I’m sure many of you out there are perfectly well- behaved when you go out to eat. However, many of you jerks are not, so here is a list of what you’re doing to piss off the person serving you.
1. You ask stupid questions.
If you can’t be bothered to read the goddamn menu before you ask inane questions that could easily be answered by a 3 second glance at that big card in front of your face, your server is not going to be happy with you.
2. You take too long.
Instead of immediately commencing the yappity-yap with the same people you’re going to be sitting with for the next hour, take a moment to figure out what the hell you want to eat. And once you’re done, and you’ve paid your bill, if you sit at your table for another hour, guess what you’ve become? A big fat farting roadblock for new customers to get into your server’s section. You eat, you pay, you leave. You can always talk about goddamn American Idol in the parking lot.
3. You get drunk and act like a jerk.
Servers don’t really care that much if you’re a little drunk, but you have to remember this simple equation. How nice you are to your server (and how much you tip) needs to increase at a rate that is directly proportionate to how drunk you are. If you’re getting sloshed, be nice and tip well, and you’ll be okay.
4. You need to modify everything you order.
Listen Meg Ryan, unless you have like 15 different allergies, there is no need to make a bunch of changes to the item you order. You want a salad instead of fries with your burger? OK princess, we can make that happen. But that’s it. You get one modification per meal. And if you even think about asking for a little taste of each dessert instead of one, you’re going to get brained with a pepper mill.
5. You pay with 8 different debit cards.
Look, you assholes are eating together, I can assume you all know each other. And I count 5 of you. So that means if you foresee going out to eat 4 MORE GODDAMN TIMES in your life, then you can just do a little round robin, and each pay for the entire meal once. And if you say, “But Jimmy might not come to the next meal because he has a new account at work and sometimes he works late and–” Well then Jimmy owes you a couple drinks when he meets up after dinner! Just handle it! Why don’t any of you carry cash anyway? Christ almighty.
6. You don’t finish your food.
What, you forgot you were competing in a triathlon that starts in an hour before you bought that T-Bone? Man up and finish your goddamn food. If you don’t finish it, either you’re gonna ask for a pansy doggy bag, which takes up the server’s time, or you’ll leave it and they have to scrape your shit off in the kitchen. Eat your food, there are starving kids in China and you’re an asshole.
7. You tip like a jerk.
We all know what amount we’re supposed to tip. Unless the booth you’re sitting in just transported you back to good ol’ 1925, or you are from Russia, the standard tip is 15%. If you tip less than that, your server better have really sucked. And you better be goddamn sure that whatever piddly thing that went wrong was actually the server’s fault. Which brings us to the next point…
8. You think your server cooks your food and owns the restaurant.
If you order your steak well done, and it comes out rare, there are two possibilities: either the server didn’t communicate it properly, or the cook screwed up. Here’s a little inside info for you. 95% of the time, THE COOK SCREWED UP. And don’t even get me started on the idiotic things that people complain to their server about. Parking here sucks? Are you kidding? Guess who has to try to find a spot here 5 days a week, Columbo? There is no choice parking spot in back with a sign in front that says, “Whatever college student is working for minimum wage this evening, park here for free!”
9. You think you own the restaurant.
Stop moving tables and chairs around without asking! It’s not a big deal in a bar, but in a restaurant, guess what? When you take one chair away from a two person table, it becomes a one person table. So unless your loser dad is coming to eat alone again tonight, you’ve just screwed your server out of yet another table in their section. You don’t own the place, just ask before you do things.
10. You snap your goddamn fingers to get your server’s attention.
No funny joke here. Just don’t do it unless you like mucus in your food. I’m not saying, I’m just saying. You feel me?
Honorable Mention:
You dine and dash.
Your server is a just as motivated to catch you as you’re motivated to get away. Except they aren’t laden down with 8 onion rings and an entree in their belly. And guess what? When they catch you, their going to beat their $30 out of you. And if you don’t have it, they’re going to beat the Chicken Marsala right out of your stomach instead. Have a nice evening.
20 responses so far ↓
1 Bill Brasky // Jul 14, 2008 at 2:18 pm
Bill Brasky once ate a restaurant, and then tipped the server a million dollars. Then he paid with eight debit cards, but four of them didn’t work. Later, his piss got a child drunk.
2 Baba Ganoush // Jul 14, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Is leaving my phone number for a waitress acceptable as a tip? Assuming they call me and we go out for dinner/drinks and I pay… it’s going to be around the 15% mark.
3 Paco // Jul 14, 2008 at 4:56 pm
How about “you let your toddlers run around and fuck up shit on other tables, and leave crayons, cereal, spills, a general disaster for your server to clean up”
4 WTF are you on? // Jul 14, 2008 at 7:08 pm
How about you shut the hell up and get back to work! No wonder the ’service’ industry is all screwed up in the USA.
How about this novel thought? After I have worked my ass off to eat out, I expect you do also work your ass off to make the money doing your own fucking job and quit whining about how you hate it. Every few years kids whine about this shit. OK then finish your degree and make some real pay, or learn the true craft of being a server and move into the big-time, and I promise you you won’t get there with this type of attitude.
