19 Waiters Reveal The Rudest, Most F*&ked Up Thing A Customer Has Ever Said To Them

"I tip based on the size of your..."

Updated 10 years ago, July 7, 2014

1. Uhh… no.

When I brought the food out, the little girl said, “Thank you.” The mother responded, “You don’t have to thank her honey, that’s her job.”

2. She complained about… what?!?!

“You shortchanged me by a penny, I bet you stole it- you ought to be fired, let me speak to your manager.”

This said after she complained about a tarnished penny I’d given her in her change that I’d switched out for a newer shinier penny at her request. Why would I steal one penny?

3. A reverend said this?!?!

“You piece of shit honky.” was said to me by a reverend who was trying to skip on a $400 bill.

BACKSTORY: His table was a 12 top comprised of himself and his wife and what I can only guess were his deacons and their spouses. After two hours I noticed that one by one the people were leaving so I notified my manager. Her response was give him the bill immediately before he runs off. I print the tab and walk out and hand it to him as he is putting on his coat. His wife flashes me a dirty look and he informs me his is not paying the bill his deacon was supposed to handle that. I inform him that his tab is still open and it needs to be closed if he is leaving. That is when he uttered “you piece of shit honky”. Before things could escalate Denise swooped in and in her sweetest voice informed the reverend that he could either pay the bill or talk to the police. After he paid she again ever so politely informed him that he was not welcome back. Nothing to dramatic other than the racial slur. It quieted the restaurant for a bit and from the look on the black customers faces it embarrassed the hell out of them. Other that it was another Sunday at Joe’s Crab Shack.(never eat there….seriously)

4. O.M.G… The twist at the end of this one is CLASSIC.

I don’t know if this counts but I was once at the local dog park with my then girlfriend and dog and we start talking to this guy. He tells us that he works at McDonalds and earlier that day some horrible middle-aged female customer ate her food and as she went to dump the tray she accidentally dumped her spare change in the garbage with it. She told the manager that she wanted her money back and the manager made this guy pull the garbage can out and dig through everyone’s ketchup covered garbage for some spare change. He tried but could not find it. He was then told by the customer to pull the garbage bag out and dig to the bottom. Still nothing. The customer told him that maybe it would be easier for him to pull the garbage out on to the floor in handfuls as he went. He did. When the bag was mostly empty and his arms were now covered in ketchup and old soda etc, she reached into her coat pocket and found her spare change. She just laughed and said “oh here it is!”. And walked out. No apologies. Later that day I am talking to my mother and she told me that she thought she dropped her spare change in the garbage at McDonalds earlier and made some employee dig for it. Yup… My mom.

5. Worst, most entitled customer EVER.

I work in a convenience store, and one Christmas Eve we were absolutely packed. We had queues going right around the aisles, all tills are manned, we even had a spare person behind the tills to help with packing and the smaller tasks to save time. My co-worker served one woman, who then said that she had forgotten something, and that could she just go and grab it? My co-worker agreed, and off the customer went.

Five minutes later, and there was no sign of her. The queue was backing up even more because there was now only one till open while my co-worker waited for the customer to return. Our store is very small, so my co-worker left the till to go find her, to see if she was finding everything alright. Only to find the woman in the magazine aisle, casually looking through a magazine. My co-worker politely asked if she could help her with anything. The customer’s reply?

“Well YOU kept me waiting, so I decided to keep YOU waiting. Not very nice, is it?” complete with infuriatingly smug smile, and this is coming from my co-worker, who is perhaps the most patient and sweetest person I know.

My co-worker had to go out the back to compose herself, and eventually someone else ended up serving the woman. I still can’t understand her self entitlement. Yes we were busy, and yes she had been waiting a long time despite all of the tills being manned, but really, there was no need for that.

6. Terrible parenting.

6 year old girl, “Don’t talk to me!” Me, “Why not?” girl, “Because I hate white people.”

7. This from the OWNER of the restaurant.

The owner of a coffee shop I worked at came in during a particularly busy rush on a Sunday which was one of our busiest days. After serving him he told me he wished he could go back in time and break my parents up so i was never born because it was the worst service he had ever had.

Mind you I paid extra attention to his table because he’s the owner. After telling him that he needed to be a little more patient because I was the only server and it was very busy he said that if he was a paying customer he’d make me pay for the meal and then said something like he couldn’t believe I could tie my shoes in the morning considering how bad I was at serving. I told him to fire me then and he balked. I worked there for another year without a word from him.

8. WTF is it with some customers?

If it makes you feel any better, I once had a retail customer throw a penny at my face while I wasn’t looking and scream “GIMME ANOTHER PENNY! THIS ONE’S DIRTY!”

