Welcome to working in the service industry!

When you don't want fast food but also don't want to pay $35 for an entree, it might be time to head to a chain restaurant. The prices of everything these days have gone up to utterly comical levels. While looking to find a nice dinner at a spot in Manhattan, I found one place that looked stunning. Then, I took a peek at their menu to find that the cheapest item was an $18 appetizer of potato chips. Just let that sink in: nearly $20 for potato chips, as the cheapest menu item . I weep for the f…

Everybody who has every worked in the service industry has had their own embarrassing story. Honestly, it's better to get your front of house fail out of the way early so you know you can get through it. Dropping a full tray is the classic one and might even get you applauds. Then there is the dropping of a tray directly onto a customer. That one is way harder to bounce back from , but if you have nice customers, it can also feel like a good lesson. Then there are whole other instances that jus…

This waitress wanted to share a story about a family interaction at her job, but commenters took the customers' side! The OP has a few memorably cringe lines. If a waiter ever handed me water and in the same breath told me about how it had “came out of the dinosaurs years ago. [It's] just filtered super well," I'd hesitate to eat there. What a weird thing to say about a fresh beverage! Perhaps one of the worst ways to make water sound appetizing is to remind the customer of how water filtration…

Some managers just show up, take their paycheck, and leave. Why bother actually doing your job if you don't have to? This teen was working as a “waitress/server/cashier” at a chain restaurant where she could have really used some extra support from her managers. She writes that she, a new girl, and one other employee were at work with a manager who was being totally useless. Some managers who've worked their way up the ladder feel entitled to their new “good life.” If you've worked in a restaur…

Who actually orders food like this? In a prompt to r/AskReddit, u/Graceful_Swan_Ronson asked waitstaff about the most ridiculous things their customers have ever wanted to eat. The resulting answers are hilarious and strange — and some are even a little bit wholesome. I have a few friends who order weirdly at restaurants, and dining with them is a delight. Sometimes I'll order a burger and fries, while my friend orders a slice of ham, a fruit smoothie, and a bowl of tater tots. It's like food r…

This dad was humbled after placing an order he couldn't eat. U/ClassiestRobin shared a story from her time waitressing as a 16 year old. It was the OP's first job, and though she generally enjoyed it, there was one family that stuck out in her mind due to their quirky order. Burger joints that offer up dozens of free toppings to customize your sandwich have the right idea. Most places just give you the typical lettuce, tomato, onion, and maybe some ketchup. But this place has a cool array of ot…

'Ask and you shall receive'. These are certainly words to live by– but when we're talking about making modifications on a restaurant order, this phrase is more of a solemn warning.

When working in the service industry it is inevitable that you will encounter a bad tipper. Whether they're old and still think 25 cents is an appropriate tip, or their entitled and think because you forgot the ice in their water, they're allowed to tip you $0. It's a mad mad world out there working as a waiter. At least in the U.S. it is. You work for barely an hourly with usually no benefits and you relay almost completely on tips. So when you get a $0 tip, that person who you just served and…

This parent has a question about their dating life , and they aren't going to like the responses he got. U/sasisgsbseb asked if they're wrong for the way their girlfriend has been treated by their daughter. The whole situation went down when the OP took their 12 year old daughter to lunch with the 47 year old OP's 33 year old GF. “My girlfriend does not particularly like interacting with waiters or waitresses ,” the OP admitted. While the GF's prior bad experiences with waitstaff might have mad…

Have you ever been in a situation so bizarre you were sure there must be TV cameras somewhere nearby? This bewildered customer recently had that experience, and it has commenters in a tizzy trying to figure out what was going on. In an era of constant content, pranks are a popular way to make videos cheaply and easily. Even if they're not from official TV shows, you could run into TikTokers or other content creators who want a few quick reactions. That's even worse, in my opinion, because at le…

Coworkers who potentially get in the way of your income are the absolute worst.

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?

Most people can't really say they enjoy dealing with long shifts, meh-money, and annoying customers on a daily basis… although there will always be exceptions. Serving can easily get tiring when you are forced to put a smile on your face and pretend to like the people you're serving, laughing at their dad jokes and complimenting their hideous striped t-shirts. But you don't have to do that everywhere… in fact, there are places where you can be borderline rude, and it's totally acceptable. Custo…

The service industry is riddled with careless, entitled, and rude customers who think you, as a server, should worship the ground they trample on. At the rate employees come and go in this industry, it's easy to decipher why nobody really likes to work as wait staff. In this case, OP was working at a pizzeria, waiting on an entire floor of tables alone, as there were no other servers on duty that shift. Running to and fro, most of the customers could recognize a damsel in distress when they saw…

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…