Okay. I concede. My post is the only snotty one.
Because surely wishing someone to “burn in hell” for tapping on her precious counter isn’t snotty
:wally
We now return you to your regularly scheduled pity party for the poor lady that has to tolerate such atrocities as cell phone food orders.
I’m not asking this specifically of you, because I don’t know exactly what your job entails, but isn’t this against the law?
As I understand it, if someone leaves your restaurant drunk and causes an accident, isn’t your restaurant (at least partially) legally responsible?
I am not quite sure how the law reads.
Social psychology suggests that the fewer people paying each tab, the higher the tips will be.
I wonder if it’s a regional thing. I don’t think I have ever been to a Chinese restaurant that didn’t have fries. In fact, many that I go to frequently have a free order of your choice of white steamed rice or fries with each take-out order over a certain size. They’re always very soggy and limp, but fries nonetheless.
Yes, that’s exactly what I mean. The credit card machine takes 20 seconds to transmit, accept, and print. I’ve timed it several times. You’d think asking people to wait twenty seconds is asking them to give up their firstborn.
I’m not exactly sure about this either, but they do because they insist they’re able to do so. Anyway, judging by all of the cab companies in this town, I’d trust the drunken buisinessmen driving themselves home over taking a cab.
My fiance manages those delivery boys for a newspaper. He’s ready to get the fuck out. It ain’t fun.
Ava
$40 per person. I forgot to add that part. It’s kind of hard for someone to order, say a Tsing Tao, when all of that beer that we have in the bar and in the back is being drunk by a group in the back. And trust me, we’ve got a lot of beer in the back.
Some points to ponder:
People who rudely toss their money/credit/debit cards at me.
Toss? As in, flick at you like a shuriken? Or do they flip it out of their wallet/purse/fannypack on the counter in front of you? I must confess, I’ve never seen anybody do this. Of course, they might make a show of handing their card over to display to everybody behind them that’s it platinum, money green, got a cool holographic image, whatever. But actually tossing it? I would think the concern over losing their plastic overrides how cool they look displaying card juggling skill.
People who order on their cell phone.
Hey, it’s my only phone, and it probably won’t be long till all households are this way, so better get used to it.
People who ask for french fries.
I’ve been to several Chinese buffets (hog troughs) that have french fries, french bread, jelly babies, sushi, teriyaki, etc. Successful Chinese restaurant owners know what their fat American customers like to eat.
People who place orders and never pick them up.
Woohoo, free dinners for the wait staff!
I’m still in shock over how many of you are used to seeing french fries served at Chinese resturants.
I’ve never seen this. Ever.
It really must be a regional thing.
And kp, asking someone to “burn in hell” isn’t snotty, it’s called hyperbole.
So yeah, your post is the only snotty one in here, thus far.
I’ve worked retail in the past and I can say this much:
yes, people literally throw their money/credit card at you. I’ve even had people go as far as flinging their change so that it lands all over the counter.
People, in my experience, also are fond of handing over a wad of cash, literally. I have had people hand me wadded up bills that I had to smooth out. Not a major big deal (or as rude as flinging cash), but still. Have some courtesy!
People are also fond of pulling money out weird places. I have had people pull money out of their shoes (ew!), their bras and what appeared to be their underwear.
I’m always amazed at how someone comes in and reads these rants and then jumps down the person’s throat. I’ve worked in the food services industry, and other services as well, and the one abiding lesson I learned from it is that people are wretched bastards.
You see, that is hyperbole, it’s a literary tool people use to describe their feelings in a way that is meant to get their point across clearly. Most of us learned by grade 3 or 4 to use it, so I always wonder why some people can’t get it. I agree with pretty much everything the op said, even if it doesn’t necessarily annoy me personally, because she’s speaking in relative terms of things that bug her. Attacking a rant is kind of silly, unless the person is reaally bitching about nothing. He/she is not bitching about nothing. Work in food service and you will get it. Servers are generally treated about on the same level as convicts at times.
Also, I’ve been to Chinese restaurants that have french fries, but those are generally the shitty westernized places that serve chicken balls and fried rice, as opposed to real Chinese food.
And for the OP, I have to say I really, really hate when people throw money or credit cards too. It’s such a dismissive, derogatory gesture. Treat me like a person, asshole (fortunately, I work in an office now and never have to deal with the public ever - I love it).
But where’s the problem? Who cares if it’s $40 per group or $40 per person or $400 per person. You’re blaming the customer for ordering! You’re blaming the customer for GIVING YOU MONEY. For that they should burn in hell?
In all seriousness, I completely fail to see what your point is with this gripe.
You really haven’t worked as a waitperson before, have you? The employee represents the business, yes, but they’re not an automated extension. Sure, it’s good for the business whether five people or forty purchase the same drinks, but when that first five uses up the night’s supply, the employee then has to listen to the next thirty-five bitch about how there’s no more <whatever>.