Politeness and a basic level of respect is all I owe a server as a fellow human being.
Oh and if you mucus in my food, your leaving the job in cuffs.
5 Mr. Wonka // Jul 14, 2008 at 7:40 pm
@ WTF are you on?
hate to break it to you chief, with a temper like that, you’ve probably already had your share of server spit…
not a single mention was made in the above article about anyone hating their job, so I’m not sure where you got that from.
you said, “politeness and a basic level of respect” are all you owe a server. pretty much every point above is pointing out an absence of those qualities. so what do you take issue with?
6 Eric // Jul 15, 2008 at 9:48 am
They don’t like it when you try to make out with them either.
7 Emily // Jul 15, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Wow…ok, this is kind of ridiculous! I was recently a server for about 4 straight years at a few different places, and i agree with most of your points. But you’re going a little too far! If you can’t handle changes to the food and people not eating all their food, you shouldn’t be a server. I agree people need to be respectful and realize they’re not the only ones you’re serving, but at the same time, it’s your job to get them what they want and THAT’S why they tip you.
A lot of your tips take me back to when I was a server, and it pisses me off to think about some of them! lol I swear…when you’re taking an order and your other table is yelling…”Mama..Mama…HELLO?” you just wanna hit them!!! Lol
Anyway…mostly good article, but a little extreme on how customers need to please YOU. I swear…if you spit in people’s food when they piss you off, you’re disgusting and retarded!! And you should definitely consider a career change!!
8 Me // Jul 15, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Hey, here’s a tip for servers. 1) Read this book: It’s Called Work for a Reason!: Your Success Is Your Own Damn Fault. 2) You have a job to do, do it. Your time, while at your serving job, is to serve the customer. If my crew and I want to pay with 10 cards, so be it, you are a big boy/girl, you can handle it. You usually get a better tip that way anyway. I’ve noticed if 5 people are at lunch and all pay cash, some cheep ass stiffs the tip. If we each pay our own, it doesn’t happen, because then you know who stiffed you. It doesn’t make sense, but it happens. 3) Tip 15% unless they REALLY suck? Get real, got back to #1, read the book, understand that you have a job and have contracted to be a server. If you do a good job, you get 20%+ if you don’t, 10% or less. 4) If dealing with people who expect to be able to make a decision to have their food the way they want it is a problem for you, find a different job. You’re only a waiter because that’s the job you have decided you want to do. I did not force you to be a waiter, but when I’m in a restaurant I expect you to have the same dedication to your job as I have to mine. You chose the job. 5) Read this book: It’s Called Work for a Reason!: Your Success Is Your Own Damn Fault.
9 eggnostriva // Jul 15, 2008 at 2:13 pm
I was on the eurostar train back to the uk from paris. I was in the queue for the buffet car. A young american man said to his female partner, the reason they hate us, and spit in our food, (The French) is because they have to work minimum wage as waiters. Make sense of that if you can.
10 minette // Jul 15, 2008 at 2:54 pm
What about crappy servers? There are a whole lot of them, lazy ones too. Servers who never check the food before they deliver it to the table to catch a mistake. Servers who don’t want to make right a wrong. Servers who blame everyone but themselves for whatever is wrong. Servers who don’t check with you on occasion to see if your food is ok or if you need another drink (soda in my case and sometimes I need a refill). Servers who can’t work up a smile, servers in an obvious bad mood, servers who can’t be bothered to pre-bus, servers who who stand with the other servers slamming the customers instead of making sure those customers are happy…
11 reatrded // Jul 15, 2008 at 2:55 pm
this article is retarded, just do your god damn job, everyone else has to! I dont fuck up my clients products when they piss me off, no no no, I would get sued, but no, the waiters, we have to be kind to them or else. Fuck that, get me my god damn food, and deal with the fact that you have a shitty job. Like the one guy said, its your own damn fault.
12 lol // Jul 15, 2008 at 7:01 pm
ah, people i love ya. you’re (yeah, y’all with the claims the job you DON’T have is shitty and cannot possibly belong to someone with a college degree) so ridiculously pompous about waitstaff jobs being less-than.
anyone who eats out should be required to have worked in the food service industry at some point. period.
cheers.
13 Stupid Servers // Jul 21, 2008 at 6:40 am
Servers get mad if you don’t finish your food…..really?!?! Fuck you! Box up my stuff or give me a box and I’ll do it you lazy ass. If you don’t like serving people you are in the wrong line of work. If you are good, I tip 20+%, did your job 15%, you suck I leave nothing. Do your job, it pays!
14 Shain // Jul 24, 2008 at 11:57 am
What happened to the good old days when servers realized that you are not entitled to a good tip? In fact, you are not ENTITLED to any kind of tip. Don’t get me wrong, I tip and I tip well, but that’s only because I want to, not because I feel obligated.
