My mom and I went out to dinner at Applebee's the other night, which is apparently always a risky choice.Why are so many restaurant servers crazy?
In the past few weeks, I've had a lot of crazy servers. I know this is partly due to the fact that, in the past couple weeks, I've eaten out a lot. But even so, I feel that the ratio of sane, capable servers to the crazies is much too low.
It's not so much that they're incompetent, although that's part of it. When we were in Kentucky a few weeks ago, Michael's and my beers didn't arrive until after the food. Long after the food. What good is that? But what was the icing on the cake was when, after we'd complained to two other servers (she never came near enough to our table for us to get her attention), our server made a big show of telling us that, in the 20 years that she's waitressed, this is the first time she's ever been so busy that it took her so long to get drinks. It's never happened before. Riiiight.
So like I said, my mom and I went to Applebee's, the chain where, strangely enough the above incident had also taken place. Perhaps Applebee's hires particularly incompetent/crazy waitstaff? During this excursion, our waitress took a mental break in the middle of taking our order and made me repeat my entire order. This is after I tried to order a glass of red and she didn't even know what kinds they had—she mentioned one or two of the labels, but not the actual wine (chardonnay, merlot, etc.), which I tend to find more relevant.
After all those fun times, when I had signed the credit card receipt and she stopped by to pick it up, she actually said, "You're leaving me? I didn't do anything wrong and you're still leaving me?"
I'd assume she was going for funny. But it came out as stalker. Not funny.
I could go on, about the waitress that sat down next to Michael one time and talked about what a long day she'd had, or the time our server ran off to Yemen to find his long-lost twin brother before we'd even gotten our appetizer, but I'm sure you all have had that happen to you, too.
5 comments:
In defense of servers, often we are exhausted because of low pay and demanding customers who don't tip. Imagine a busy night, and the company only pays you $2.70 an hour, the rest is compensated by tips. However, that party of 8 that you ran your ass off for leaves you a $2 tip. Then there was that delightful family with many small children, who run around and scream, the parents don't discipline, and they smash food all over the place. They too feel that $2 or $3 is a great tip. Let's not leave out the seniors and coupon-users, who tip on what they paid for the meal, not what it is worth. The server brings the full meal, regardless of discounts. The tip? Ha.
Many times, delays are the kitchen's fault. They had to thaw something because they suddenly ran out. They had to throw that "rare" steak back on the grill because it is "too rare." Same goes for the bar. A lot of alcholic beverages are poured by the bartender, and if he is busy, the dining room's drinks get backed up. Unfortunately, restaurants have high turnover. There are always trainees somewhere, someone calls in sick without a replacement or someone quits without notice.
Top all that off with the random tables that don't even belong to you that have customers stopping you for a dozen things on the way to and from your section.
Yes, there are some truly bad servers out there. But I think that often people are quick to judge that it is all the server's fault. I know that I have often lied about never having forgotten something or fallen behind. All you really can do is smile and apologize. Sometimes it is my fault, sometimes one or more of the things I mentioned above happen but I'm not going to tell the customer that.
Yeesh, this was long. I guess all too often I find myself sympathizing waaaay too much with the overworked and underpaid.
Okay, I hear what you're saying about things that aren't the server's fault, being underpaid and dealing with people. Trust me: I have great respect for people that deal with the general public, because the general public is annoying and stupid, in general.
My point is mostly that a lot of servers, in my experience, are weird. And make me uncomfortable when saying things that indicate a tendency toward neediness or possible homicidial, maniacal behavior. But that's just me. Perhaps many others find these strange, out-of-nowhere comments entertaining.
I didn't realize I came off so ... bitter? Now that I've re-read it, I must have been having a bad day.
I see what you're saying about the crazy ones who act all needy. Strangely, those are usually the ones who love to wait on lonely old men in hopes of a big tip for giving them some attention. Then they don't turn it off for anyone else.
cat
most servers in chain restaurants only serve 3 tables at a time. If you don't see your server it is most likely they are out back smoking or trying to figure out where they are going to party when work is over.
Which brings up another pet peeve of mine--a situation that also, while not unique to them, happened at Applebee's.
My mom and I couldn't even eat our dinner a few weeks ago because we had 3 different employees, including the manager, come up and ask us if everything is okay. Mom tried to tell the manager that everything was fine except that everyone kept asking us if everything was fine. Just leave us to eat in peace! The manager didn't get it, spending 5 minutes telling us about how that's her job and she needs to make sure everything's fine and that's how it's done. Annoying on so many levels.
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