As for being a ‘whiny bitch’, I might agree if this was SpazCat’s first week on the job, but it’s been 4 months. 4 months is a long time in the service sector. I worked at a gas station for three months a couple years back–those were the longest three months of my life. With all the people coming and going every night, you’re bound to rack up a few annoyances quickly.
Better SpazCat gripe about nail-tappers here than snap at a customer, I’d say.
[on preview] Yeah, Knowed Out, toss. I actually saw this the other day while working at the box office (I sell tickets for the campus live performance theater). My supervisor asked a girl whose credit card had no signature for her ID. The girl was already in a bad mood over something that wasn’t my supervisor’s fault. She replied that she had no ID, and when my supervisor pressed, she pulled the ID out of her wallet and threw it at the counter in front of my supervisor. Not in a shuriken way, but more of a ‘here, god dammit, take the stupid thing’ way. It’s really pretty rude.
Once in a restaurant seal_jr. ordered fries (not on the menu). I remonstrated, but the waiter was great - said he could have some made.
The chef took a big russet baker , sliced it thin, fried til crispy…mmmmmmm chinese french fries.
What Bayle said.
Okay, you have 10 beers and 10 customers. If each customer orders 1 beer, every customer is happy, and therefore leaves a big tip and is likely to return.
If one customer orders 10 beers, then 9 customers are unhappy, make the waiter miserable, stiff the waiter, and never come back again.
See how it’s more than a matter of one amount of money?
S/he obviously cares about her customers enough to feel frustrated/sad that s/he can’t get them the beer they want. This is more of a stock/distribution issue and the manager/buyer is an idiot, sure, but in the heat of the moment, all s/he knows is that bastard’s got 10 beers in front of him when there’s a greater potential for expanded happiness and greater financial gain if the beers were distributed more fairly.
I don’t get this at all. If a restaurant places an item on their menu, I’m going to order it. I’m not going to first ask if there’s enough to go around, it’s none of my business, that’s the restaurant’s management’s job. I think the OP’s ire on this point should not be directed at the customer but rather at whoever orders supplies for the restaurant. The customer is doing nothing wrong.
Most (not all, granted) restaurants above the Burger Doodle level will prepare dishes not on the menu…if they have the ingredients on hand.
I wouldn’t expect the average Chinese restaurant (as distinct from, say, Singapore McGee’s South Seas Monkey Bar and Grill) to have whole potatoes around. In this case, they obviously did.
As for the expectation of French fries being on the menu…I don’t expect to go into a Mexican restaurant and find corned beef and cabbage as one of their standards. Possibly some Dopers are accustomed to having fifty eateries, indistinguishable except for the names, in their neighborhoods. I’m not.
French fries at a Chinese restaurant. What the hell planet do you folks live on? At least in Montreal, I can assure you that it does not happen.
A lot. Frankly, schmoozing with customers isn’t the only component of waiting tables or of dealing with the logistics of serving food and ringing people out.
Here’s the difference between ringing out a party of 20 with separate checks, and 20 deuces that came in separately–the 20 tables were all seated at different times, and all finish at different times. They might be a half hour, or even an hour, all finishing and coming up to pay. The table of 20, on the other hand, all comes up en masse to the register, and meantime any other table that finishes and comes up to pay shows up not between two of the smaller tables, but behind twenty people, each with their individual transaction. You have a long line of people to take care of with no pause, and sometimes with lots of delay for conversation and such, and then irritated customers to deal with after they’re taken care of. The same applies if there’s no register and everyone’s paying the server. Now normally it’s a minor frustration, but stacked up with every other little annoying thing that can happen during the day, it becomes a last-straw kind of deal, and one looks forward to ranting about it in the Pit so as to blow off steam and be able to deal with tomorrow’s customers in one’s customarily polite and cheerful fashion.
And I’ve been in a lot of Chinese restaurants, and nary a one offered french fries. I do think it’s somewhat bizzare to expect to find them in such a place.
Frankly, I don’t think any of the OP’s frustrations are unreasonable (except maybe the finger tapping thing). I bussed, waited tables, tended bar, did host and managerial things, over the course of ten years. I’ve never been even remotely unpleasant or unprofessional in the presence of a customer. I was good at my job. I worked with many people who were also good at their jobs, and I also worked with many people who had poor attitudes. I wouldn’t peg the OP as having a poor attitude. I would say she’s had a bad day or two, and hopefully feels better now that she’s gotten it off her chest. Customers can be assholes in small ways that all alone wouldn’t bother you, but after a long shift of dealing with them, one after the other, it just builds up.
Since you don’t have any experience working out front, I don’t think you really understand the particular annoyances working out front exposes a person to. And during a rush you can’t just close your office door, or hang up the phone, and take a few breaths and get your calm back, you have to be one hundred percent out there and pleasant the whole time, moving the whole time and competent the whole time. Even when you’re good at it and like working that job it’s a challenge, especially on bad days. Out at the register it’s particularly hard, because you don’t even get those few seconds walking through the kitchen to do a sort of minor emotional reset to keep you going.
I think you need a kleenex.