Ever gotten bad service or bad treatment at a business...

[Damaramu 0]

Ok so last night I was at a bar with a friend and we were at a table having drinks. I was wearing a Misfits t-shirt and jeans and my buddy was wearing an Abercrombie t-shirt and torn up jeans. We were way under-dressed as compared to everyone else in the bar.

Everyone was wearing collared shirts, pink, polo, shell necklaces, and the like.

So our waitress gives us this funny look when she walks up and takes our drink order. Then I don't see her for another 20 minutes. I finished my beer in like 10 and I wanted another.

I look around and she's over at this table of douche-bags, as described above, flirting and laughing. And then she goes to the table next to us(also filled with guys dressed similarly) and she laughs with them. She then SKIPS over our table and goes to the table on the other side of us.

I finally flag her down and ask for another beer and the bitch rolls her eyes like I'm bugging her.

Finally after getting this crappy service I demand my tab and don't tip the bitch. My friend was saying "I'm sure if we showed up in a pink collared shirt she would've given us good service."

 

Ever gotten shitty service because of a BS reason like that?

[stahl 0]

I ordered a pizza once and it didn't arrive until 3 hours later. It wasn't due to anything other than sheer idiotic negligence. Apparently they didn't have my appartment number, just the address, so even though I phoned them 3 times demanding my pizza, they didn't ask me for the number, thus making me wonder what they hell they were doing. It wasn't until the third call that they told me they didn't have the number. The thing that pissed me off is they asked for my phone number when I ordered, so why the fuck didn't they call me when they came to my building and realized they didn't have the apartment number?

 

I also had to pay for the pizza even though it was very late. I have never ordered from there since.

[USC Wuz Robbed! 0]

Maybe she read your exploits on here?

 

Serious answer: I've received shoddy service from waitresses before, and I never put up with it. For example, if it was me in your shoes, I'd have asked her what the fuck her problem was, and that I would like to see her manager so I could tear the waitress a new asshole.

[Vampiro69 0]

That sucks

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

Dam, she probably thought you were a dirtbag and wouldn't tip.

 

One time when the better half and I were in the "dating" stage of the relationship we were at some place where the guy waiter wouldn't even look at me and was a notch or two below full-fledged flirting with the future Mrs. kkk. I thought the whole thing was funny myself, especially since I was the one who paid the bill and supplied the tip, or lack thereof.

[the max 0]

Out at dinner with my mom a few years ago and the waitress ignored our table for a good twenty minutes. I counted the number of times that she walked right past our table (17) to get to the back of the restaurant. It wasn't as if they were busy, it was us and another table of two people. Finally, she came back over to check drinks (we'd both been empty for well over fifteen minutes) and get me another plate of my 'all-you-can-eat fish and chips'. She came back with no drinks, practically threw my plate on the table and stormed off. When we got her back to get the bill, my mom asked her point blank what her fucking problem was and she replied that the entertainment for the evening had called in sick. Then she acted surprised that we were so pissed, considering we'd be paying for a crappy meal and absolutely horrible service. My mom yelled at her, left her a 0.00 tip and we've never been back.

[Guest Vitamin X]

Well, you guys sure showed them!

[CanadianGuitarist 0]

A girl I work with was telling me about her husband, who's a kitchen manager at a Perkins.

 

A woman ordered a vegetarian omelette. He had accidentally made it with ham before frying it. He managed to get all but one piece of ham off it, which was on the outer side of the omelette as it was served. When said woman approached the restaurant manager, RM asked how long the customer'd been a vegetarian. She said five years, and the manager replied "Well, then you're probably due for a slip-up".

[2GOLD 0]

While out with my family one night, we had a waitress who basically failed to do her job cause she was too busy chatting with her table of friends in the back. Dinner order was screwed up, one of us didn't have silverware, she somehow confused an ice tea with a milk, onions were on my sis in laws steak (she's allergic to the damn things, which was explained extremely politely even after the waitress repeated "so no onions?" three damn times), took her 15 minutes to give a refill of coke when the soda machine was right behind us (we didn't bother asking her a second time, just did it our damn self), and then she tried to charge us for an extra order of fries when no one at our table HAD fries.

