scout the place out and had been helped by a very nice salesman. This time when we walked in, that salesperson was not around and we were approached by someone very pushy and quite unfriendly. We politely told him we did not need any help as we were just looking.
As we made our way around the store it was clear that this new rep was keeping a close eye out. He came over to offer his assistance once again at which point I told him that we would not be needing his help today and continued shopping. After about 30 minutes the wife and I had narrowed our search to a particular couch. As I was testing it out, my wife happened to see the salesman who had helped her and her folks. She walked across the store where he was just finishing with a customer and asked if he could help us. He recognized my wife and told her he would be over there in 1 minute to give us a hand.
All of a sudden, out of nowhere, the second salesperson comes up to my wife and says “What do you think you are doing?” My wife was surprised so she asked him what he meant. He said “You are supposed to be my customers. I haven’t taken any others since you walked in, so how dare you talk to another rep?” Well at this point I got up from the couch and walked over asking who he thinks he’s talking to. He began arguing and telling me that I was supposed to be his commission and that I was cheating him out of money. At this point I just about lost it and thankfully the nice salesperson came, took me by the arm and defused the situation. Needless to say that the manager and I had a nice long chat. The rest of the staff could not believe what he said to us and we could see them arguing with him at the other end of the store. I think he was just a bad salesperson who saw everyone else get sales, and that was the day he snapped.
Image by KmlOnr from Pixabay
13. Thanks for the life lesson.
Once I went to a place known for its Cuban sandwiches with my family. We were all really excited, because we like food in my family. So we get our drinks and everything seems fine. We were seated immediately and everyone was really nice. Our waitress brings us our drinks and says she'll be back in a bit to take our food orders. We're conversing and such so we don't notice immediately how long it is taking for our waitress to come back.
We wait another twenty minutes just in case. The place is pretty empty, so eventually we ask another server if they know what happened to our server. He says he'll go check, but that he'll take our food orders if we're ready to speed up the process. Things seem on the up and up, so we stop worrying. About 45 minutes later my dad is about to explode. It doesn't take that long to make 4 sandwiches. He's about to go complain when, as if on cue, our waitress comes running and screaming out of the kitchen and goes right on out the front door. Everyone goes completely silent and just watches the front door for a couple seconds.
It turns out she had a nervous breakdown right about when we ordered her food. She had been just pacing around in the kitchen slowly becoming unhinged. The manager apologized and we got free sandwiches.
The moral of the story though, is that you never know what is going on with your server. Maybe they're going a bad job, but they might be on the edge of snapping entirely.
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12. Every day is a bad day at the impound lot.
A while back, my ex got arrested after taking my car without permission. My car was impounded, and it was $250 to get it back. Needless to say, the entire situation made me fairly irritated. I arrived at the place to get my car, and as I walked into the building, my ex's mom called to try and find out more about what was going on, and see if I needed help. I was inside, but I had not addressed any staff whatsoever, and it was obvious that the conversation I was having was with the person on the phone, not anyone in the building.
On the phone I was explaining that I had just gotten there, and I wasn't sure if they had my keys or if I needed to go to the jail and have them released to me if the ex hadn't given them up upon arrest. I'm sure I sounded irritated, because I was. Queue the receptionist jumping all over me, telling me that they know how to do their jobs, and that I'm being rude. I look over at her and explain that I'm sure they do, I'm on the phone, and I'm sorry if she thought I was talking to her. She's having none of it, and gets up and starts screaming in my face. I'm a pretty shy person until you bring my spit into my personal bubble.
I tell her she's being inappropriate and absurd, and I want to speak to her supervisor. So she screams for him to "Get out here and handle this stupid [bleep]" and he comes out, and starts screaming at me to get out if I'm going to treat his staff like that. I tried to explain that I hadn't even addressed her until she started screaming at me, and that I needed to get my car out of their impound lot. He wouldn't listen.
Long story short, I was 25 at the time and had to have my mother come help me get my car out of impound because the people who worked there were insane. I'd never experienced anything like that. They did have my keys though, my ex was smart enough to give those up at least.
11. You aren't what you eat.
I had a weird experience a few years ago. My wife and I, and a couple of her brothers went out for coffee one evening. I had just gotten off work and hadn't eaten, so I took a look at the menu and order beef frajolaki (seasoned steak with onions and tomatoes on a torpedo bun), and my wife ordered a turtle cheesecake with her coffee.