9. Dirtbag…

Asked a customer how he wanted his Whiskey River BBQ Burger. We had about 3-4 different types of BBQ related entrees so it was easy to mix it up unless you are clear to the consumer. He looked at me kind of funny and said, “Well done I guess?”. I don’t like to deal with questioning remarks, especially when it comes to food (i.e. food allergies, really picky eaters such as myself) so I proceeded to repeat the order back to him. He said it was correct, but I still had my doubts. Bring the food back to the table, he looked at me like I was the dumbest thing on the planet. “I definitely said BBQ Chicken..” I apologized, said “Oh! I’m sorry about that I thought for sure you had said the burger. That’s why I asked you ‘how would did you like it cooked?'”. Next thing that came out of his mouth was this, “Oh I just thought you were retarded so I didn’t really question it.” I was never so mad in my life over something that stupid..

<strong?TL;DR Customer called me retarded over food.

10. Fake ID.

A girl broke down crying when I told her i wouldn’t be serving her because her ID was clearly fake. She then wished death upon me.

11. From a customer at a country club…

I work in a country club heard this gem last summer. Waitress knocked over tall pepper grinder on table while putting down food causing a members guests water to be knocked over. The members guest tried to be nice and help the waitress clean it up the member said this little gem, “oh no honey you don’t have to be nice and help her, we own them, this is their job and they shouldn’t have messed up and knocked it over in the first place.” Love when trophy wives think they are better than everyone just because they married rich.

12. REVENGE.

I worked at a private club, once. One guy, in his mid-20s, came in with the rest of his family-about 10 people. Despite his young age, he was obviously taking up alcoholism as a hobby and he wasn’t a nice drunk, either. In fact, I’d waited on him previously, and he was a pretty insufferable piece of shit.

The last time he came in, this guy would order double screwdrivers and try to pound them as fast as possible. Unfortunately for both of us, the club was starting to be big on moderating liquor service, which means that you have to slow service to people who seem intent on killing all their brain cells, and cut them off if they’re visibly intoxicated. Real fun stuff when you work in a club full of entitled assholes as it is. I had my work cut out for me.

I’d hoped that this guy would be on better behavior this time since he was with his family. Nope. He ordered a double screwdriver, sucked it down in minutes and ordered another, which i also brought. After that, I took their lunch order and then explained the moderated service policy to the table so they would understand, and everyone else thought it was reasonable. Not him. He started calling me stupid, then retarded, then a stupid bitch, because he had to wait 15 minutes until he could have another drink. His family was mortified but silent on the subject. They basically tried to be endlessly gracious to make up for his behavior.

Right before their order was up, he demanded his drink and I said I would bring it after I served the meal. He called me a stupid cunt. I went back to the kitchen, doing a slow burn. Something biological definitely did NOT make it into his sandwich and then cleverly hidden, because that would be disgusting and probably illegal.

I calmly brought out and delivered the meal. Everyone was thankful, except for the verbal abuser. He demanded his drink, and I calmly brought that to him. “FINALLY,” he said. I can’t believe someone so stupid can even work here, etc. etc.” (I’m paraphrasing.)

He was still going on about how stupid I was when I looked him right in the eyeball and said, with an ever so slight suggestion of irony,”How’s your sandwich?”

He was surprised at the drastic change of subject. He looked down at his half-eaten French Dip. “Uh, it’s good. Real good.”

Still looking him right in the eye, I smiled and said, with just a bare hint of satisfaction in my voice, “Good.”
Then I went around to the rest of the table and politely inquired as to their meals, if I could get them anything, anything at all. Everyone loved their meals. They loved me. I solicitously fulfilled every request.

Double Screwdriver did not say one word for the rest of the meal, and he did not take another bite of his sandwich. He just stared at it, horrified. He knew. There was nothing he could do to prove it or even make the accusation. But he knew. Wen I went around to offer boxes for leftovers, his dad wondered why he didn’t want one. “You sure?” “NO THANK YOU!” Lol.

Eventually I quit working at that club, and started at a restaurant down the street. Wouldn’t you know it, that guy came in and started the same asshole shit AGAIN. “I want a screw driver, and be quick about it, etc.”

I looked at him with a grin. “Sure, I remember. A double screwdriver and a French Dip, right?” He looked at me, did a double-take when he saw who I was, then got up and left.

This is my favorite story of waiter revenge from my personal history, but at the same time, it’s a cautionary tale. It takes a lot to push most people over the edge and make them do things they normally pride themselves on not doing, like food tampering. But it can be done. So the next time you call someone a cunt because they didn’t serve you fast enough, keep it in mind.

TL; DR: Hope you enjoyed your French Dip with secret sauce. See you next Tuesday.