 

Total time for a dinner of four people: 2 hours

Total tip for the girl: 0.00

Total we paid for the meal after her screw ups: 0.00 (sis in law didn't take the onion deal well)

The look on her face when her manager went over to her as we were leaving: Priceless

 

We owe her a debt of thanks. Free meals totally rock.

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

Finally, she came back over to check drinks (we'd both been empty for well over fifteen minutes) and get me another plate of my 'all-you-can-eat fish and chips'.

 

Oh I love it when a place has an "all-you-can-eat" special and the staff just looks on with horror when you have the nerve if you can have a second plate of food. I did it once and never will again.

 

A woman ordered a vegetarian omelette. He had accidentally made it with ham before frying it. He managed to get all but one piece of ham off it, which was on the outer side of the omelette as it was served.

 

I don't know if are defending the cook or not, but he should have done that. I remember one time at a Subway this customer in front of me ordered a sub without lettue. Of course the kid puts it on and the guy was polite enough to tell him he didn't want any. The kid then just scrapes it off, leaving about 1/5 of the lettuce on. The customer tells him he didn't want ANY lettuece and the kid just gives this look of disgust and makes some stupid noise. Now I can hate customers with the best of them, but this poor guy didn't nothing wrong in this instance. I start laughing out loud and when it's my turn the manager asked what I wanted and I said "I know I don't want that person *pointing to the kid* touching my food."

[Dobbs 3K 0]

It's amazing to me how sometimes people are willing to stick around that long for crummy service. When out with my parents, I know we've gotten up and left a restaurant if a waitress hasn't come around promptly.

 

Once when I was about 15 or so our family was driving through Lake Geneva one morning and decided to stop somewhere for breakfast. The place, in the middle of town, was basically deserted at like 10 AM or so on a weekend morning. Well, some of the tables weren't clean...waitress comes out and seats us, then goes to the back and starts having an argument with another woman in the back, and we can hear the whole thing! Shes comes back out after a few minutes and my dad says, "I'm sorry, we have to get going...your restaurant isn't clean." He left a couple bucks for the coffee he'd been served and we left.

[USC Wuz Robbed! 0]

Well, you guys sure showed them!

 

Considering more often than not I've gotten a waitress fired for his/her shit, yeah I sure did.

[NYU 0]

Yeah! Send that bitch out on her ass!

 

I've never had a problem with a waiter or a waitress. Seriously. Not once. I'm nice to them. They're nice to me. If I have to call them over to refill a drink because they weren't immediately there, I don't do it with an attitude. At the end of it all, I give them a tip.

 

I don't understand how everybody else has had all these bad experiences. Maybe I'm just lucky.

[Guest Princess Leena]

I've also never had noticeably bad service where I've had to complain. The worst was a young waitress who was loudly bitching about how much the restaurant sucked. I think she was trying to get fired. But, she still was nice to us.

[Fuzzy Dunlop 0]

It's amazing to me how sometimes people are willing to stick around that long for crummy service. When out with my parents, I know we've gotten up and left a restaurant if a waitress hasn't come around promptly.

 

Once when I was about 15 or so our family was driving through Lake Geneva one morning and decided to stop somewhere for breakfast. The place, in the middle of town, was basically deserted at like 10 AM or so on a weekend morning. Well, some of the tables weren't clean...waitress comes out and seats us, then goes to the back and starts having an argument with another woman in the back, and we can hear the whole thing! Shes comes back out after a few minutes and my dad says, "I'm sorry, we have to get going...your restaurant isn't clean." He left a couple bucks for the coffee he'd been served and we left.

 

 

Why didn't you just eat at the Czech house?

[Red Baron 0]

At A&W the gf and I had some teen burgers during our break. Of course we are picky eaters, but after three times we wanted our money back. Mind you the fifteen year old kid decided to lip us back. Knowing that my size and stature between myself and this kid (about 4 inches taller and a good 100 pounds on him) I let him have it. Knowing that I have been working at a fast food place for 3.5 years there should be no excuses for screwing up three times. I havent seen the kid since that incident.

[Boon 0]

Yeah! Send that bitch out on her ass!