About 5-10 minutes after the waitress had taken our orders, another group of people sat down in the booth behind us. The same waitress came up, chatted with them and grabbed their orders.
After about 20 minutes, out comes the cheesecake that my wife ordered. No, wait, it's a cappuccino cheesecake. My wife called the waitress back and told her about it, and the waitress apologized and offered to bring her the proper one out, but my wife liked it well enough so she said she'd just have the one that was brought to her.
Another 15-20 minutes go by, and I'm still waiting for my meal, getting a little ticked off by this point, when I spot the waitress coming our way, plates in hand. Wait, plates? I was the only one who ordered! She walks by us and to the booth behind us and distributes the food. Now I'm getting really ticked. I hear the table behind me discussing their meals, and one of them asks another what he's eating, to which he replies "I don't know, but it's really good!" Well, I thought, how do you not know what you ordered?
Another 10 minutes go by, and I'm about ready to leave, when out comes the waitress, plate in hand. She sets it in front of me and asks if there's anything else I need. I look at the plate and back to her and say "Uh, this isn't what I ordered. I ordered a beef frajolaki. This is a beef dip." She looks at the plate, then quickly looks at the booth behind us. Yup, mystery guy who couldn't remember what he had ordered? He was chowing down on my frajolaki. Mistakes happen, and I'm pretty mellow, but when she said "Well, can't you just eat this instead?" I asked for the cheque and got up and went outside to wait for my wife before I totally lost it.
To top it off, she tried to charge me for the beef dip.
10. You never know who your customers are.
This happened a few years ago to me and my fiancée and our friends. I worked at an Indian restaurant, with one of my lady's best friends. The owners of the restaurant had just opened a new Mexican place, so we all decided to go. It had been open about a week, so it would have been understandable if the food and service weren't out of this world, but what we got was amazing. In our group there's 7 or 8 of us. Next to us is a group of clearly well to do people, maybe 6 or so. Our server has only the two tables. This is what follows next:
Our server gets our drink order, doesn't bring them for 20 minutes, takes our food order, that doesn't come for nearly two hours. Meanwhile, the rich people next to us get the best service I've ever seen. She was clearly just ignoring us and pegging us as cheap college kids (All of us worked in restaurants). Finally our food comes, and all the orders are wrong. No one got correct food (One girl didn't even get her meal until we were about to walk out the door) Oh, also our drinks never got refilled once.
So after a while of this we get a manager, who looks blankly at me and walks away without saying a word. Finally we get someone else to come talk to us. We explain everything to her. Lastly, we drop the owners names, saying we work for him and will be telling him everything that happens. The General Manager's face goes slate white. After all of this, we just wanna leave. They gave us half off the entire meal, than the server comes up to us and says, "My bad guys." That's all we got in a form of an apology. We left her a tip of about 3 cents. On our way out the hostesses are all smiles and asking us how the meal was. I turned to this girl, who was clearly unaware of what happened, and just go "It was terrible," and I grabbed a giant handful of peppermints and walked out.
Image by ink_lee0 from Pixabay
9. Shining a light on bad service.
My parents and I decided to try a new, trendy pizza place right around the corner from my apartment one night last month. We decide to sit outside because the weather was nice and they had a big patio and a side deck. Everyone working at this place had an attitude, from the hostess who seated us to the waitress taking our orders. They made us feel like a huge inconvenience, but we were hungry and had heard the pizza was good so we tried to look past that.
As soon as we are seated on the patio the girl offers to lower the shades because the sun was setting and was directly in our line of sight. We say that would be great and a guy comes out and lowers the blinds for us. We order our drinks and look over the menu.
Not even five minutes later a young guy comes to our table incredibly ticked off that the blinds were lowered. In a very condescending manner, he tells us that he's going to have to raise the blinds because they trap heat in the patio ultimately raising the patio temperature about 20 degrees. My dad politely tells him that the sun is in our eyes and that they really shouldn't offer to lower the shades if it's going to cause a problem. The guy snaps. He is incredibly disrespectful toward my father and goes on a tangent assuring us that the sun would set and even going as far as to take his sunglasses off of his head and offering them to my dad. He's young, maybe 25, and treating us like we're imbeciles saying that our request to lower the shades would make the other customers less comfortable. Whatever, they raise the blinds and we question whether or not we'll stay to order food.