13. UGH. I can’t believe this lady…

I used to bartend but this is actually something I saw happen in front of me at a store.

It’s Christmas eve and we went to the large supermarket to get our shopping (which was in itself a fucking stupid idea but hey ho – we had chicken for Christmas dinner…)

So we go to the til and by this point we’re all pretty wound up from all the people and their Christmas crazy. This woman is at the till arguing with the cashier about something so we stop our conversation to listen in.

Basically this woman is refusing to take the £5 note that the cashier has given her because it’s creased and old and she wants her to open the till to give her a new one. The cashier is explaining that she can’t open the till until someone pays with cash and this woman is getting more and more rude and irate. Eventually the cashier says to the woman if she really wants a new note she will have to wait until we have been served.

Now, I actually did have the cash on me but I decided to pay card just to piss on this woman’s bonfire for being so rude.
She got so pissed off she threw the note at the cashier and walked out the shop…

14. SMDH.

One that’s a little long sticks out to me the most.

I was working at a hotel bar last summer. The hotel had four bars. I worked on the rooftop one. This woman was sitting down on a chair and I approached nicely asking her if she would like anything to drink. She ordered a glass of rose. I went to my bar and the bartender told me they didn’t have any and that one of the barbacks was going to go run down to the storage room (18 floors down in the slowest service elevator possible) and bring some up. I went up to the woman and explained the situation and told her that if she wanted to wait for the rose it would be a little bit of time. She looked at me with the most disgusted face and just shrugged me away with a “Fine, whatever” gesture. A couple minutes later I see her get up and leave with a huff.

Maybe like thirty minutes go by, and I get a tap on my shoulder. I turn around and it’s the woman all up in my personal space. She takes the biggest, slurpiesty, gulp of her glass of rose wine and goes, “MmmMMmmm. So good. Looks like you do have rose.” She gives me this disgustingly smug little smile and storms off.

The fact that this woman left, went to a different bar in the hotel, got her rose, then intentionally went back up 18 floors to rub it in my face and make me feel like shit (after I had been really nice) was so appalling to me. I was in a horrid mood for the rest of the night. Luckily I work at a bar so I ordered my own drink.

15. I don’t usually say this, but this customer got what he was asking for…

We worked at a very high end sushi restaurant, and a guy at one of [my coworker’s] tables started snapping his fingers at the waiter from across the dining room. Unfortunately for the customer, the server had a short fuse and had already been dealing with this douche all night. So he walks over to the guy snapping his fingers, and says, I shit you not, ” Do I look like a fucking dog to you? Don’t you dare snap your fingers at me you prick.” Then walked away. The whole table starting laughing at this guy who was in shock. The guy was too embarrassed to say anything to a manager.

16. “Had a man yell ‘waitress’ across the room at me…”

The room goes dead silent and all angry eyes are on him as I walk over to his table. He’s completely oblivious to the dirty looks from other customers and I say, “my name’s ‘Jen’, sir”. He responds, “Jane, Joe, Susanne… I don’t care what your name is. Bring me the damn check”. It was a business meeting and I can only assume he was trying to assert his dominance or some bullshit like that. Fucking fuck.

17. “I hate to say this, but I have no doubt that everyone I worked with was a bit relieved when she died.”

“Am I supposed to pour this myself?” An old grumpy lady who came in with her home health nurse every so often. She had a ton of dietary restrictions, which is totally fine, my restaurant was great with special orders, but she could never EVER remember what those were or what she ordered that was ok for her – and neither did her NURSE! They both expected us to remember what she could and couldn’t eat. This particular quote was once after I brought her the hot tea she ordered, which as in a lot of places, is served with a small mug and tea pot with hot water. To be clear, she was perfectly capable of pouring it herself, I had seen her do it multiple times, so it wasn’t an old person thing. And either way, if she actually couldn’t pour it there are a thousand nicer ways to ask.

It was never really about what this woman said, but how she acted. Ugh, I hate to say this, but I have no doubt that everyone I worked with was a bit relieved when she died. Sad, but true. Don’t be that person!

18. “Well, there goes your tip.”

I’ve only been a server for all of two months, but a couple weeks ago I had a table of two couples who looked to be on a double date. The entire evening they seemed very satisfied with the service and the food commenting several times on what a great job I was doing (I had mentioned when I first welcomed them that I was brand new and this was my very first job, so please bear with me on this busy Saturday night)

At the end, I’m running their cards through when one of the men approaches me and starts hitting on me. He asks if I’m single and, disregarding the obvious fact that he’s trying to boink the waitress while appearing to be on a date, I say “No, I’m sorry, I’ve been with my boyfriend for quite a while now” with a friendly smile. He looks at me with a blank face and goes “Well, there goes your tip.”