 

I've never had a problem with a waiter or a waitress. Seriously. Not once. I'm nice to them. They're nice to me. If I have to call them over to refill a drink because they weren't immediately there, I don't do it with an attitude. At the end of it all, I give them a tip.

 

I don't understand how everybody else has had all these bad experiences. Maybe I'm just lucky.

I'm the same way.

 

I usually go out of my way to be easy/nice to my wait staff. Mainly b/c they're responsible for my food and I don't want to be eating shit that's on the floor/spit on/etc.

 

Also, my ex is a waitress- she sort of trained me how to get good service.

[Damaramu 0]

Yeah! Send that bitch out on her ass!

 

I've never had a problem with a waiter or a waitress. Seriously. Not once. I'm nice to them. They're nice to me. If I have to call them over to refill a drink because they weren't immediately there, I don't do it with an attitude. At the end of it all, I give them a tip.

 

I don't understand how everybody else has had all these bad experiences. Maybe I'm just lucky.

I'm the same way.

 

I usually go out of my way to be easy/nice to my wait staff. Mainly b/c they're responsible for my food and I don't want to be eating shit that's on the floor/spit on/etc.

 

Also, my ex is a waitress- she sort of trained me how to get good service.

 

Yeah and I've worked in several restaraunts and fast food joints and none of that stuff that people talk about or that shit you see in movies like Waiting has EVER happened where I worked. It doesn't happen as many times as one would think.

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

Yeah and I've worked in several restaraunts and fast food joints...

 

Ditto. Which is why I never bitch until after I get my food.

 

Here's another incident that pissed me off. The better half and I were at a Steak 'n Shake and the idiot waiter didn't write down our orders. I suggested to him that he write my order down because I knew it was going to get screwed up. He said not to worry.

 

Guess what happened?

[BruiserKC 0]

Several years ago some friends of mine and I went to Daytona's (basically a Hooters rip-off). We had just left a local boxing event and it was about 9 PM on a Friday night. We walk in and one of the ladies tells us to sit anywhere. Several tables clean, but we wanted a booth which was dirty. Took them about 10 minutes to clean the booth off of the previous party's plates and shit. Should have been foreshadowing to the evening of crappy service we were going to receive.

 

Our waitress had no idea what the hell she was doing, we had to chase her down all night for every little thing. At one point I needed a beer refill and it took 15 minutes to get it, they had to change the keg. WTF? I could have changed the keg faster than that and the place wasn't even that busy. The manager was more interested in chucking peanuts at the wait-staff sitting at the bar. I tabbed him as "Magilla Gorilla" because he was a good-sized guy and was wearing a loud purple shirt and pants.

 

Finally, we're done eating, we want our bill so we can move on to the next part of the night. Waitress comes over, clears off about half our plates and heads to the back. She comes back and forth about three or four more times...by this time we have our plates pushed all the way to the edge of the table. She comes out one last time and looks at us and says sweetly, "Did you boys need something?" I was about to go off on her, but I say, "Our check please." As she turns around, my friend mutters under his breath, "And a motherfucking clue, bitch!"

 

As we leave a couple of people wanted to bitch to the manager. I said wouldn't be a good idea as he'd probably chuck peanuts at us too.

 

Needless to say we made her play "Find the Tip."

[NoCalMike 0]

I don't even remember why exactly, ( I mean I am sure it was bad service, I just can't remember the specifics) but one time at a local Denny's I was pretty disgusted with the service, so I left a $2 tip with mashed potatoes inbetween the dollars.

[SuperJerk 0]

Most of the bad dining experiences I've had involved Olive Garden. Doesn't matter which one I go to, they invariable fuck something up.

[NYU 0]

Several years ago some friends of mine and I went to Daytona's (basically a Hooters rip-off). We had just left a local boxing event and it was about 9 PM on a Friday night. We walk in and one of the ladies tells us to sit anywhere. Several tables clean, but we wanted a booth which was dirty. Took them about 10 minutes to clean the booth off of the previous party's plates and shit. Should have been foreshadowing to the evening of crappy service we were going to receive.