We stay. Our drinks arrive and we take a few more minutes to look over the menu. The waitress is nowhere to be found. We sit they in awkward silence trying to get past what had just happened. Other tables are seated and the hostess offers to lower the shades for each table. We finish our drinks and the waitress still hasn't returned to take our order. We contemplate leaving but she finally shows and we order. The food came out cold, but one of the managers was walking around asking how everything was. We told him about the sunglasses prick and he was furious. I haven't seen the guy working there since.
8. Take your sandwich and run.
There's a Subway that recently opened right across the street from my house. I started eating $5 footlongs every day. It was glorious. Not only was it extremely convenient, but the service was better than any subway I had ever been to, by far. Fast, the sandwiches were made great, the girls were talkative and flirty.
There was one downside. The guy who worked most nights was a short, surly dude who was always being a jerk or trying to intimidate you, which was pretty easy due to his bulk and full sleeve tattoos, also those tear drop tattoos, which if I'm not mistaken are prison tats.
Every time I'd go in there, I'd say "hey hows it goin?" he would answer with a grunt or just ask "what sandwich you want." I'd get through my order has he threw meat and veggies around all willy nilly creating the most dishelved, sad looking sandwiches I've ever seen.
After going there a few times with this experience, me and a girlfriend of mine go in one night. I go through the same routine. My friend asks a question about the gluten free sandwiches and dude drops his mop to the ground (he had started mopping right after my sandwich was made without asking girl if she wanted anything) and says "Are you serious? CANT YOU SEE THE PICTURE?!" and gestures toward a picture of a gluten free sandwich.
My friend his shocked and says something like "you know what man, you're a jerk" and storms out. I say "wow great customer service man." He answers "What?! You asked a question and I answered it!" He was doing the "come at me bro" stance and had a fury in his eyes as if I had just insulted his entire immediate and extended family.
7. Them's the rules.
In America there is a place called "Denny's" and it is always open. The food is so-so, the service is usually good. The breakfasts and treats are pretty good.
My wife was very sick, and in the hospital. One of those things where you spend days in the hospital just waiting to get better. I would stay with her after work until the hospital shooed me out a couple of hours after the end of visiting hours. Then I'd realize I'm tired and famished, stop to grab a bite at the local burger place then go home.
Tonight was going to be different though, it was 9:30, and I wanted dinner. Denny's it was! I ordered the chicken fried steak with side veggies from the menu, and got a soda, and started reading a book as I waited for my order.
The book was really good. 40 minutes later, I realized I didn't have my food! I called the waitress and asked how long it takes the chef to cook dinner, and she went to check. She returned with some food, a very cold Chicken Sandwich with fries. Okay, apparently it's someone else's dinner. So I complained.
She went back to the kitchen. A few minutes later I see her walking out the door, and saying "Goodnight" to the other servers. Another waitress comes to my table and asks me if I'm ready to give my order now.
I've rarely been this mad in a restaurant. I was quietly furious, and asked what happened to my chicken fried steak? The new waitress didn't know so we got the manager over.
Apparently there had been a shift change. New waitress, new cook. Me left between the cracks. So I told them, "Fine, I'll take my chicken fried steak dinner, on the house."
"I'm sorry sir," said the manager. "It's after 10pm, and we don't serve some dinner items after 10."
"It was on the menu!"
"Yes, it is on our regular dinner menu, after 10PM we use the 'late night' menu."
"I ordered my chicken fried steak BEFORE 10, so I expect that for dinner!"
"I'm sorry sir, but our day chef is gone. Our night chef isn't familiar with that item."
That was it. I made a scene. I blew up and yelled at the manager. Then I left.
6. At least karma's rooting for you.
I had some money and personal items stolen out of my hotel room while vacationing in Mexico. The day we had to catch our flight was the day I noticed it had all gone missing. Some of the memorabilia I had bought for friends, along with 80$ American and some expensive makeup. I was 18 at the time and I was absolutely devastated. The hotel refused to help in anyway, and I KNOW It had been there before breakfast and our room was cleaned.
