20. It was a bad idea

I was working at a sit-down chain restaurant when a group of teenagers, fresh out of the last day of high school, came in to celebrate. They even brought a cake with them (which isn’t a big deal, except we don’t allow that because we serve cake). One of the more level headed ones talked to a manager, and we decided to let it slide, even giving them extra plates. All is going well, until one of them pulls a flask out of his jacket and starts spiking everyone’s drinks. Illegal (21 to drink in the good ole’ USA), yes, but whatever. I thought If I let it slide I might get a better tip. Fast forward to about an hour later, when the cake is being cut up. These kids are borderline drunk now, and one of them gets the bright idea to smush his cake into his friend’s face. This starts an all out riot at the table, with drunk 18 year-olds throwing cake, half eaten burgers, cups of Dr. Pepper and mysterious alcohols, and even fucking silverware at each other. Our managers came out, but policy is to not touch patrons at all (lawsuits and shit), so we had to wait for the cops to come. They did, eventually, and took the lot of them away. Since it was my table and servers bussed their own there, I was stuck with the job of cleaning up the remains. Cake was ground into the carpet, and the stains are still there. I spent maybe 3 hours making that section presentable again. The worst part was, since the kids were arrested, they didn’t pay. I got no tip, registered $0 sales (manager comps don’t reflect in your total) for 5 hours of my shift, and later found out that one of the children’s parents was suing the restaurant for not keeping a better eye on her ADULT son. Nothing came of it, but still.

21. What is wrong with customers?

I used to work in a very trendy teahouse in the cultural/arts/LGBTQ/bar scene part of my town. This was all well and good, but unfortunately, the unique nature of the cafe combined with this weird draw we had on teenagers led to a lot of people coming in from the wealthier conservative side of town (presumably coming for bars or hearing about it from their kids)

One day, this man came in wanting our silver needle white tea, iced. I asked if he wanted it sweetened rather hesitantly, as sweetening a white tea, especially to the degree he said he wanted meant you pretty much lost all flavor. All of it. I warned him, and he insisted, so naturally I obliged.

We brewed teas as they were ordered, so there was generally a five minute wait. Two minutes in he starts pestering us, we explain ourselves and he starts drumming on the counter. His drinks go out, (two for one guy-yes he seemed to be drinking both.) He tastes both, pushes his way past the line to me at the register and yelled that it tasted like water. I began trying to explain that white tea is subtle, and offering to make a less sweetened one when he uncaps the cups and quite literally threw two teas onto me.

Two girls seated near the register promptly ran out, and my equally terrified co-worker rushed to refund him (against policy) while he shouted at us for being terrible at our job, etc, etc.
At closing we got in trouble for refunding him.