It's time to pay our respects to those who are living the server life.

Working in the service industry is one of the toughest to endure, as customers, management, and coworkers can really get under your skin. You need the patience of a sloth, the memory of an elephant, and the speed of a cheetah. Picture this: a family of eight, children sobbing whilst simultaneously drooling, parents at their wit's end just rattling off their order to you while corralling their children. Having a long list of dietary restrictions and substitutions to their order after demanding y…

Restaurants see no shortage of demands for customization and demanding customers, with the latter uttering the former with surprising frequency. Dealing with these demands from the demanding is no picnic, but learning to handle them can be. Not in the literal sense in that you're going to sit down in a nice grassy spot with a blanket, basket, some nice cheeses, a bottle of prosecco, some ripe fruit, and your favorite pal—more so in the sense that like a picnic is a pleasing and relaxing experie…

A Karen calls an arts and crafts store and demands a pizza… No, this isn't a punchline for a joke—but everyone who has worked in restaurants or retail wishes that it was. These workers have seen their fair share of wild demands and demanding wild persons—and it only takes one screaming customer meltdown in the lobby of your establishment to make you reconsider your entire line of work. But at least in person, most people have the good graces to behave politely, but phone conversations and email…

The process of preparing for an interview is immensely time-consuming and stressful for any candidate. You've already sunk considerable amounts of time into prepping your CV, writing an effective cover letter, and applying for the role—and there's likely been some back-and-forth communication between yourself and the company's HR. To have all of that done only to be blindsided and discover that the interview preparing for isn't actually an interview is—well—devastating. Instead, you're asked to…

Everyone's been to a restaurant before where they had a terrible server. You saw them flirting with the hostess, loitering around the bar, and rolling their eyes when you asked them to split the bill. Not to mention, they've neglected your table for 20 minutes, while you were starving and ready to order. Restaurant goers are faced with a tough decision– to tip or not to tip?

Serving one Karen at a restaurant is difficult enough. Imagine having to serve 13 of them!

It turns out we might not be very good at doing a job that isn't actually ours, and that shouldn't come as much of a surprise, except to people like this Karen who refuse to listen to you when you tell them that you don't actually work there. Sure, we've all probably mistaken a complete stranger for an employee of the establishment we're patronizing, but continuing to insist that they must work there and are doing their job poorly after being corrected is downright insane. This college student…

Not to yuck these peoples' yums, but why would they choose these food combos? The ones included below are truly odd — and chefs and waiters were the ones telling on their customers. The r/KitchenConfidential community answered the question, “What are the grossest substitutions you’ve been asked to make?” Interestingly, the OP suggested that they were unhappy with a customer substituting mustard instead of apple butter on a sandwich with sourdough bread, cheese, and bacon. Tons of commenters sco…

Going back to an old job is always awkward, especially when you were fired from that job and especially when you go back to beg for free things—and especially when you go back to try and steal from your ex-coworkers' tip jar. Like, this guy actually managed to get himself demoted from line cook to customer and then managed to get himself demoted further from being a customer too. Lou really sucks, and is a In the end, it's incredibly fitting since you can't spell “lousy coworker” without “Lou.”

Everyone has that one coworker who can't do anything right. Messing things up because they're new is one thing. But then there are people like this guy Andy, whose coworkers are sick and tired of him messing up food orders over and over again. This dude doesn't seem to grasp even the most basic of restaurant rules, such as “don't eat raw chicken, even if it's only a little bit raw," and “always wash your hands before preparing food.” These are things one should know even if they're not working…

When you're new in a job, you absolutely have to learn some things the hard way — how else will you learn? Fresh employees are always making lots of mistakes. They're new, they're learning, and sometimes that makes you, the seasoned employee, giggle a bit. Sometimes they don't understand rules about when to cut corners or stick to the books. Other times, they're not sure when to get a manager involved or when to handle customers on their own. At least as a longer-term employee, you've already m…

Working in customer service of any kind can be one of the most challenging things you do in your life. But when your boss is worse than the customers, that's when you know it's time to go. In this case, OP was working as a server at an upscale steak restaurant. The money was good, but the management wasn't. His boss would constantly berate the employees, tell them that they were lucky he even hired them and cheaped out on fixing equipment that posed a safety issue. The only reason OP stayed at…

Some mistakes are more costly than others, as these chefs know all too well. Professionals from the back of house shared their priciest kitchen mistakes , and some of them are surprisingly costly. I can actually add my own story here — I'm glad it's finally come in handy after years of being one of my most embarrassing moments ever. I was working a shift at a fast food restaurant and customers were being so mean to me. It was the Sunday morning bingo crowd, and they were nasty and impatient to…

Time is one of your most valuable possessions, but not everyone values it the same amount. Take this couple for example: they're chronically late , and aren't about to improve things any time soon. When a couple shared their experience with a double date gone wrong, it sparked a conversation about what it means to be late to every event. Some people will tell you that it's just how they are. They're always late to everything, despite their best efforts. Lateness also bothers some people more th…

Employers don't always exactly abide by the law; some refuse tax forms in favor of under-the-table pay, which is really bad for servers in the long run. In this case, OP was working at a small hole-in-the-wall restaurant that served authentic Thai food. According to OP, her boss was actually pretty nice, but soon enough, OP realized that may not be the case. It began with less pay than usual, which OP found suspicious. OP approached their boss and asked for a tax form, which was refused upon re…