So I headed to the airport sadly, completely bummed about an otherwise awesome trip. At the check in at the airport, the guy asked why I was so glum, and I told him what happened. Without saying a word, the guy upgraded my plane ticket to a first class ticket. Free of charge! I was riding coach before that. I didn't realize what he had done. I glumly accepted my ticket and made my way to the boarding gate.
While waiting for the plane, there was this incredibly rude woman who glared at the entire time for no apparent reason. I asked her for the time, and she scoffed at me and took another seat. I could hear her criticizing what I was wearing and how 'trashy' she thought I looked. Just mean.
Anyways, when they started calling up passengers by class, I looked down at my ticket, and noticed that my seats were being called for first class. Dumbfounded, I grabbed my bags and sat down in first class. I was ecstatic about the twist ending to my vacation.
And the witch that turned up her nose at me? I had the pleasure of staring her down as she walked by me in first class and sheepishly avoided eye contact as she shuffled back to her coach seat.
5. Don't tip off your server.
So the past weekend we went to a restaurant for dinner with my girlfriend and her friends for her birthday. We had about 10 people and had about 5 different tabs which all included an 18% minimum tip.
The service was terrible, the server was incredibly rude and would always response with some kind of sarcasm when we asked questions about the menu. He took the wrong drink orders twice and blamed us for getting them wrong. Brought all the apps and entrees at the same time and got upset when we said we didn't want the apps anymore. My friend payed in cash and when he brought back change, there was no receipt. She was expecting to see 5 bucks and some change back. When the server came back there was no receipt and only 4 bucks and change there. She asked him to see the receipt to see if she had miscalculated cause she expected 5 dollars and then some back. Instead of saying something along the lines of I'll go check or something accommodating like that, the dude got irritated and said that he threw away the receipt and reached for his wallet and said "How about I just give you a dollar if you want it that bad."
That ticked us all off so we didn't leave any extra tip. I wrote down "NOPE!" on my receipt in the additional tip line. when I went to use the men's room before leaving, he tapped my shoulder as I was washing my hands and goes, "You think you're pretty funny with that tip don't you? Why don't we step outside so I can show you how funny I can be?"
I'm like "What?" and called the manager over and told him her server wanted to fight me cause I didn't tip him. I explained the whole situation to her while the dude was just eyeing me the whole time. Other servers had to calm him down cause he kept trying to interrupt me when I was talking to the manager. I declined all their gift cards because I don't wanna come back to a place where the staff is gonna shank me.
4. Who you like revenge with that?
I went to McDonalds a few years ago in Alberta. I went with a friend of mine, and we just both happened to be gay. In a laughing sort of situation he said that we should pretend to be dating. I asked if he was suicidal and he said "Well It'll be funny to see the reactions."
He held my hand and put his head on my shoulder. We shuffled up and I ordered my food and I also said "And my fiance here will have a (insert insanely fattening meal here)". My friend, Jake, put this massive dopey grin on his face and reached up and kissed me. Me, being fairly good at improv, kissed back.
The server, who before this had already seemed ill at ease, refused to serve us. He stood there with a defiant look on his face, refusing to fill our order. When I asked what was wrong he looked at me and said "I'm not letting some filth like you eat here."
I, taken aback, immediately responded with telling him to go get his manager. He refused. I asked again. He refused. We stood there for a few minutes, trying to argue sense into this moron and we saw a flash of a managers shirt outside. I told Jake to go get him. Jake runs out, gets the manager, and hauls him back in. The manager is standing there on the floor with me and Jake and I'm trying to explain to the manager how server is being a massive moron. By now we've gathered a small group of people watching, including a couple of other servers.
The manager looks at me and says "I don't see what the problem is here. You don't deserve rights" and walked away. One of the people in the 'audience' comes over. He's dressed in a suit and he says he's going to sue the place on behalf of us if he doesn't serve us. The manager still refuses. The guy in the suit, who turns out to be a lawyer named Andrew, says that he needs to provide the owners information anyway.
We get the phone number of the guy who owns the place. He says he'll be right there and he arrives. He then proceeds to fire the server and the manager in front of us as well as giving us free coupons and a free meal.
