Sometimes the best lessons come from giving someone exactly what they wanted.

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…

Do people really enjoy being sung “Happy Birthday” by the staffers in restaurants ? Maybe there are two types of people: the kind who really love birthday attention and want to celebrate with everyone around, and the kind who shy away from big displays of attention, like getting the waitstaff to sing for you at restaurants. We've all seen it play out. A family will come in to dine, and one person will find the waiter in private and tell them to surprise the birthday person with cake. That often…

Every workplace has that one room that you can sneak off to to be on your phone. No matter how small your workplace is, there's a hidden corner for you to lean instead of clean , or to scroll your phone instead of having to answer the phone . You can take a minute just for yourself to collect yourself, have some water and a snack, and pretend you don't have 6 hours left of work. It's the little things that make a difference. It's good to take care of yourself, because we all know that lots of p…

It sounds like they were just looking for the smallest excuse to fire this server.

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…

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…

But what if the customer is wrong? So epically wrong that their servers are scarred for life contemplating their tasteless choices and downright wacky desires. For the woman who wanted creamer with her red wine, please leave this establishment and never return. Your tastebuds are not welcome here.

Friendly reminder that our servers deserve better.

There are two types of people: those who check the menu before they get to the restaurant, and those who show up having no idea what they're going to order. Either way is fine — some people prefer to know exactly what dish they're going to get, while others like to hear the daily specials and decide on the spot. But people also show up to restaurants with lots of questions about their food …and some questions are way funnier than others. We took a peek into the life of a waiter or waitress with…

If this isn't a sign to start looking for work elsewhere, I don't know what is.

Working in food service changes your view of the profession forever. Most people only experience restaurants as a guest. You sit down, have a lovely meal brought to you by a waiter or waitress , and don't have to lift a finger as you dine. But once you tie on that apron and work as a server, you're on the other side of the experience. You have multiple tables of people who need you to take their order, deliver their food, and cater to their every whim. It's nonstop! And it basically turns into…

I'd be cringing so hard if I was the person behind this birthday mixup … but mistakes happen. Celebrating your birthday is a great time to gather your friends and family members to celebrate your big day. Another year old and wiser! There's no one way to throw a party — some people like to have small house parties, while others love to invite the whole neighborhood over for a BBQ. And then there are others who love to dine at their favorite restaurants to celebrate — and that's what happened in…

This restaurant owner broke a cardinal rule of waiting tables, and it's wild that so many of his employees actually went along with his plan. It's a hallmark of American life that waiters and waitresses work mainly for tips. Over the years, tip prices keep rising higher as minimum wages have stagnated, and that has started frequent debates over tipping culture. In a story shared to r/AmItheA**hole, this desperate restaurant owner found a way to put some more cash in his own pocket. He shared th…

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

You shouldn't judge a book by it's cover, but these folks have some surefire ways to tell if a restaurant is quality or not. I actually have a true story about this that you can totally judge me for. One time, I was in Harlem, volunteering to paint homes in an area I had never been before. I had to get lunch somewhere, so I stopped in a corner store and bought a BLT. I hung out in the store, and as the person behind the counter handed me the sandwich, I saw a cockroach crawling inside the glass…