Posted by Karen Upright on May 14, 1997 at 17:57:05:
I was waiting tables (I try to do it a few times a month because it gives me healthy respect for my servers). Unfortunately, I was waiting on a man who 1) is never happy about anything to my knowledge and 2) clearly doesn't like me personally for whatever reason. As far as I could tell, dinner went smoothly. He was at a table for four, everyone seemed fine, the timing out of the kitchen was PERFECT. When I presented him with the bill, he put cash in the presenter and handed it back without comment. I almost didn't cash out the check at all--they were the last table of the night, I was getting ready to eat my own dinner with my husband--but I went ahead and did it and he had left a whopper of a tip.
It shocked me, because I know he doesn't care for me, but he does have a reputation for being grumpy, but an obscenely good tipper, so I assumed it was for me. He came back from the restroom a few minutes later and asked for his change. I quickly smoothed over with "I'm so sorry, I was doing something else, forgot to bring it, etc." He took his change back to the table to leave a tip there. On his way out of the dining room I thanked him for coming, did the "pleasure to see you again, sir" bit as he hadn't been in for some time, and beamed a big smile at him.
He started out the door and then turned toward me and attacked me with "I don't care for your attitude". He chewed me up one side and down the other with every problem he had ever had with the restaurant and with me personally from the first time he came to the present and told me he wouldn't tell his neighbors to come in.
I have to say, I'm sorry his evening was ruined, and I'm really sorry he wasn't happy, but I've been afraid of him and what he might say to me since he started coming and I'm not sorry I won't have to deal with that stress again.
Imagine my surprise when I went to bus his table and he still left me better than 20%! What if he had been REALLY mad at me, 15%? If I don't like a server's attitude in a restaurant, he doesn't get 20% from me.
Then at lunch some women were in with the Beastly Baby. It was a happy baby, but it shrieked and crawled all over the floor and mashed a cranberry muffin all over the floor and put buttered noodles and strawberries in his mother's ice tea glass. He shrieked from the moment he arrived until the moment he left. This sort of thing happens relatively frequently. I'm thinking of banning children from the dining room. Any suggestions? What other child-related policies are in place out there? HELP!
Karen
P.s. George, the new posting system takes about six years to load.