Image by akiragiulia from Pixabay
3. Pizza so bad it should be in jail.
Maybe ten years back, a new Mountain Mike's Pizzeria opened in my town. Since it's a really small town, my family got excited for a new restaurant, so we went in just a few days after they opened.
The four of us sat down and were helped right away. Ordered a large pepperoni pizza and drinks, pretty simple. Our drinks come in a timely fashion. Our pizza did not.
We waited (we're generally all pretty patient and understanding) for an hour before we snagged a server to ask about our pizza. (There were very few people in the restaurant, and most of the servers were sort of milling around, sweeping and wiping clean tables and other busy work).
The guy apologized for the wait and said he'd go check on it for us. He came back out and said they were very sorry but it would be another 30 minutes on the pizza. No explanation, but we figured maybe they'd forgotten to put it in. We gave them the benefit of the doubt since they'd just opened.
We waited another 45 minutes and no pizza came. Called a server again. He told us he was very sorry and he would go check on that for us.
He came back out with a black disc that wasn't even recognizable as a pizza. It was a giant charcoal brick. Parts of it were actually smoking. He put it on the table and told us to enjoy our pizza, and that they were sorry again about the wait, but that they forgot it in the oven. The first time we ordered it.
So my dad finally had enough and very politely told the guy thanks but no thanks, we wouldn't be eating this pizza and we would probably not be returning unless we heard that their service had improved. We stood up to leave and the guy bolted for the back room.
Out came the manager. He asked us what the problem was. My dad told him that we waited nearly two hours to be served a pizza that had been in the oven for just as long. He showed it to the manager. It was literally inedible.
The manager shrugged and said "I don't see anything wrong here, Sir, except that you're trying to leave without paying for your meal." The manager ordered employees to stand at every exit to ensure that we couldn't leave. My dad still refused to pay and suggested that the manager let us leave or he would call the police.
So the manager called the cops, saying there was an indignant customer in the restaurant. The cops showed up and ask what the problem is. Manager said we won't pay for our pizza. My dad said the manager wouldn't let us leave, but the guy denied it. Cops scoffed at the manager, walked us out of the restaurant, and we've never eaten there since.
2. Bait and switch.
So I started out in the real estate industry, doing deals here and there until I had enough savings to buy my first restaurant. The restaurant was well-established in the Seattle area and I do still own it along with a couple others now. I try to treat my employees with as much respect as I can and I do try to keep the pay high enough so that employees can actually afford to eat in my restaurants as they are somewhat expensive and higher end. Now keep in mind that I am a relatively absentee owner now because the restaurants are owned by a corporation that I head, so I have no idea who a lot of the employees are. I know most of the managers but the turnover rate for the servers is relatively high as most are college students. Needless to say, I don't get to know them very well.
One day, I decided to do some undercover management where I go through and judge the service and the quality of how the servers help the customers and the clientele. I took my wife in to one of the restaurants so we could grab some dinner and observe the employees and management. Well the service was awful and I was sorely disappointed. Toward the end of the dinner, I got the bill and paid it but didn't tip very much (roughly about 5%) thinking that would get the message across. Instead of the server getting the message, he followed me out to the parking lot. He confronted me, telling me I was trash and that the "idiot" owner of the restaurant doesn't pay him much. Laughing internally, I apologized and asked "How much does he pay you? It must be pretty bad." Wages for a server at this restaurant are roughly 15 dollars an hour plus tips. Again, I try to pay enough so that the servers can actually afford to eat in my restaurants. He told me he was only getting paid minimum wage (which I did check on to make sure the management wasn't stiffing him.) His entire story was lies but I entertained it. The next day, I called the manager to setup a meeting with the server in question. The manager knew who I was, but wasn't working the night prior when I had dinner there. I showed up to the meeting and walked into the room where he and the manager were assembled. Keep in mind, I told the manager to not tell the server who I was. I walked into the room and saw the servers face fill with contempt and anger. The server immediately said "This guy again?" He looked at me and said "What do you want, to rip me off again? I already know you can't tip worth crap" I laughed and the manager asked the server if he knew who I was. The server said "yeah, one of my customers from last night that treated me like crap and tipped like crap." Now, I was a little hard on him the night prior because I wanted to see how he would handle different situations.