 

Our waitress had no idea what the hell she was doing, we had to chase her down all night for every little thing. At one point I needed a beer refill and it took 15 minutes to get it, they had to change the keg. WTF? I could have changed the keg faster than that and the place wasn't even that busy. The manager was more interested in chucking peanuts at the wait-staff sitting at the bar. I tabbed him as "Magilla Gorilla" because he was a good-sized guy and was wearing a loud purple shirt and pants.

 

Finally, we're done eating, we want our bill so we can move on to the next part of the night. Waitress comes over, clears off about half our plates and heads to the back. She comes back and forth about three or four more times...by this time we have our plates pushed all the way to the edge of the table. She comes out one last time and looks at us and says sweetly, "Did you boys need something?" I was about to go off on her, but I say, "Our check please." As she turns around, my friend mutters under his breath, "And a motherfucking clue, bitch!"

 

As we leave a couple of people wanted to bitch to the manager. I said wouldn't be a good idea as he'd probably chuck peanuts at us too.

 

Needless to say we made her play "Find the Tip."

 

Okay, let me get this straight.

 

1) You had numerous clean tables available to you, and you chose to pick one of the dirty ones. Then you get frustrated when they can't clean it up right away. Strike against the waitress though she probably already had customers she was dealing with at the time.

 

2) You hold it against the waitress that she couldn't get you another beer until the keg was replaced, despite the fact that she clearly is not the person that is going to be changing the keg. She needs to rely upon someone else to do it, but who cares? Strike against her again.

 

3) She starts clearing off your table, clearly gets preoccupied with something else that may have been more important at the time, then politely asks you if you need something else. What a bitch!

 

And then, at the end of it all, you fuck her over on the tip.

 

Let me get this straight. You make the staff take unnecessary steps to assist you, hold things against the waitress that clearly aren't her fault, gripe and bitch and moan about every little thing that tarnishes your perfect dining experience....then wonder why your experience was so bad??

 

Follow my advice, people. It works wonders.

[USC Wuz Robbed! 0]

Sometimes people just encounter waiters/waitresses on their bad days and no sweet talking or niceness is going to snap them out of it. Your advice isn't golden, NYU.

[Guest Vitamin X]

His point is that customers expect to be babied all the time and anything less than a perfect experience is awful service, which is just not true. I totally agree with him.

[CanadianGuitarist 0]

I'm gonna side with KKK here, and the others, who said not to say/do anything until food has arrived.

 

Also, KKK, what's Steak n Shake? Like, I get the jist of it, but is it fast food? Casual? How bad could any place that serves steak and milkshakes be, despite the bad service you described?

 

On the opposite end of the spectrum, the caterer I used to work for ran his show out of a restaurant, which he also owned. I was bussing tables one night. The restaurant was basically empty, 15 minutes or so before closing, except for one table in the smoking section upstairs, and one table downstairs, where I was bussing. I had a bus tray in one arm and a bunch of rolled up forks/knives in napkins in my right. I cleared off one table using a sweeping motion with my arm, at the same time setting a new roll of fork/knife down.

 

Not so! Upon setting new roll down, I wound up spilling the new for onto the floor. The clank got the attention of the guy sitting downstairs, so I blatantly looked at him while putting the fork I just spilled into the bus tray and putting a new one on the table. He gives me a disgusted look, and proceeds to tell our hostess he'll never eat her again.

 

Hostess told me this, but told me I was right.

 

In a fun sidenote, restaurant went under one month later. I like to say it's because I left one week after the above incident, but meh.

[USC Wuz Robbed! 0]

Ok I will explain my position a bit more clearly:

 

When I go out, I'm in a jovial mood. I never go out in a bad mood. When I'm at a restaurant, I'm a generous tipper (great service=50% tip, good service=25%). This makes me a "favorite" customer at the local eatery scene. Anytime I go in a restaurant, I have people who are familiar with me wanting to wait on me. I shit you not. Now, when I'm at a restaurant, and someone gives me a bad service, the manager respects me enough to deal with it. Now it's not like the other people in here (I agree that some of them need to lighten up like the dude complaining about the keg not being changed or a table not being clean despite having other clean tables). I never worry about anything out of the direct waitress's control. I'm not the kind of person that gets upset when food is late. I've waited 2 hours for food before and still deemed the service decent enough because the food more than made up for the wait. I don't gripe when people mess up my order. Essentially I'm quite a bit of a pushover when it comes to that kind of thing. However the THING I do not tolerate is attitude from the waitress or any ignoring like Damaramu detailed in the first post. I'm going to be paying the fucking person's bills. The least I expect is politeness. They don't have to be super nice or anything. Decency is all I ask for. When it's not given to me, I have no problems pointing that out to the manager. And guess what? Due to how valued I am, something is always done. Call me a prick if you want, but that's how I am. So any waiters here on TSM that resides in San Diego, watch out for me. Be nice to me.

