Fighting back the urge to laugh when an adult is having a full-blown meltdown right in front of you over basically nothing is one of the most challenging parts of working retail—but you only reach this level of reaction when you've put up with it enough times that you no longer have the ability to experience the trauma of being shouted at that you did when you first started. Not only that but—when they're making obscene demands—you have to fight every muscle in your body that wants to do precis…

When a restaurant owner keeps their place in atrocious conditions and assume their staff will keep their mouths shut about it, how can they possibly think it's okay to pull one over on any of their employees ? That's just poor planning on their part. Why would they think for one second they won't get reported? Well, that's exactly what went down with this particular restaurant. The chef had just been hired and was working hard to whip the place into shape. And it need a lot of work. There were…

Starting a new job is always tough. Sure, you might have tons of knowledge and industry experience, but there's always a different way of doing the same old thing at every new organization you walk into. You might think that a square peg would always just fit into the square hole, but your new job may require you to revolve the square 360 degrees clockwise, counterclockwise, and then on a vertical axis—all before putting it in the same square hole you always did before. Sure, it may be stupid,…

When the dish you order is specifically known and named for the style of spice that it uses, it would be foolish to request that dish without it. Sure, you might have meant that you just wanted it to be less spicy, but if you're going to be rude to service staff, you should be careful what you wish for and choose your words carefully. Or, how about we treat service staff with the respect that they deserve? This Karen unwisely demanded exactly this after being rude to staff during her trip to th…

Customers often demand items that aren't on the menu, or at the very least expect servers to reinvent entire dishes catering to their own personal preferences. OP relayed the time customers physically cornered them when they were on shift at a restaurant they worked at after the customers were denied ‘tea’, as it literally wasn't on the menu. The story begins with the three customers who came to the restaurant with no prior experience in eating sushi, the dish that the restaurant excelled at. O…

After working in customer service, you quickly come to the side fo abolishing the “customer is always right” mentality. Why? Because the customer most definitely is not always right. In fact, it becomes pretty obvious that the customer is usually very wrong. Unfortunately, many customers going into a customer service based establishment still think they can't possibly be wrong and that they need to be waited on hand and foot. God forbid you get one tiny thing wrong—if these customers had their…

Managers who don't know how to maneuver workplace issues that pop up can often be as daunting as they are annoying, making employees wish they never would have joined the establishment in the first place. Sometimes this leads to a last straw or two, causing the employees to say 'adios'. In this case, OP took to r/Serverslife to complain about how the management at the restaurant he was working at was dragging their feet to fix literally anything. Among things that weren't working, there were 2…

If you work in retail, customer service, or the service industry, sooner or later, you're going to run into a confoundingly indignant and angry individual who is going to ruin your day—leaving you thinking about this interaction for years to come. It's just a matter of sheer statistics; talk to enough people in a day, and sooner or later, at some point, you're going to have a grown adult having a full tantrum in the center of your store like it's some kind of performative art piece. This Karen…

Toxic organizations breed toxic behavior, begetting toxic people. Unfortunately, those that conform to the organization's less-than-ideal ideals tend to do better and prosper, rising far above their deserved rank and encouraging their unfavorable behavior towards others that would ideally be derided. We've seen stories like this before, where an employee is singled out and collectively gaslit by their coworkers on behalf of getting them to conform to bizarre organizational directives. In this c…

There are many different kinds of nightmares that can happen while working in the service industry. One that is a guarantee you will encounter while working in a restaurant is a family who allows their kids to run wild while they dine. This is a nightmare on so many different levels. For one, if you work in the the restaurant, an unchaperoned child running around like they own the place can be very dangerous. There are servers, busers, and all kinds of employees running around a restaurant and…

One of the worst parts about working in the service industry or retail is “blackout” dates—where no one is able to take days off—these always line up with precisely the days you'd want to take off. Holidays, long weekends, and anytime between Christmas and New Years—pretty much any time you might want to see family or friends (who are all off work.) These have all been deemed as days where all hands are needed on deck due to high volumes of trade. But the worst part about blackout dates?.. Hypo…

Everyone knows that person who treats their tolerance for spice like it's a personality trait. I used to work with a friend who was practically immune to spice and would always throw out taunting requests like this to wait-staff, insinuating that there was no way their chef could placate his lust for the fieriest of infernos. We had a Thai place near the office that we would frequent for lunch, the pair of us would always order the same dish (pad thai), and my friend would submit his usual requ…

Working in a restaurant is, at the very least, a humbling experience.

Remember that one kid from your high school English class who treated everything like it was a complete joke—to the point of cruelty—never taking or accepting responsibility for any of his actions? Yeah, well, that kid could have very likely gone on to become someone's manager or open their own business. Now there's a terrifying thought. It's like George Carlin famously put it: “Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.” Well, this bar owner and…

Sometimes actually following the rules makes you more rebellious. That's right, it's called malicious compliance and it is a tasty form of protest. One person who works in the service industry at a fast-food restaurant played a grade-A malicious compliance tactic that actually had them getting paid more. They had gotten in trouble for starting their closing-shift duties early so they could leave earlier. The place closes at 9 and they didn't want to be there until midnight, so they would start…

Rules either exist for no good reason or were written in blood; there is no in-between. The ones that were dreamt up by a bored middle manager somewhere often are more of a means of maintaining control over the workforce than anything regarding safety or productivity, so at the end of the day, they're not the most necessary. Rinsing rice may not be the highest stake workplace activity, so when you're under the pump thanks to chronic understaffing, this is probably one procedure where it's ok to…