I laughed at his last response and told him he was fired. He asked me "who do you think you are, you can't fire me." I calmly explained that I was actually the owner and what he did was in terrible form and he is not fit to be a server in the restaurant because not only did he not treat a customer with respect, he tried to guilt a customer out of money. I saw the blood drain out of his face after it sank in that I was the owner, he started tearing up and apologizing explaining that he was under a lot of stress with his wife and daughter and he is suffering from PTSD from his time in Iraq. Come to find out, he didn't actually have a daughter nor was he in the military.
Image by LEEROY Agency from Pixabay
1. Not the way to get a tip.
At a mexican food restaurant with a girl I'm getting to know. It wasn't a date, really, it was just like hanging out and getting to know each other and we decided to go grab a quick bite. Anyways, I've kind of gotten into this horrible habit of only paying with my debit card and never having cash on me. As you probably know, a lot of times when you pay using debit/credit over a certain amount (I believe it's 5 or 10 dollars) places have you sign a receipt that they keep. The receipt the guy at this place handed me had a place to leave a tip.
Since I've been to this place a couple of times before, I know how the service works here (you order at the register, go and sit down, they call your number, and then you go up and receive your food) so I didn't leave a tip. I'll tip at this place/places like this if I order something specially made or something with extra toppings on it and they don't charge me but, other than that, I really do not see the need to tip. They aren't bringing your food to you, they aren't doing anything out of their way, they aren't bussing tables, there's simply no need to tip.
Anyways, I don't leave a tip and the guy just says "Wow, big spender here." I look up at him and am like "What?" because at this point, I honestly have no idea what he's talking about. It didn't even register in my mind that he could possibly be upset that I didn't tip, because he's doing nothing to warrant a tip. He just stands there and takes orders and calls them out; a job that he is paid an appropriate wage to do with no extra effort needed to be put in. It'd be the same as tipping someone working a register in a grocery store or at a McDonalds. Well, back on topic, the guy ignores me and says to the girl I'm with "Glad you're dating such a big spender. He can't even afford to tip. How do you think that's going to go further down the line in your relationship?" She's just kind of baffled, I'm just kind of baffled, and at that point I just decided it was best to ignore the dude and go sit down, so I shrug it off with a "Whatever."
After a bit of an awkward sit, our food comes up, so I go up to get it and decide to just get it to go. We grab our drinks and our burritos and walk out of there while the guy gives me dirty looks and keeps calling me "Big spender", only to sit down on a bench near the restaurant and find our orders are completely wrong and nothing near what we ordered at all, as well as our drinks only being filled halfway. I'm normally not that picky, and would have just said forget it and eaten it and wrote it off as more trouble than it was worth to fix the order, but I'm here with a girl and didn't want to look like a pushover.
We take our food into the restaurant, where I explain to the guy that our order is messed up and our drinks are only half full. He says "Oh, complaining about your order and couldn't even be bothered to tip? Now you're putting me through all this trouble and can't be bothered to tip." and just keeps rambling on with crap like that while a line forms behind us and he finally goes to fill up our drinks. He comes back and says "Woops" before he pretends to trip and sends our drinks flying all over me and the girl I'm with. I demand to speak to his manager and he immediately stops playing his little game. Basically saying anything to beg us not to talk to his manager and even offers us our money back on the order, but I refuse and keep demanding to talk to his manager until the cook in the back finally hears what's going on and goes to get him. The manager comes out, the girl I'm with and I both explain what happened, and the kid keeps babbling that it was an accident. The manager takes me and the girl I'm with in back to get us cleaned up and, after that's done, invites us to watch the CCTV footage of what happened along with the kid who spilled stuff all over us.
The kid clearly trips on nothing and deliberately sends the drinks flying on to us. The manager fires the kid on the spot, explains to us he had only hired him on for the summer since he was a long time friends son and that the kid had been acting like a total jerk the entire time he was employed, but the manager regrettably turned the other cheek since it was his friends son. The manager was a really nice guy and paid for our meal as well as gave us a card each that gave us 10 free meals at his restaurant. He even went in the kitchen and cooked our orders himself, gave us them in to go bags, and paid for a cab (we had walked) to take us back to my place so we wouldn't have to walk home in sticky clothes.
Image by Gracini Studios from Pixabay
