Listening to: Regis and Guest-Co-Host
Followers: 38!!!!
YAY MORE FOLLOWERS!!! Welcome Simon and Kels! :)
The one thing I'm disliking about summer (besides being far away from my lovely and amazing boyfriend) is not having anything to talk about. At school, I always have things to do and classes to complain about and things to inspire ideas for posts that area actually interesting to read. At home, I have significantly fewer of these things.
Except, I'm starting to understand why some people would never want to work at a restaurant. Don't get me wrong, my job is still pretty great. The people I work with are awesome and honestly, busing tables and leading people to their seats is not difficult work. But some people are just awful.
For some weird, inexplicable reason, nearly everybody who comes into our particular restaurant wants to sit in a booth. I kind of get it. They're more comfortable than the wood-backed, unpadded chairs. But what I don't get is how some people are SO SET on the idea of sitting in a booth that they will not consider anything else.
Yesterday, it was me, a girl who started working a week or two ago, and a guy who's only been here slightly longer than me. I was supposed to be seating people, and the new girl was supposed to be coordinating (our term for making sure that the servers' sections get seated in order so no one get's ripped off by getting fewer tables and therefore fewer tips). It was her first time coordinating, and it's kind of complicated, especially because all of the servers start at different times, so before 4:30 we can only seat certain sections.
A couple came in and I was told to take them to a small table that seats two people, so I led them there and told them that's where they'd be sitting. The lady looks at the table, looks at me and goes, "Um. We'd like a booth."
This is fine. Whatever. People request this all the time. So I radioed the new girl and asked if there were any open booths. This probably seemed kind of ridiculous to the couple, because we were standing right by an entire row of empty booths...but they were part of a section that couldn't be seated yet. So the new girl radios me back and tells me that no, all of the booths are full.
So I attempt to explain to this couple that we have no open booths because all of our servers were not there yet, so I couldn't seat them at the empty ones, but would they still like this small table? Or I could find them a bigger table if they would like.
And the lady gets all huffy and goes, "No. We want a booth." And they start angrily murmuring to each other and walking back toward the door.
THEY WERE GOING TO LEAVE. BECAUSE THEY COULDN'T GET A BOOTH.
I quickly remedied the situation by offering them a booth in the closed section and getting a different waiter to take it. But I was not happy about it.
Some people, I tell ya.
Anyway, that's it for now. I have to go prepare for more work.
More later!
I definitely understand the appeal of the booth--it's cozier and feels more private. But as someone who has also worked in the food industry, customer rudeness just kills me. Until you work in food service, you really don't have an appreciation for the way restaurants do things, which is why this couple (I'm assuming) couldn't understand that some sections have to be left open because the man-power isn't there yet. Here's hoping the customers are less rude in the future, or if they aren't, here's hoping for a nice cocktail to close the evening for you!
ReplyDeleteWhile I love a booth and all, usually whenever I got into a restaurant I'm hungry and I don't want to be difficult, so I take what I am given because it's just easier and I don't want to give anyone a hard time because I'm having some weird moment of entitlement.
ReplyDeleteSome days I feel like people just like to complain and it's always the people who have nothing to complain about. I got yelled at by a patron at the library I work at over fifteen cents in fines he owed, but the guy who owed thirty bucks was nice as pie about it.
Things like booth and fine complaints are why I don't understand people some days.