Dear Customers,
I am writing to complain about the various customers that enter my place of work. You may be surprised, but considering the fact that I deal with over 80 people a day in my line of work, I have come across some of the rudest, arrogant and just plain horrible customers.
When you enter a restaurant, you can sometimes expect the service to be bad, but what about when the tables are turned, and it is the customer who is worthy of a complaint?
Take last Tuesday, there was a family of four in our restaurant. I admit they were not the highest class of clientele that we sometimes get, but as there was two adults at the table you would expect them to know how to behave in a public place. They weren’t in my section of tables to serve, they were in my colleague’s section (Theresa). Theresa has learning difficulties, and it is blindingly obvious. She usually works in the kitchens, but on this day she was out on the front with me. She is really shy, and an overall nice girl. The grandmother of this family of four, I would put her at about sixty years of age, very loudly shouted across to Theresa these words..
”Have you got a f%^&*£ problem!?!”
‘No’ said Theresa, gobsmacked
”Well you keep f%^&*$ staring at me!!’ Came the reply
At these words, Theresa turned to look at me, tears in her eyes and then ran into the back of the restaurant. She refused to come out for the rest of her shift.
I was infuriated, and I actually wanted to go over and punch the customer in the face. But alas, in this industry we believe the customer is always right, so I had to bite my tongue, and smile sweetly to these evil people as if they hadn’t said anything wrong.
When I had been working at my job for about one week I encountered my first horrible customer.
It was a really busy night and I had a lot of big parties in my section. By ‘big parties’ I mean bookings of people, usually about 15-20 people per table.
There was a young boy in the back of the restaurant, and he must of wanted to go outside but he opened the wrong door (he opened the alarmed fire door). He we about 8 years of age, and when he opened the door, a massive alarm sounds which must of frightened him and he started to back off from the door. Next to the door a table of students were sat, and because the boy didn’t shut the door, the alarm was still sounding and the students shouted over at him to shut the door. He was still backing off, alarmed at the door and of the tables of older students shouting at him, and he ran off back to his table. I passed him and told him not to worry about it, and I then went and shut the door, restoring the order.
As I turned to leave the fire door section, a very large woman, red in the face – came to stand in front of me..
‘How dare you shout at my nephew!!’
‘I.. I.. Didn’t’ Came my shocked reply
‘Oh yes you did – who do you think you are? He’s only 8! He’s in tears now – I’m going to write letter about you!”
I could only really gabble incoherently at her, as I couldn’t believe she was screaming at me when I hadn’t done anything wrong!
I’ll be honest, I got a bit upset because I hate people shouting at me, and when it is uncalled for I feel even worse. I’m only 18 myself, and not a confident 18 at that.
About 20 minutes later, the little boy himself came over to me to apologise, but he had nothing to apologise for in my eyes. This woman who is supposed to be an adult – old enough to be my mother yet she was screaming at me like a hormonal teenager.
When you come into a restaurant, you are using a service. We want you to relax, enjoy yourselves and have a genuinely good time. If you do not want to converse politely, or you want to be just plain miserable – stay at home and cook for yourself!
The difference between a a good customer and a nasty customer can really affect your day. Good customers enable me to enjoy my job and have a good time at work. Whereas bad customers just make me want to hand my notice in.
This is my way of complaining about the bad service I get off customers, there isn’t a manager you can speak to – or a head office you can call.
Yours Sincerely
The Waitress
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You have my sympathy, Waitress. And I would also like to point out that if your customers are effing and blinding at you, this is classified as verbal abuse and they could potentially be charged by the police with a public order offence. You are NOT obliged to put up with it and it should NOT be a regular part of your job to be shouted at, sworn at or personally attacked. I would take it further and say that your supervisor is, on paper, obliged to protect both you and the young girl with learning difficulties from such treatment, by barring unruly/dangerous customers from the restaurant. However, I am aware that in reality, most managers are not brave enough to risk losing revenue from such customers. Do you have adequate security in your workplace?