Tonight was one of those nights that I’d have been just as happy at home staring at the wall than at work. 

I mean, more than the usual.

First table I get tonight - a couple of teens - turned out to be super pleasant and tipped well.

Second table I get tonight - a couple of middle aged people - turned out to be super pleasant and tipped well.

Third table I get tonight - imagine Walmart at midnight in a sketchy area during a sale on sweatpants - turned out to be exactly the nightmare I predicted they’d be.

They bitched about everything, lighting, temperature, each other, the stain on my apron that bled through to my soul, the comfort of the chairs, and our shitty menus. And this is before they ordered.

Once they ordered they complained that the food was taking too long (after the order had been in around 6 minutes,) that they knew the food “was just sitting under a heat lamp while I did nothing,” and that I was delaying their order deliberately for reasons that even the most deeply schizophrenic person would find shockingly insane.

Then, after a 12 minute wait, they got their food. And they complained that the portions were too small (they weren’t,) that the food had been sitting under a heat lamp (it hadn’t,) that they’d waited over an hour to be seated (they hadn’t,) that I’d delayed putting their order in (I didn’t, and showed them time stamps on the ticket,) and that dessert should be included with the meal (it can be - for a price.)

I largely ignored them, aside from drink refills, because I knew there was no tip coming from this table and frankly I was tired of hearing them bitch.

I walk into the dining room to greet my fourth table - a couple of people who couldn’t have been seated worse (right next to these bitchy assholes) - and the bad table tries to flag me down by waving a napkin like a surrendering Frenchman in 1940.

Suddenly, one of them has been stricken with the dreaded food poisoning. I’m told all the symptoms he’s experiencing. I’m as dispassionate as ever, since food poisoning takes hours and not minutes to present. There are hints that I should comp their check since I made them so sick with the food they ate all of.

They’re mid-sentence when I turn around and take a drink order from my other table. They’re ready to order, so I take that too.

I go get drinks and put their order in. I tell the night manager that I have a table faking food poisoning to get out of paying so I’m going to go give them their check.

She rolls her eyes at me, marking both her approval (I assume) and her resignation that I can’t be stopped at this point anyway.

I drop drinks off at my fourth table, and the check at the third. Rather discreetly I tell them that food poisoning takes hours - or even days - to present symptoms so whatever they’re experiencing isn’t from here. So…pay up.

I learned today that I can heal the sick. Suddenly he was just fine. I told them I’d be back to collect in just a moment.

And then they just walked on the check anyway. 

But that’s never the end, is it? Of course not. Fast forward an hour. The manager gets an awkward call asking if there was a phone left behind. It was them.

There was a phone left behind. And even though I really wanted to throw it away because that’s the kind of person I am, I didn’t. Mostly because another server got to the table first and turned it in, but whatever.

When they came in to collect said phone the night manager asked if they’d like to pay their outstanding bill before they left. Claiming to have already paid it, the night manager told them to take their phone and just go.

But don’t come back.

Honestly them never returning is better than a tip. Makes room for paying guests. -J