[USC Wuz Robbed! 0]

Oh and CanadianGuitarist, Steak N Shake is actually a quite decent fast foodish joint. I've eaten there when I was living in Illinois.

[Guest InuYasha]

Funny I should read this thread, because I was out with my parents tonight at a place called Macaroni Grille. Don't know where they are in the country, but they basically serve high-wnd Italian food. Well, my step-father is what most people on here would probably refer to as a casual-dining nazi. He's also a bit of the jealous, center of attention type.

 

I always make it a point o be polite and kind to waiters/waitresses. Even if I'm just out by myself, I try to be good to them. Well, this place was almost packed to the rafters; I kid you not. My step-father got all pissy, because he wasn't the center or attention, ie, he had asked for his drink to be refilled, and the waiter didn't drop everything he was doing to go do it. Me, on the other hand, he went and got me a refill before I even had to ask for it; twice.

 

The difference was in our demeanors. I made a point out of referring to him as sir, sincerely thanking him for everything he did, even if it wasn't me he was serving, and trying to be helpful. For example, my menu was a little torn up. I tried to put it back together, but it wouldn't go. So, when he picked up mine, I politely told him my menu was falling apart a little. When I told him that, he apologized to me. I, in turn, told him it was okay, and was only telling him so that he would be careful to hold it so that the torn part wouldn't fall out.

 

My step-dad started getting more and more annoyed, but I kept my cool. I saw how incredibly full that place was, and took that into consideration. When he was finally able to get my step-dad his refill, he also brought my second one. I thanked him, and then let him go on about his business. When it finally came time to ask for the check, I knew I needed to do it, because I knew my step-dad was going to be rather gruff about it, considering the place was a little out of our usual price range. My mom's boss gave her a $10 gift card for a Christmas present/bonus; so that's why we went. Her boss, a multi-millionaire who owns about 11 car dealerships, has a much looser sense of the value of a dollar than we do.

 

So, when he was waiting a table next to/across from us, I waited until he was done talking to them, and then politely said, "Excuse me, sir; can we have our bill please?" My step-dad referred to him as Charlie the entire night, preferring to use his first name, rather than be respectful; at least in my opinion. I could tell my step-dad was ticked, when the next words out of his mouth were, "So nice of you to volunteer, saying it's our bill." For the record: I was over at their house, spending time after church, and they asked me if I wanted to go with them. They knew they were going to be paying for me.

 

As it so happens, the new cell phone I bought for my new IT job has a tip calculator built into it. Since our bill didn't list a tip/gratuity rate, I did the math, using a 10% rate; I wanted to make sure my prima-donna step-dad didn't stiff him for what was obviously very adequate service, under the circumstances.

 

When we left, my mom and step-dad commented that we wouldn't eat there again during dinner time. I agreed, since the prices were rather high. But, I knew that our waiter, Charlie, did the best he could, given the fact that his section of the restaurant probably had about 10-12 full tables in it.

[The Czech Republic 0]

It's amazing to me how sometimes people are willing to stick around that long for crummy service. When out with my parents, I know we've gotten up and left a restaurant if a waitress hasn't come around promptly.

 

Once when I was about 15 or so our family was driving through Lake Geneva one morning and decided to stop somewhere for breakfast. The place, in the middle of town, was basically deserted at like 10 AM or so on a weekend morning. Well, some of the tables weren't clean...waitress comes out and seats us, then goes to the back and starts having an argument with another woman in the back, and we can hear the whole thing! Shes comes back out after a few minutes and my dad says, "I'm sorry, we have to get going...your restaurant isn't clean." He left a couple bucks for the coffee he'd been served and we left.

I probably know the owners and they're probably Greek.