The fact that the restaurant pays you next to nothing is not my fault, and, as mentioned above, you chose your own line of work. Do I get a tip for doing my job well? Hell no, I don’t, so why should you? Think about it.
That being said, if you’re a good server, I’ll pay you your 20 percent, because I’m not a cheap ass. But if I wasn’t satisfied with your service, why should I feel guilty at all about leaving a big fat goose-egg?
15 Mr. Wonka // Jul 24, 2008 at 3:18 pm
@Shain
why can’t any of you high-and-mighty jerks see the gigantic flaw in your argument?
servers make MINIMUM WAGE, which means that they rely on tips to get to a decent wage. but the amount they make isn’t the issue, and this is what you fail to grasp. let’s say the average server makes exactly what you make (working at, I’m guessing, Kinko’s, but I may be wrong) after their tips. now, if every time you made a small error, or worse, if every time someone at work PERCEIVED that you made a small error, you were docked pay, then you’d have a bit of an attitude about your work environment, would you not? but you can fuck up all you want, and you got that same salary. as long as you don’t get fired, you’re golden. a server has to work for every penny, and if one thing goes wrong, people like you love to run over them on your high horse.
the bottom line is that the money argument is completely spurious. the only one that holds water logically (if not empathetically) is the one that says, “if they don’t like it, get another job”…
which puts you right in the ranks of “if the homeless people don’t like it, take a shower and get a job” or “if the soldiers don’t lie the war, they shouldn’t have signed up.”
basically, and this is the FUNDAMENTAL thing here…the ONLY people that react strongly to a SATIRCAL piece like this, and decry it with such vitriol, are assholes. every single douche that’s yelled about this on digg and on here sounds exactly the same. you’ve never had a job like this, and you love to find someone you perceive to be lower on the totem pole than you to piss on, just like the guy higher than you is making it rain on you daily. as soon as you use the word “entitled” to talk about tipping, you’ve derailed. just throw down the money and pat yourself on the back for being one of the lucky people in the world that is doing well and can dine out and have a good time.
grow up, lighten up, and fuck off.
16 Kevin // Jul 27, 2008 at 12:41 pm
The problem with that logic is that this isn’t what most people would perceive as satirical. It’s typed up by what looks to me to be angry waitstaff. You don’t like your job? Fucking find a new one. Can’t? You must be really stupid, then. It’s not my fault that the person waiting on my CHOSE to get a job that pays out at min. wage or less. So don’t act like I should feel obligated to give this bitter asshole 20% even if the service was shitty. Bottom line is, you are what you are. You don’t like your occupation? Quit bitching and find something else. It’s not my fault that you have an 11th grade education, or are “working your way through college.” Buck up like the rest of the fucking working class and DO YOUR JOB!
17 Mr. Wonks // Jul 27, 2008 at 1:12 pm
@ Kevin
See my previous post re: assholes like you.
As for the satire, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hold true. But it is satirical. A list about restaurant rules written from the perspective of a disgruntled server? Yeah, satirical.
18 letsgotothehop // Jul 28, 2008 at 7:58 pm
Mr. Wonks you should drop the ‘I am the protector of servers’ crap. I’ve waited on people for 6 years before I got the proper backing to open my own restaurant. If people do not have ambition (like most of my previous co-workers) then they will amount to nothing. People who succeed are the ones who work smart. I toiled for 6 years with the same company so they can see that I have the skills, patience and innitiative to get the job done well. I knew from the start that the money won’t be comming form my salary nor from my tips. The money will come from making connections with the owners and powers that be.
19 20th Century Man // Jul 30, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Kudos to you, Mr. Wonks. I am a bartender part-time and worked for many years as a server. I have a degree and a “real” job. I have kept my bartending gig because it’s fun, and who can’t use the extra money? I love to see the hypocrisy present in many of the arguments against your post. So many people who walk into a restaurant have this strange sense of entitlement. I understand you are paying for your meal and I am there to serve you, but that gives you no right to treat me like one of your employees. I work for the restaurant, not you, I am merely contracted out to you for the duration of your visit (which, if you are an a-hole, will hopefully be mercifully short). Serving is a solid job where someone with basic job skills can make a heck of a lot of money. It is especially lucrative for college students because most restaurants work around their work schedule. Yes, most servers CHOSE to be servers, but does that mean that don’t complain? They chose they job because they most likely possessed the skills necessary and could start making money quickly. All the people complaining about your post CHOSE to become whatever they have (just like they choose to be a-holes when they walk in to a restaurant), does that mean they never complain about their own jobs? Of course not, they just don’t want to hear it when some peon does it. The server should just be happy to have a job, right? Wrong. There is never any reason to be a jerk to someone serving you, unless they have done something to warrant that treatment.
Don’t begrudge someone a tip because it is expected of you. Remember, if you don’t like it, McDonald’s is always open and they have a lovely dining room for you non-tippers to enjoy!
20 Jesse Jackson // Jul 30, 2008 at 8:26 pm
Yo! Right on, brotha! If they gon dis me, they gon git da mucosoids in dey scrimp scampi.
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